SirViss

Re: Another possible origin of Mechanon... (Warning: Long) High praise indeed! Thanks!

Re: Another possible origin of Mechanon... (Warning: Long) Thank you both! There are a few story elements that I like about this background. One is that the Slug might be keeping a lower profile since Mechanon has emerged just because he might recognise what Mechanon is and might actually fear it (he would never admit this, of course). Another is any interaction with Firewing. What if some of the hardwired-obediance codes where still active and Firewing confronted Mechanon. Mechanon (for a short-time) dould simply bow and say: "What do you wish, Master?" Of course, this would only last till Mechanon's AI was able to reconcile the obeiance order with killing all organics, but it would surely scare the PCs! Finally, the fact that Mechanon is older then Takofanes puts a grin on my face. I don't know why, it just does. And LL, those past discussion have much to do with how I came up with this story. I've been tinkering with the origins of Mechanon since that first discussion in 2004. I've also toyed with the Ultivac-origin. but I don't know much about Ultivac except what is found in DH.

Re: DEMONS! How to keep them interesting... And the "Demon-bound" entries in the DEMON: Servants of Darkness book...

Hey People, I had an idea that I wanted to share with you guys. In more than one thread, there has been some discussion about Mechanon, and his origins. Lord Liaden has mentioned that his Mechanon is just an avatar of the real Mechanon, which is based on Mechanon 3000 found in Galactic Champions. I've been mulling that idea, on an off , for months, seeing if there was something that would jump out at me. Lately, I put that aside, as I was reading about the ancient history of the Champions Universe, if only to find some plot hooks to use with a new PC in my game with a mystic weapon. I was reading about the Malvan-Elder Worm war, and also about the fact that the Elder Worm has sown humanity with their own genetic material, and *THUMP* something finally jumped out. What if Mechanon was a lot older than we give him credit for? This is the background history I came up with: ****** Circa 195,870 B.C.E. A war has been waged in this galaxy that would become known as the Milky Way for centuries. When this war started exactly and the circumstances that ignited the conflict aren't important anymore, but two races were in a fight to the death, the Malvans and the Elder Worm. Each side had it allies, like the Nekhojin and the Thane, but the brunt of the resources of each side was supplied by the the main opponents. The Elder Worms had access to foul mystic powers and the ability to summon monstrosities whose mere existence drove all but the strongest willed insane. The Malvan had plumbed the secret of this universe to the point where their science was equal to, or more powerful, than the qliphothic sorceries that the Elder Worm employed. Though they might have been incapable of summoning up allies the way the Great Enemy could, they demonstrated the ability to build some more allies. Their ship were given intelligence and the some had the ability to produce their own soldiers, pilots and ambassadors, for the conflict was literally waged across the galaxy. It was impossible for the Malvans and their allies to be everywhere at once, and this enemy could not be merely defeated, it had to be eradicated. So some ships received the gift of true sentience and the ability to produce its own robotic troops, if only to defend itself until it could call in for reinforcements if it found an enemy strong point. One of these was dispatched to a quadrant which would include the planet that would eventually be called Earth. It sent out it probes (based on the Mechanon Avatar in Galactic Champions) to scout the various star systems of the area. One of these was receiving its final orders on a direct link to the mothership, as it was on course for a small blue marble, when the mothership came under attack by some beast that could live in the depth of outerspace. The thing had been brought to this reality through the foul arts of the Elder Worm, and dwarfed even the Malvan war machine. The sentient machine was calm in its messages to its drone. It calmly instructed the probe to scout out the system, especially the life-sustaining third planet and reports its findings to the Malvan commanders. If it meets any agents of the Elder Worms it is to defend itself, and if possible destroy all those agents itself. At this point, the mothership was in a titanic battle with the beast and it had already sustained heavy damage. In one final heroic effort it overloaded its weapons and struck at the qliphothic abomination. The thing struck back at the same time. The beast-ship died as it was cut in half by the energy barrage the mothership had subjected to. But the qliphothic energies combined with its own overloaded power systems and the mothership died sending its last instruction: “Destroy all qliphothic-tainted life that you come across.” **BZZZZZZZT** There was a feedback from the chaotic energies that the creature had used. It went through the link from the mothership and infused the circuits of the drone. The drone own systems managed to overcome those energies, but not before they corrupted the database which was the mind of the drone. It systems shutdown, darkness engulfed the mechanical mind that was the intelligence of the probe. And instead of landing softly on the third planet it crashed at a velocity's that beggared the imagination. The impact was astounding. One would expect the drone to be destroyed, but the technology that composed the drone had been developed by the Malvans and was not so easily destroyed. Buried under tons of rock and dirt, the remaining systems tried to salvage the drone. Most of its mass had been destroyed in the crash, so the repair systems cannibalized ores that were found locally. Unfortunately, the probe finally reached its limit. The power ran out, and the probe went dormant. The centuries went by, and turned into millennia, which turned into ages: The Turakian Age, The Valdorian Age, other ages came and went and the machine remained dormant. Finally, something made the drone stir. Over the lost time, whatever systems that were left had accumulated energy, maybe from the tremors in the earth, maybe from the little heat that made it to its systems, or maybe from an event that had taken place a few decades earlier (circa 1938) in Germany. The systems had power, but it was the reappearance of the Great Enemy that had finally activated the drone, and made it resume its self-repair. One of the Elder Worm had resurfaced. In 1979, the Slug awakened, and later that year he attempted to turn all the inhabitants of New York City into Elder Worms themselves. The foul energies unleashed reached the damaged sensors of the dormant robot and awakened it. It was still too damaged for it to remember who or what it was, but it used what little energy was left make the remaining repairs. It cannibalized its own systems to get critical systems again, up to and including its sensors, and 5 years later it became operational again. At least as operational as its damaged artificial intelligence could get it. It had lost all of it history, and its purpose. The only thing remaining in its databanks was a fraction of its last orders: “Destroy... Life...”. It took its orders seriously. In the last year of it reconstruction, it had tapped into the information flow that surrounded this planet. The information was mostly transferred by means of radio waves, a primitive and easily tapped medium. It learned much about this world. But still,it didn't know who or what he was. The mission was all. It must destroy all life. So it must not be alive, it was other. It was mechanical. It was MECHANON! And it will destroy all organic life. ****** So what do you guys think? A few notes: I made a note that it cannibalized some of its sensors to repair itself. My thoughts on these sensors are that they could have allowed Mechanon to detect qliphothic taint in creatures. Anyone who thinks regaining the rest of it last orders and its full sensors could save humanity might want to note that humans have been tainted by the genetic material of the Elder Worm. The mothership would be any appropriate sized ship in the battle order of the Malvan, but I was thinking that it would be one of the gargantuan ultra-dreadnought that sill defend Malva (mentioned in Terran Empire sourcebook). It could become the HUGE Mechanon 3000 head in the future, when the Mechanon of Earth somehow is reunited with the damaged hulk left from that battle so long ago, and reacticated when Mechanon downloads himself into its computers. You could have this happen in the far future to maintain the present timeline of the CU. Or you could accelerate things and have it happen in the near future... if you find that your characters really have to easy a time in the present campaign, taking on the likes of Dr. Destroyer. Gah! This is longer than I thought. I hope you like it!

