teh bunneh

Re: Calling all figure modders and painters, Champions Challenge!

Where can one get individual HeroClix models? I hate buying a box of stuff, sight unseen. Ebay tends to have either really expensive Unique figures or huge lots of 30+ figures.

Bill.

Re: FH Campaign

Rain crashed down, obscuring everyone’s sight and turning the ground into a muddy mess. The heroes, hiding in the iron ore sledge and surrounded by slaves, made it as far as the gate when one of the guards on the wall noticed something was wrong. He shouted a warning and the other guards began firing arrows. Luckily, due to the bad weather their firing was woefully inadequate.

Hathym and Arialle returned fire (much more accurately) while Radley, Breena, and Marina rushed the rapidly closing gates. Radley made it in first and waylaid one of the guards pushing the door shut. Marina rushed in and found herself face-to-face with two angry guards. While she dispatched the first, the second went to deal with Breena, who was busy pushing the doors back open (before someone got wise and barred them from the inside!). Breena had little trouble killing the poor fool. Radley was having some trouble, though – turns out he’s allergic to iron spears pushed through his body! The two warrior women sloshed through the mud to help him, and the guard was ended.

Outside, the archers and the wizardess were having some trouble. Arialle and Hathym killed three of the men on the walls, but the other one was smart and used the cover of the walls to snipe at them. Kishara, fed up with the ineffectualness of the other two, took matters into her own hands. She braved the arrow fire and ran directly under the wall, then cast a spell which forcibly shot the man (along with part of the wall he was hiding behind) straight up into the air about twenty feet.

She dusted her hands off (job-well-done, don’t leave to a fighter what a mage can do herself), but then the guard dropped to the earth and landed right next to her in the soft, muddy ground. He stood up, unharmed by his fall, and stabbed her in the leg with his spear.

Kishara screamed in pain and fell down, her leg now useless, and the guard got ready to dispatch her from this world, when Arialle leapt over the cover she had been hiding behind and charged the man. He took a sword blow to the nether-regions, which ended his career – and his life – rather messily.

The gate was secure. The recently-freed slaves poured in, anxious for a little payback. The heroes healed themselves as quickly as they could and then headed towards the ziggurat. Speed was of the essence, since they had no idea when the sacrifice was scheduled to begin.

They were almost to the ziggurat when they ran into another party of guards who were rushing toward the gates to see what was going on. Breena and Marina stepped up to the challenge while Arialle and Hathym ran around the side of the building to see if they could bushwhack the badguys from behind.

It was about then that Marina suddenly went completely blind. Then a giant snake slithered from behind the building. Yes, it appeared that one of the Enemy’s priests was here as well! Thinking quickly, Kishara threw a “stinkbomb†spell at the snake, which blinded it and deadened its sense of smell/taste (it also deadened Marina’s nose, but better a dead nose than a dead priestess of the Trinity!).

While Breena single-handedly fought three berserk bodyguards, Hathym tried to take a pot-shot at the evil priest. Unfortunately, all he managed to do was attract the attention of the priest, who returned the favor by firing a bolt of black energy that burned the White Elf’s arm pretty bad. Arialle didn’t have a clean shot at the evil priest, so she dropped one of his bodyguards.

Kishara concentrated hard and cast a spell to send the giant serpent back to the snakepit that spawned it and (thanks to Kate rolling considerably better than average damage) succeeded! The snake slowly evaporated into mist. Breena was grievously wounded, but continued to fight on. Radley ran over to help her – even if he was no match for the insane fury of the two berserkers, he could still keep his team’s M1A1 Abrams Tank in the fight!

Kishara snuck around the corner to see where all that evil magic was coming from. The wicked priest noticed that almost the entire party was clustered around a single point, so he caused the sky to rain fire on that point (burning his own men in the process, but he didn’t seem to care). Kishara responded with an arc of lightning, hitting the priest at the same time as an arrow from Hathym and another from Arialle. The priest, shocked and poked beyond human endurance, died. His one remaining bodyguard took the better part of valor and tried to flee, but the team’s resident Green Elf archer ran him down and punctured him, leaving him to die in the mud.

