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

[Christopher]

Between this thread, the one Lucius bumped, and various others around, I've noticed basically three approaches to the idea of statting gods:

 

1) Gods are GM plot devices, don't you dare stat them up;

2) Gods are disembodied presences with worldwide influence, best statted as AI Computers with thousands of points;

3) Gods are just high-level superheroes with points in the high hundreds or low thousands, and suitable as PCs when done this way.

 

People in camp #1 are obviously not the market for Mythic HERO. #2 has its uses, but still relegates gods to GM plot devices ultimately, just with listed boundaries. #3... well, I tend to find that approach dissatisfying. You end up with a Zeus who can throw lightning bolts, but not take control of the lightning strikes in a thunderstorm halfway across the world, and to me, the latter is pretty important. The line between superheroes and gods is one I'd prefer to have drawn even if gods happen to have avatars or even "real" (if nigh-impossible-to-kill) bodies, and to me the ability to manipulate one's domain the world over is a key aspect of the "god" side of the line.

If you go back to the Opening Post, you notice that there is a ton of information besides stats in this book.

And as I read it most of it can be used for all 3 approaches.

[Steve Long]

Well, sometimes good things result from a serious bout of insomnia:  I finished my chapter on Australian Aborigine mythology! It came in at 17,500 words, a lot longer than I expected. This is despite only having three gods who get character sheets (tied with Armenian mythology for the smallest number, so far). Mostly I think the wordage comes from some detailed cosmology stuff, a complete system for Aborigine magic, and descriptions of a bunch of weird monsters.

 

Now on to a new chapter. I suppose I should tackle one of the remaining "major" mythologies (Celtic, Chinese, and Hindu), but I'm more in the mood for Slavic/Russian, so that's what I'm gonna work on.

[Gangrel44]

What do I want to see:

 

 I would like to see the stats of Demigod Perseus from Greek Mythology in this write up...... cause every other game book dealing with greek myth almost always never mentions him much less give him stats...I'm hoping Steve gives him the full write up in Mythic Hero.

[megaplayboy]

Hmm.  At about 450 words per page, this has got to be shaping up to be a monster book.  90,000 words is 200 pages.  The longest single volume release from Hero, IIRC, was the Fifth Revised(FRED), clocking in at 592 pages.  6th, in 2 volumes, is something like 788 pages. 

[Steve Long]

1.  Gangrel, you'll be happy to know that Perseus does, in fact, have a full character sheet. I've already written it up in the Greek and Roman Mythology chapter.

 

2.  Megaplayboy, for raw text we definitely get more than 450 words per page, though of course character sheets, tables, and the like complicate the situation (as does a greater or lesser amount of art than usual). To take three recent examples, Champions Beyond gets approximately 613 words per page, The Book Of The Empress gets 628 words per page, and the MHI RPG gets about 715 words per page. Nevertheless, you're right that MH is likely to be one really big book. I'm already at over 250,000 words, and could easily have another 250,000 to go. Assuming it's a 500,000 word book and it gets 650 words per page average, that's still a 769 page book. The practical logistics of the situation may prevent me from making it one massive tome if I find a way to publish it, regardless of my own personal wishes.

[megaplayboy]

Hey, World's Largest Dungeon is the single longest RPG book by page count, at 840 pages.  With a little work, Mythic Hero could take the crown.

[Gangrel44]

1.  Gangrel, you'll be happy to know that Perseus does, in fact, have a full character sheet. I've already written it up in the Greek and Roman Mythology chapter.

 

 

Mr. Long,

 

  As a man who had the myth of Perseus read to him as a bedtime story as a young child. And as a fan of Clash of the Titans (The Harryhausen version)You have just made my day...Thank you sir.

[Steve Long]

Done and done! After a lot of research and writing I've finished the Slavic Mythology and Baltic Mythology chapters of Mythic Hero. Together they came to well over 20,000 words, longer than I expected.