Re: "Divine Shield": ultimate defense Um, Desolidification? Of course, if you go with Desolid you are supposed to indicate a fairly common way of circumventing the power. Is there an attack that can still do full damage to the paladin while this special ability is activated?

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN Well, this would all depend on how a GM views the Circle in his campaign. Remember that the Circle took out the Archmage early in the 20th century, and that old Luther fears the return of an Archmage. Granted the Archamge of last century would be weaker than the one that would pop-up post-1938, but so were the sorcerers of the Circle back then. We could also be underestimating what the Circle can call upon for help. They have access to a lot of lost mystical paraphernalia that probably would be on any character sheet, and would only be brought out for exceptional circumstances. Nothing on the scale of the Hellstone, but it could be potent nonetheless. Also the agent of the Infernal Hierarchy would be very enthusiastic in helping against DEMON. Then again, you could also have LB just believe them to be to dangerous to take on. He isn't exactly stable you know.

Re: Dyson Sphere (shell) - Dysonica Anyone? And through the glare of a STAR?!?

Re: Totally Unstoppable? Question: How does he make an appearance on this plane? If he has to be summoned (even if it is by a bunch of that worship him), then you could say that it is a SFX of the Summon. That is how it is handled for Summoned demons in the CU right now. How easy is it for this Demon to make an appearance?