The party hastily gathered in a nearby hut to patch up their wounds, then continued toward the ziggurat. The walls, though slick with moss and rain, look pretty climbable. Across town, plumes of smoke are rising from where the ex-slaves are attacking the town. No guards are visible atop the walls, but the sound of drums can be heard quite clearly. It looks like our heroes needed to move quickly, lest their porters be made into snake-chow!

Bill.

Re: How to write a best-selling fantasy novel

Have you been following me?

Of course not. BTW, your shoe is untied.

Bill.

Dunno if anyone here has seen this, but...

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~imcfadyen/notthenet/fantasy.htm

Bill.

Re: FH Campaign

Leaving the women’s encampment, the heroes rejoined Hathym, Kishara, and Arialle to discuss what they learned. After some heated discussion, the heroes decided to ambush the mining party at dawn – kill the guards and free the slaves, then see if they could get any information (or better yet, help) out of the newly freed slaves.

The ambush went off like clockwork. The guards in the lead were so busy talking to each other that they didn’t even notice when Breena and Marina stepped into the road to challenge them. The first two died before they even had a chance to realize what was happening.

Radley turned invisible and slipped up to the line of roped-together slaves to cut them free, then helped Arialle take out a couple of enemies who started running back to the town. Hathym dropped one bad guy, then ran into some trouble when two more ran up to fight him. Breena, having already killed two warriors, took a bad spear-blow to the shoulder, which knocked the wind out of her and left her gasping on the ground. Luckily, Marina was able to take up the slack and killed the man who injured her friend.

Kishara launched a couple of “heads-down†arrows at one guard to try and keep him out of the melee. Arialle was not paying much attention and let one of the men slip past her. She made up for her failing by chasing him down and pinning him to the ground with an arrow through the stomach. Radley went back to help Hathym by conjuring an illusion of Hathym getting back up to his feet and challenging the guards – “Is that all you got?†Hathym took opportunity of the guard’s distraction to trip him, and Marina charged forward and finished him off with a spear blow to the throat.

Kishara cast a Tongues spell on herself and demanded the warriors’ surrender. The two remaining guards, seeing how quickly their comrades dropped, were quick to comply, throwing down their spears and begging for mercy.

The heroes freed the slaves. Kishara tried to convince them to come with the heroes, but her timid and retiring manner did not seem to fill them with confidence. Radley then stepped to the plate, launching into a rousing speech about freedom, bravery, and revenge. The men became fired up about this, determined to stop the Enemy from continuing their depredations! They gathered up the guards’ spears, knives, and shields and told the heroes that they would go with.

Now, the only thing was to come up with a plan… Several ideas were floated – a sneak attack under cover of darkness, an assault on the gates, a rescue of the women, trying to lure the Enemy’s warriors away from the town, all these were discussed. The only constant was that it had to be done before midnight – the former slaves informed our heroes that the priests performed their sacrifices at that hour.

Finally, it was decided that Kishara would use her magic to summon a heavy, vision-obscuring storm. Under cover of this storm, the mining work team would return to the town just before twilight, pretending like nothing was amiss. The heroes would hide inside one of the ore sledges. As soon as everyone was through the gates, the heroes would jump out, surprising and overpowering the guards. The party would then go to the ziggurat with all haste to stop the human sacrifice and kill any priests they encountered while the (ex-)slaves would cause a distraction in the main part of the city, hopefully drawing off any guards. Simultaneously, Lord Dungeness would lead the porters and the rest of the expedition into the slave women’s village and free them, killing the giant snake that guards them.

They relayed this information on to Dungeness via “Huang-Jin-phone.†They tied up their captives and left them in the mine, then set off back to town. Kishara sat in the sledge and meditated, trying to summon up the strength and power to cast a spell so large. The spell was more intricate and difficult than anything she had ever before done, and she was certain that if she messed it up, there would be serious consequences. Just before nightfall, she had managed to gather thick, black clouds and ominous thunder, but the only rain that fell was a few hot, heavy drops. As the town came into view, the ex-slaves were growing nervous that the plan wasn’t working.