 

Monday I need to start working on a novella I've agreed to write, but in the meantime, though, that leaves me a few more days to play around with mythology. I think it's time to bite the bullet and tackle one of the remaining three "major" mythologies (Celtic, Chinese, Hindu). I think I'll pick Chinese. I may need to order some General Tso's Chicken and egg rolls for lunch to get myself in the mood.

[Kraven Kor]

Can't wait to see this.

[Kaze9999]

1.  Gangrel, you'll be happy to know that Perseus does, in fact, have a full character sheet. I've already written it up in the Greek and Roman Mythology chapter.

 

2.  Megaplayboy, for raw text we definitely get more than 450 words per page, though of course character sheets, tables, and the like complicate the situation (as does a greater or lesser amount of art than usual). To take three recent examples, Champions Beyond gets approximately 613 words per page, The Book Of The Empress gets 628 words per page, and the MHI RPG gets about 715 words per page. Nevertheless, you're right that MH is likely to be one really big book. I'm already at over 250,000 words, and could easily have another 250,000 to go. Assuming it's a 500,000 word book and it gets 650 words per page average, that's still a 769 page book. The practical logistics of the situation may prevent me from making it one massive tome if I find a way to publish it, regardless of my own personal wishes.

Would you consider a PDF only release with a Print on Demand option?

[bigbywolfe]

Would you consider a PDF only release with a Print on Demand option?

I'm not Steve (obviously) but I'm just going to point out that he has already said "no" to this at least a dozen times.

[Steve Long]

 

 

Would you consider a PDF only release with a Print on Demand option?

 

No, that isn't really what I have in mind. If I do this the way I want to do it, I want to publish a big, quality book. I don't want to publish just a PDF, and I don't want to rely on the quality (or lack thereof) of PoD for the product.

 

In the end, if I'm going to publish this book, I don't want to cut any corners. I don't want to have to compromise anything. I want to do it the way I think it should be done... if that's possible.

[Steve Long]

Time for another quasi-monthly update.

 

Aside from reviewing maybe one or two more books that haven't arrived yet, the Chinese mythology chapter is done! It topped out at over 37,000 words, making it the second-largest chapter in Mythic Hero so far.

 

Originally I intended to proceed straight to Hindu mythology, but I think I'm going to tackle a smaller subject, Etruscan mythology, as a palate-cleanser. Can't have too much of the exotic East at once!

[Ndreare]

So offhandedly what are the point ranges of these gods? Are their 200 point gods mixed in there with the 3000 point gods? I only ask because some myths I know of their heroes do not seam all that impressive. While others their limits seam endless.

[megaplayboy]

Well, I would imagine there would be gods with relatively modest combat stats, but who nonetheless have substantial (noncombat) power.

[Steve Long]

 

 

So offhandedly what are the point ranges of these gods? Are their 200 point gods mixed in there with the 3000 point gods? I only ask because some myths I know of their heroes do not seam all that impressive. While others their limits seam endless.

 

I honestly couldn't tell you yet. Adding up the points on the character sheets is the next to last step I perform when writing any book. Long experience has taught me that if I do it any sooner, I'll inevitably find something I want to change and have to go back and do the math all over again.

 

However, most of the gods have Cosmic Power Pools of respectable size and no other Power Frameworks for their other abilities, so I suspect most of them will range from the high hundreds of points to several thousand points. There is some advice in Chapter One of the book for different approaches you can take to using/representing gods and mythic beings in your game, should you prefer to change something to suit your particular campaign.

[Steve Long]

Time for a quick "year in review" update.

 

I just finished the Etruscan Mythology chapter (a short one at only a little over 5,000 words) and have now begun the major task of the Hindu Mythology chapter. That'll keep me busy for quite some time.

 

Over the past year I've been able to devote a lot more time to Mythic Hero (though never as much as I'd like!), and in that time I added 162,000 words to the manuscript. That nearly doubled it from its length as of 01/01/2013. Currently it stands at approximately 338,000 words, with a long way yet to go. Unless I'm sadly mistaken I bet Hindu Mythology will add at least 40,000 words to the total. That will leave only one major mythology to go -- Celtic, which is so large I'm planning to split it into four chapters -- and about 20 smaller mythologies to research and write up. (Some of the latter may not support a whole chapter, in which case they'll get folded into another chapter or sent down to the "Miscellaneous" catch-all chapter at the end.)

