Jkeown

A lot of the magical critters in Ravenna are citizens of the nations in which they live. Jennifer is a US Citizen. She's got a credit rating, a home address, all the stuff you or I would have. However, when she wants, she can show her wings and claws and do things we can't. (Like ask Lord Arkoon to blast annoying Player Characters with his Fires o' Chaos) There is a flighty elf who owns a magic shop at the corner of 30th and 18th in Indy. She's a business owner with all that this implies. The fact that those streets do not cross is a matter for a spell to handle. This setting has to have verisimilitude of this type for me, otherwise I'd get fed up with it. Some folks who ought to be dead (Bacon, Cagliostro, Wayland, Emperor Norton, etc.) establish new identities when they venture out into the world. Living in Ravenna, you are your own credit rating, but when John Dee wants to go back to Mortlake (for whatever creepy reason), he buys a plane ticket with John D Willingham's credit card (teleportation is considered gaudy, and your arrival point might be under observation). You are making me think of this stuff in ways I haven't yet... I like it. Keep pushing. It's incredibly useful.

It's not an alias. Harpies have come a long way since Homer's time. A few weeks ago, my Player Character got a hold of her smartphone (She, strangely, was allowed to get away with a Devah's burnt feather). It was great fun having various awful characters call that phone over the next couple of sessions... sometimes in the middle of fights. I have no idea if they'll ever catch up with her again.

Right. Updated File. Added: The Machine - I mentioned it once and then did nothing with it. So under Threats, you'll find the armies of the Machine, a clanking, steam-powered threat that spreads via pop culture. Harpies - New Player Character Race. Expensive, but very characterful, I think. Nye Powers - Weird mutant-like powers with weirder names. Next update should include more GM stuff. Perhaps more detail on Parts Unknown, Examples of Strange Places and details on other Hidden Cities like Roma Aeter and Hafen. Ravenna.pdf

Perhaps I can. The setting really revolves around stealthy locations, Hidden Cities, Strange Places, Nascoti... I didn't want overt magic that allow Mundanes to see a Dragon on the 6 o'clock news. The feel I'm going for is that Ravenna could be our world, with magic hiding just Under the Rug.

Check my Ravenna Grimoires thread for the full copy of Ravenna Public. It contains my spell system.

Okay. Deep Breath. Here it is.. still a work in progress, but I'm getting good feedback from Chris "Ravenna's Biggest Fan" Goodwin. His unending praise has fueled another revision, and now public access. This terrifies me. As with anything I post, suggestions, feedback and out-right re-writes are encouraged. Such submissions will be edited (heavily) and included with appropriate credit and apologies where required. Still need to work on Scourges, Ravens, House Descriptions.. more magical arcana and expanding the roles and descriptions of Collegio. Enough of me. Download it. Be gentle, Heroes! Ravenna Public.pdf

The public copy is coming along nicely. I've removed the more overt rip-offs, added a bit on GMing Ravenna, and started a section on Campaign Themes, Group Composition and Adventure Seeds. Some of them are from actual play, others are being written by the Other Jeffery Keown. Added the Abyssals (a race of shape shifters in no way inspired by the Chaosians from Roger Zelazny's Amber... not at all. ) The first few games were played without this guide, so the characters in those early moments really defined the scope of character generation. Since then, I've written about 433 pages for my other setting, Caleon. I might move some of the spells and processes over to Ravenna. It will have three effects; it will tie Ravenna to Caleon more deeply than it is currently, it will blow up my page count, and most importantly, broaden the scope of the game. I think I'll do a bestiary as well.

I like it! My players will like it also! Can I steal them?

Why, no... you did not. But now that you have, Thanks! I'm cleaning up a copy for public use. It's hard, as I've ripped off so many Urban Fantasy novels, games and concepts that it is hard for me to state what's mine and what appeared (for example) in Ars Magica. I'm also working on increasing the detail of the thing. Its at 165 pages right now, and I might let it out to play soon.

Completely and seamlessly. So much, that I do not (now that you ask) even mention in the book. I might have to address that. You can enchant an SMG, have a phone booth that's Bigger On The Inside, and employ a smart phone as a focus for casting spells. Old school wizards, like Cagliostro and such, do not use much in the way of technology, but more modern mages, Dante Morse, Scratch (Khunrath's Apprentice), Skid and Aubree have technological foci. (Truthfully, Aubree has but a few, she normally casts using a bouquet of flowers and a lizard) An evil NPC emailed an attack spell to a Player Character. (New Deep Discounts on Fireball Video Cards!!). Another NPC was saved to a USB drive as a method of imprisonment. There is a Killing Attack that leaves brass cartridges lying around so the cops won't think a murder was anything other than a typical street hit. (Do not leave a magical crime scene...They'll ask the wrong questions.) The characters in the last go-around used: 1. no focus (she was a newborn dryad, using staffs and wands made her cry) 2. an electric whip (a Scourge, the guardians of Ravenna, who employ whips and magical tattoos) 3. a staff (Anachronistic wizard) 4. a wand (Yet another Anachronistic wizard) 5. a smart phone. (Gunslinger... a Galaxy S4, I think) My next NPC of note uses an umbrella, so really, the setting is all over the place.

I like big dumb crystals with power just blasting out of them. Maybe hooked up via a dimensional portal to whatever Plane of Power (Elemental, Demonic, Archonic, Infernal, Quiznos...) the wizard reveres. It can't be bribed, chased off, caught sleeping, etc. Plus, it cannot be comfortably taken as loot.

I have a lot of research on those guys waiting to be included. I regularly raid Wikipedia and other pages for details.

TKDGuy, Yep.. it's Modern, but I have a thing called Ravenna Medieval on the back burner.