Just then, there was a gigantic, deafening peal of thunder, and the skies opened up…

Re: The First (Hopefully) Semi-Annual Great Champions Challenge Modding Contest!

Pine Sol and dish soap didn't work at all for me. I'll try the break fluid though' date=' thanks.[/quote']

 

I'm probably stating the obvious, but keep in mind that many HeroClix figs are cast in colored plastic -- Hulk is made from green plastic, Spidey from red, and so forth... so you'll never get the color off of them!

 

Bill.

Re: The First (Hopefully) Semi-Annual Great Champions Challenge Modding Contest!

Does anyone have any good methods for removing paint from Heroclix. I've tried everything I can think of and it doesn't get the paint off. I could probably get it off if I sacrificed the figure's fine details' date=' but I'd rather not.[/quote']

 

I used to use Pine-Sol, but I've switched over to brake fluid (available at Walmart or any auto parts store). Both work about equally well, but the brake fluid is less likely to melt the plastic.

 

Pour about an inch of brake fluid or Pine-sol into a glass container. Soak the figure in the brake fluid for about a half hour (no longer! -- brake fluid isn't supposed to melt plastic, but why take chances?). Take an old stiff-bristle toothbrush and some liquid dish soap and scrub it under warm water. Rinse and repeat if necessary.

 

Let your figure sit for at least 24 hours after you've removed the paint before you prime him.

 

Bill.

"This is the signal!"

We have a plan: the team's resident "sneak" is going to break into the bad guy's lair, reconnoiter, and plant explosives. We're hiding outside, and when he's ready for us to come in and rescue the hostages, he's going to give us a signal.

Things go disasterously for him. He gets spotted by guards, so he rabbits (he's no good in a fight). Still waiting outside, we hear him screaming for help. I turn to one of the others and say, "Do you think that's the signal?"

"Nope, couldn't be. Victor's much too subtle for that to be the signal."

We kept him hanging on for about 10 minutes, until he finally started yelling, "This is the signal!!!"

Bill.

Re: The First (Hopefully) Semi-Annual Great Champions Challenge Modding Contest!

Bill' date=' since I loved the Grond mini so much, where did you post the Harbinger one? I'd love to see it![/quote']

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=434646#post434646

 

 

Bill.

Re: FH Campaign

The heroes, exhausted from the last few nights’ adventures, slept well into the morning. When they got up, they had a decision to make, based on what they learned from B’ami, their captive. After some debate, they decided that they had to seriously scout out the opposition before they made any plans.

They set up a camp for the rest of the company, a kilometer or so off the main road, and camouflaged it as well as they could, telling Lord Dungeness and crew to stay hidden. They party would head out; if Dungeness didn’t hear from them in 5 days time, he was to get the expedition out of the jungle as fast as he could. Huang Jin mentioned that she could cast a spell to communicate with them at long distances, but couldn’t hold it up for long at a time, so they decided to have her “call in†at pre-determined times to get the scoop.

The heroes set out, paralleling the road, until they came to the city of the Enemy. They then spent the next day and night scouting the place, trying to determine everything they could about it.

It was, as B’ami described it, quite large. At a guess, it was home to 3-5,000 souls. The whole place smelled of smoke and human waste. The smoke smelled strongly like the smoke from a forge and/or an ironworks. It had 3-meter high wooden walls around the entire city, reinforced with earth and stone bulwarks. It had two main gates, one on the east side and one on the west, both of which were kept open during the day but shut just before sundown. It also had a water gate that was open all the time, through which a murky canal flowed, providing water to the city. The jungle had been cut back at least 50 meters on each side of the city. The city was surrounded on the south and the west side by fields, in which the natives seemed to be growing some sort of tuber. Many, many slaves were working the fields, watched over by a score or so guards. The slaves were all women and girls.