 

So there's still a long way to go. I've been at this over two years so far, and it could easily be another two years. But now that I'm devoting more than just spare time to it (much to the chagrin of my bank account ), I'm making enough progress to stave off any despair I might otherwise feel when I look at the remaining mountain of work. I hope those of you who've been waiting patiently for the book won't mind continuing to wait so I can get MH Just Right. Eventually I'm going to have something pretty awesome to show you.

 

If anyone has any questions, comments, suggestions, or requests, as always feel free to post 'em.

[Lord Liaden]

I pledged a couple hundred bucks to the Kickstarter for this last time around. If you plan to go a similar route again, just say when you're ready and I'm in!

[Steve Long]

Thanx, LL! I definitely appreciate the support that you and all the other backers (and people who would've been backers had circumstances allowed) gave me.

 

I am certainly considering a Kickstarter approach -- assuming KS is still around whenever I'm done writing. (In the unlikely event it isn't, I'm sure something similar will have taken its place.) I think greater knowledge of KS, and my having the vast majority of the work done, will count in my favor. OTOH I'll probably need to raise more money, unless I want to go for a low amount just to defray as many expenses as I can. I'll have to see how the odds balance out before deciding to roll the dice.

[bret]

In with the cosmology and such of MH, would you include some of the religious expectations / restrictions? Things like the Sikhs five Ks, how hubris was one of the primary sins that the Greek gods punished, types of offerings each god was typically given, etc? I realize that these sorts of details may not be available for every mythos, but without something like that it would be difficult for most to interact with some of the less well known mythos you have researched.

 

Something that wouldn't fit in the hardcover but could be included electronically is your sources on the research done. The picture of your library is not high enough quality to allow someone to read the book spines.  

[Steve Long]

 

 

In with the cosmology and such of MH, would you include some of the religious expectations / restrictions? Things like the Sikhs five Ks, how hubris was one of the primary sins that the Greek gods punished, types of offerings each god was typically given, etc? I realize that these sorts of details may not be available for every mythos, but without something like that it would be difficult for most to interact with some of the less well known mythos you have researched.

 

 

Generally speaking it's not my intention to cover things like that in any serious detail. If I come across a useful fact that I can easily squeeze into the manuscript, I do, but I don't go out of my way to track that sort of information down (in part because, as you note, it's often not available -- and even when it is, finding it might significantly increase my already hefty workload).

 

One thing I am considering vis-a-vis another MH Kickstarter, is offering as a stretch goal a second book called something like Mythic Hero:  Priesthoods And Temples. It'd basically be a PDF in which I'd give each god who gets a character sheet in MH a one-page write-up describing his priests, rituals, temples, etc. This would be entirely fantasized/made up (not researched), but where I already happen to know some useful historical details (e.g., Quetzalcoatl's temples are circular, not square), I'd include them. So, assuming the project gets that far, that would be another 200-300 page book backers would get for free.

[Steve Long]

At last it can be revealed!

 

At last it can be revealed! I took advantage of some free time in ace artist Eric Lofgren's schedule earlier this year to get him to create a beautiful piece of art that I currently intend to use as the cover of Mythic Hero. He took my idea and executed it superbly.

I don't have a finished book. I don't have any specific idea for how I'll publish the book when it is finished. But man, do I have a kick-ass cover.

 

[Steve]

That is a pretty sweet image.

[Steve Long]

Thanx! I'm extremely pleased with it. I had originally wanted the sky on the back to shade darker, into nighttime really. But Eric suggested that might cause problems with viewing, especially once there's some back cover text on there, and experience has taught me to listen to artists and graphics guys when they tell me things like that. And in the end I think he was right. It looks great, almost as if a storm is blowing in from off-panel -- plenty moody and cool.

[megaplayboy]

Great Art definitely helps sell a product. Throw in some sample pages and I'll bet you could outperform the old KS by a good margin.