Chris, I have an NPC by the name of Mercy Ashdown... a Harry Potter-esque name, methinks. I found a list of popular Victorian names that I'm using for some NPCs. Others are people from history, such as Alessandro Cagliostro, Dante Alighieri, Avicenna, and John Dee. But others are just weird... Scratch, Jink and Ferminous Grump.

In brief, there are Hidden Cities inside the cities we know. The largest of these is (probably) Ravenna, but Roma Aeter is suspected to be larger. These things are hard to judge. Mundanes are not aware of these cities, but access to them is found in Ravenna, Rome, Leipzig, Bonn, London, Indianapolis, New York, Tokyo and San Francisco. Opposing Ravenna in its goal of Maxime Magica (Magic Over All) is the Establishment, a group of mages who operate out of Roma Aeter. They also revere Maxime Magica, but they envision a domine of a magical Roman Empire, where the mundane world serves the magical one. Ravenna is ruled by the Signoria, a group of wizards who are elected by the whole of Ravennati society. Players in the setting are Normal Heroes, 175+50 and all that. They tend to be wizards, but can also be a variety of magical creatures, undead, Dolls (ball-jointed ceramic people) and Eikones, the spirits of long-dead people and minor gods. Adventures include breaking up Establishment plots, busting monsters, taming feral undead and the politics of wizards. Also, a lot of poorly pronounced Italian.

In my Ravenna game (that takes place in a hidden city "inside" Ravenna, Italy) there are magical books from the past and from other realms (i.e., my other HERO campaigns). Here are a few. There is evidence of house rules (like allowing wizards to use Multipowers, the inclusion of Detects in MPs, etc. I humbly beg indulgence... and if you use them, please make them match your own house rule situation. Ravanna Grimoires.pdf

Oops. Helps if you can read the character sheet. Old Galactic Kadu.pdf

Here's a Kadu, a giant form of Vac-life in my 2600CE campaign. This one is fairly old and large, and I just noticed there is no indication on how long these guys live, or what their purpose might be. Anyway, enjoy and if you want, make suggestions for other features of this critter, or even other kinds of vac-life. I think I want to add some kind of EM-based stealth or minor invisibility power.

Then I will not release my adaption of it. I do not want to step on toes.

So I re-wrote Cyber Hero. Found a copy on EBay, started typing. More than 52000 words later, I'm ready to link it to all of my other games by way of the Via, the network of inter-dimensional pathways that meander through Astral Space, some of which connect to past-time echoes of Earth, possible futures, fantasy worlds, magical versions of Earth... you name it. Almost 20 years ago, my then-very-small son created a setting with cyberpunk elements. In his story an Arcology suffered an accident that sent it to a world of steaming jungles and dinosaurs. There might have been aliens, but I can't recall. Point is, I'm resurrecting it now that the game is ready to be played. The setting itself is a mix of Cyber Hero, Kazei 5, Transhuman Space and raw speculation. with Crazed Robots, Zombies, Biotech Horrors and Ninjas. In Deniable Assets (the name I use for my version of Cyber Hero), the PCs are investigating a ruined arcoloy in New Haven, CT. How many weeks of exploration will I put them through before they find the aperture to the Jurassic? I think I might break it down into old-school dungeon levels or specific encounters, and let them just run through it. Here are some ideas: Morlocks (the survivors of genetic experiments); scrounged gear, hordes of enemies, easily dispatched. A proper Gang Encounter with some street elements that are trying to get deeper into the ruin themselves. CorpSec - Corporate Security trying to keep folks out of the place. Some kind of Picaresque encounter with a crazy scientist who "Knows Stuff" but is completely wrong about everything. (Like the Internet) Rogue Psyker and his followers, looking for the secrets of the Aperture. Zombies. With one or two Mega Zombies. And some that explode. Auto-Turrets. Crazed Auto-Turrets with Bad Attitudes Some kind of terrifying mech guarding the actual aperture. (which itself is found in a Jurassic-like environment "leaking" into our world) The Aperture will be big enough to walk through, but it is imperceptibly shrinking, so the whole world doesn't get contaminated. 12d6 STUN Only NND (Something or other) for the trip through the Aperture. Oops. Guards at the Other End, waiting for something to fall through. Dinosaurs. Because Dinosaurs. Survivors of the Arcology, trying to rebuild in the Jurassic period. This almost begs to be published. Maybe I should try it.

We have riding birds, Striders and Stompers in Caleon. I could post their stats if there is interest.

I've expanded on FPS Hero from Digital Hero 43. Is there any interest in such a thing? It breaks a number of rules, and as ever, I worry about other's toes.

I bought a print of this from Larry a few years ago. It's the first RPG my wife and I played together. That exact edition of FH. We were married to other people back then, and now that print hangs in our living room.

I guess my initial post is a bit misleading. Yes, for years (since 1986) I didn't have many monsters, there were NPCs, some were Dead NPCs. Some animals, but it wasn't DnD-level of monstrosity. That article, originally written in 2005, was a turning point toward more wild game, magic increased, the stakes got higher. The game is much weirder. I'm on page 283 of my player's guide for the game. (158000 words) Thanks for the kind words and opinion!

For years, I didn’t have monsters in Caleon. I had Demons, Trolls and Ogres, but no monsters. Bandits, Brigands, evil Mercenaries and awful people of all races and temperaments. No Monsters. They don’t make sense. Maybe it’s that they don’t make sense in Caleon. Perhaps they make sense in your world. If they do, cool. This article is for you. I wrote this a long time ago, using various resources and games.. Traveller.. a lot of HERO Products, and my own research into how life changes over time. I updated it yesterday and thought I'd share. It's not really a bestiary, but it could be used to create one. Monsters and Animals.pdf Animal Traits 6E.hdp