The canal came from the north, probably connected to the river. The east side was butted up against the hills. On the northeast, a huge stone structure – probably the ruins of the ancient civilization that the natives are so superstitious about – formed the outer wall. There seemed to be a large ziggurat or something similar just inside the stone wall, as well. To the south, a small village of ramshackle huts stood alongside the (by now polluted) canal; the women slaves were herded into the houses at night and left, apparently unguarded.

The male slaves were herded each morning into the hills, where they were forced to work in three mines, hauling out ore and loading it onto carts, which were taken back to the city when full. Each evening, the men were herded into the gates of the city; where they were put once inside, no one is sure. There was no sign of white-skinned prisoners.

The heroes decided they needed a closer look at the inside of the place, both to determine their opposition and to figure out where they kept the prisoners. Kishara and Hathym volunteered to sneak in at night and scout around.

Under cover of darkness and an Invisibility spell, the two snuck up to the gates. Kishara then cast a spell which extinguished all the torches on the wall above them (it’s amazing how she knew to cast that particular spell at that point!) = While the guards were running around trying to re-light the torches, she magically gave Hathym wings (probably purple, but he was invisible so it’s hard to tell), and the two of them flew over the wall and landed on the roof of a nearby building.

While in the air, they noticed that this entire quadrant of the city was walled in with stone, and most of the buildings appeared to be made of stone as well. The forge-smoke was definitely coming from this area, so they guessed that all the ironworks and forges had been made of stone to reduce the possibility of fire. They also noticed that the streets were completely empty, except for a small group of men marching purposefully up to the walls.

The man in the lead was instantly recognizable – he was the priest who had led the attack on the friendly village downriver, the one who escaped on snake-back. He began shouting orders for the men to relight the torches, and they scrambled to obey. Once everything was back to normal, he stomped away, dragging in tow 2 large, burly bodyguards.

Kishara and Hathym decided to follow this guy, and found that he lives in a stone hut just outside the ziggurat. The bodyguards followed him inside and shut the door behind them. There were no other doors to the hut, but there were a couple of windows, all blocked off with grass mats.

At this point, Kishara and Hathym heard a noise behind them. They turned and spotted a huge snake, slithering toward them, flicking its tongue as if tasting the night air. Not wanting to deal with such a monster, they wisely retreated to the nearest rooftop and headed for the non-stone portion of the city.

Kishara tried a spell to locate the missing porters, but although she could tell that they were nearby somewhere, the city was too large to pinpoint them. The two of them explored the area around the canal and found little of interest. They then headed back to the ziggurat, wanting to know more about its function.

Kishara once again gave Hathym wings and they flew over the top of it. The top was hollow, dropping down into pitch blackness, but Kishara spotted something moving down there. Squinting her eyes, she thought she saw something large and slithery deep within… but she’s not entirely sure.

She cast the spell again, narrowing her search range to just the area around the ziggurat, and she managed to touch the mind of her own porter! He was alive, and was almost certainly inside the ziggurat!

By now exhausted, the two spies snuck back out of the city through the canal and rejoined their friends. Radley suggested that the party sneak down and see what the deal was about the slave village, so a handful of the team headed there (leaving Hathym, Kishara, and Arialle behind).

Creeping through the village, someone heard them and opened their door a crack. A woman peered out, spotted them, and whispered for them to come inside quickly. Once inside, the woman recognized them as the warriors who helped her companion many weeks ago – she was apparently one of the women who the heroes spotted by the river, who’s male companion had been wounded and who Radley healed.

She was excited by their presence, and wanted to introduce them to a woman who was sort of the slaves’ leader. They snuck out of her hut and into another hut, where a young, hard-looking woman greeted them. She seemed incredulous at their story, but eventually came around. She told them many things about the village and the Enemy.

She said that the slaves were all from nearby villages. Some of them have been held for as long as a year; others for as short as a week. Raiding parties frequently bring in new slaves. The women haven't seen the men since they were brought in, though she knows that they are kept in a small village much like this one, inside the city walls.