Re: Hero System Combat Examples book? The writer's of comic books don't have to adhere to rules like playing a game would have to but here are a few ideas about how the Thing could have tried for the flagpole: He has "X"d6 luck He aborted to a defensive action(and had a generous GM) I often think that most (if not all comic characters) have quite a few dice of luck. There is only so many times that a character can be tossed into the stratosphere and come back down unharmed. As to the "abort to a defensive action", that is something that has to be adjudicated between a GM and a player, and the Thing-Hulk fight was a scene in a game, I could see a GM allowing a PC to lose his next action so that he could catch a flagpole and save himself some damage. The GM would of course interpret how this would affect the amout of pain the character would wind-up in, but it is dramatically appropriate. And that was the intention of the comic book, right?

Re: grabbed by multiple characters I don't think this exact situation is covered in the rules, but I have some suggestions. Two things spring to mind that might indicate a way to go: every "doubling" of strength is equal to +5 STR Someone can grab a person whth only one limb at -5 STR (effectively) Now, let's assume your 2 Duplicates have the same STR. I would say that the grabbed target can either try to shrug out of only 1 of them at the straight STR of one of the Duplicates, or can try to get out of both of the Grabbers as if it was one Grabber with STR +5. What do you think?

Re: Fortune Points For something in a similar style, you should look up this post, by RDU Neil. I know someone posted a pdf of these suggested rules somewhere (which I have downloaded). I would have to go looking for it, or you could search the boards more thoroughly than i have.

Re: THE ULTIMATE MENTALIST -- What Do *You* Want To See? Incorporating the Entangle advantage "Taking No Damage" from DH#35, as an official option wouldn't be a bad idea. I always have a problem with picturing a Mental Entangle being broken by a physical action of a teammate of the target.

Re: Realistic daily provisions Just a question: Is there an "Underdark" ecology in this campaign?

Re: Do patents work differently the Champions Universe? This is covered in the GM's Vault of Millennium City (p.96). If you don't have access to that book, I could PM you. It's a very brief explanation.

Re: Adjustment powers vs. Megascale Well, often Megascale flight is a slot in a "Flight powers" Multipower, so the character can flight at "combat" speeds too. So just use all the left-over points to add "Difficult to Dispel" to the power, until the subjective active points are equal to the other flight mode(s). Of course, this assumes that Dispel is the power you have the most problems with.

Re: Background help ARGENT or the (fictional) countryof Awad. ARGENT is always trying to advance anykind of tech, and Awad has a program to produce Superhumans.

Re: Future submarine warfare? I can't predict how effective subs will be in the far future, but here is a really stealthy diesel sub that can stay submerged for weeks!

Re: Plot seeds? Well, Eosin has posted a PDF document with LOTS of plot seeds in this thread.

Re: More Pulp fodder... Ummm, the name of the ship was the Graf Zeppelin.

Re: Arabian Hero Very much so. I was thinking of doing this myself if I ever resurrect my Al-Qadim game (I would obviously convert it to Hero).

Re: Variable power upon arrival I read through this pretty quickly, so I might have missed some important points, but this is what I think about auto-select powers: don't. That is my knee-jerk reaction. I should say that auto-select powers are a GREAT advantage, as Hugh pointed out. The way I see it, it shouldn't be the power that has a modifier, but what you are using the power on. So, Undead whould have a Susceptibility or a Physical Limitation(Healing power; gets no benefits from Healing powers and Healing points turn to damage) or something like that. Sometimes, powers that have multiple effects should be defined by the campaign background and not the power. That, or you have to shovel out the points. ------------------------------------------------- Okay the knee-jerk reaction is past. I just thought of a way that might be worth concidering. Make the multiple effect power as a Multipower, and then put a the advantage Trigger (Variable Trigger, Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time,Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates) on the whole Multipower (Pool and slots). The Trigger is "attacking [type] target". As a +1 Advantage it should cut down on the raw power level of the Multipower. What do you guys think?

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? Isn't there a city of intelligent gorillas in Darkest Africa? Dr. Silverback might like to visit.

Re: Superhero Images This might be from some fevered dream, but Starburst maybe? And didn't he have a cape?

Re: Could Destroyer Win? I just want to know: what happened to Los Alamos, when the bomb was tested?

Re: Champions Diceless Role-playing This is Eosin's Report. His comments on the "theater" game are the last 3rd of the post.