She told them that slaves who are unruly are dragged from the fields; she believes that the priests of the Enemy sacrifice them to old, dark gods and feed their bodies to giant snakes. She also mentioned how giant snakes patrol the jungles at night, and those who have tried to escape are eaten by the snakes. This is why the slave village doesn’t need human guards at night – the snakes are more than enough to keep the women docile.

The Enemy easily overpowers other villages due to their superior weapons and tactics. They call their weapons "Snakes' Teeth." Other tribes are rushing to join the Enemy; it's either that or be conquered and enslaved or killed by them. Rumor has it that the enemy uses rocks from the hills to fashion these weapons, though she was not quite sure how. The only ones who know the secrets of working with iron are the priests. The forges and ironworks are in the stone section of the city, near the hills. Warriors guard them, day and night, but the men are not actually allowed onto the streets or into the forges.

When the heroes asked about their porters, she denied ever seeing anyone with white skin. She suggested that these strangers are held somewhere in the city; probably to be used as sacrifices. She said that sacrifices are performed under the new moon; the new moon is one day away. Marina became particularly upset at this, since she worships a moon goddess.

The heroes asked about the priest they saw. She said that his name is Dakarai. He is cruel and ambitious and is the main reason the Enemy has conquered so many villages – his hunger for conquest and power is second to none. She mentioned that Dakarai recently returned from a war, and has been in a terrible mood since he came back – rumor is that his lover Gamba was killed, and he has sworn revenge on the ones who did it. Some questioning revealed that Gamba was the large, brutal warrior that the heroes killed back at the friendly village… oops!

However, Mama went on to say, Dakarai is not the most dangerous. His superior, called Ilom, is even moreso. Where Dakarai is cruel and violent, Ilom is calm and calculating, with much wisdom and foresight. He is the genius who "invented" iron and who taught its secrets to his inner circle of priests. No one really knows where Ilom came from; they say he just showed up one day a year or so ago with strange new ideas and powerful magic. He swayed the Enemy to his way through a combination of charisma and force, and since then, they have grown ever more powerful.

Once she told the heroes all these things, she wanted to know what their plan to destroy the Enemy and free the slaves was. The heroes were somewhat taken aback – they were on a mission to get their own people back, not to destroy an entire village of people. But Mama was insistent. To defeat the enemy, she informed them in no uncertain terms, they only need to kill Ilom and his blacksmith-priests. She and the other slaves would help as best as they could, though most of them were weak and hungry so they wouldn’t be much help.

This was somewhat disturbing to the heroes. They were definitely not an assassination squad… but on the other hand, they couldn’t leave these people to be enslaved and murdered at the will of some dark god, could they?

Re: The First (Hopefully) Semi-Annual Great Champions Challenge Modding Contest!

2) Mods must be relatively “new to the webâ€. Any mod posted and linked to this site or any other modeling site prior to September 24th' date=' is ineligible. We’re looking for some new stuff here, not prior material.[/quote']

 

Drat! I already posted my two best mods -- Grond and Harbinger. Guess that means I'll have to get to work on some new guys...

 

Bill.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

From this week's 7th Sea game. My pirate captain was just saved by his Crescent Empire (read: Arabic) bodyguard.

Captain: I think I'll give you a raise. How much to I pay you?

Bodyguard: You don't pay me.

Captain: Excellent! I'll double your salary.

Bodyguard: (long pause) Captain, you do realize my people practically invented mathmatics?

Bill.

Re: FH Campaign

The heroes returned to camp to find it in an uproar. After they had left, a large band of some 40 native warriors attacked the camp. Marina, Slick, Dungeness, Huang-Jin, Ulkjl, Kenbede, and Igdobe were able to drive the attackers away, but not before the enemy kidnapped ten porters.

Hathym went out to search for the enemy’s tracks and found them extremely easy to follow. Dungeness refused to allow them to split the party a second time – the first time proved too disastrous – so they couldn’t leave the porters and other non-combatants behind again. The group decided that, exhausted from the night’s exertions as they were, they should rest for 2-3 hours and then begin chasing the enemy. They hoped that the enemy would be as tired as they were and would thus be easy to catch by nightfall.

A few hours later, still tired and groggy, they packed their goods on the remaining 8 porters, hid their boats (and the supplies they couldn’t carry) in the jungle, and set off. With Breena in the lead and Hathym and Arialle playing scouts, they made reasonably good time. The trail was easy to follow – a blind Dwarf could track 40 men who were moving quickly and dragging prisoners.

At twilight, they came upon an actual paved road, running more-or-less parallel to the river. It was wide enough for two people to walk abreast and paved with huge gray blocks of granite. Hathym got the impression that this was a very, very ancient road that had been recovered from the jungle only recently – within the past few months or so. The men they were chasing had taken the road, heading east, into the hills.

Hathym and Breena felt they were getting close, so they told Dungeness and the porters (along with Huang Jin, Ulkjl, Slick, and N’amwei) to slow down. The warriors would take point, about a half-kilometer ahead of the main group, and march without light -- in hopes of surprising the enemy when they caught up.

An hour or two after sunset, they came upon the enemy’s camp. There looked to be about two dozen men around a couple of small fires, finishing their dinner and getting ready to bed down for the night. There was no sign of the prisoners – Breena guessed that they had split up, one group camping for the night and the other moving on. There were only three guards on duty – two along the west road (where the heroes were), and one along the east road.

The party came up with a plan, hastily whispered in the dark. Breena, Hathym, and Radley would sneak up on the two guards under the cover of a Still Sound spell, knock them out, and drag them back to the main group for questioning. With any luck, no one would notice them missing for at least a couple of hours.

It was a good plan; unfortunately, someone somehow attracted the attention of Mekek, god of bad fortune. Breena and Hathym leapt at their chosen foe at the exact moment he decided to turn around. A simple snatch-and-grab turned into a complete cluster-fuck, only ending when Arialle grew impatient and put an arrow through the recalcitrant guard’s skull (some of you may have noticed: that girl’s kinda got an impulse control problem). =

But even that was too late; someone in the camp woke up to take a pee and saw what was going on. The alarm was raised as warriors jumped out of their bedrolls and grabbed their weapons. Kishara, thinking quickly, tossed an exploding ball of white light into the midst of the camp, blinding a number of them.

She and Radley followed up with an illusion of a pair of huge, scary monsters blocking the natives’ path, which gave them to some pause. Breena and Hathym ran for the cover of the jungle while Arialle continued to plunk arrows into the enemy and Marina added to the confusion by casting a Cacophony spell into the midst of the warriors.

After a few moments of this, the warriors decided they had enough, and they all ran away, up the road. Hathym quickly searched their belongings, but found only one thing of interest – these were definitely the same natives they had fought before, since they all had metal weapons.

Not every part of the plan failed, though. Radley had managed to KO his guard, so they had a prisoner. Radley began plying the man with alcohol while patching up his wound, innocently asking questions all the while. After two bottles of banana beer, the native (whose name was B’ami) became quite talkative, and Radley learned the following facts:

-- B’ami has never before seen “fish-belly white-skin†people. He finds most of you merely odd, but he seems to be frightened of Arialle.

-- B’ami’s village is about 2 days’ hard march from this place.

-- The village has always been surrounded by enemies with whom they’ve had conflicts, but has only recently begun conquering those peoples nearby.

-- These conquests have been made possible by a man named Ilom, who came to the tribe about a year ago and taught the village priests to worship new gods. Ilom is very powerful and knows magic that can make the sun go out and the mountains shake. Even though the heroes’ magic is impressive, it is nothing compared to Ilom’s. Ilom also taught the priests how to make weapons out of iron.

-- He believes that his village will soon rival the Ancient One cities in size and power.

-- He does not seem to fear the Ancient Ones like the other villagers do.

-- Since the village has grown so rapidly, they have needed lots of slaves to work the fields and the mines. Most of the villagers they capture have ended up as slaves. A few of them have ended up as sacrifices to the gods.

-- The gods’ representatives on earth are apparently giant snakes. B’ami seems to feel that the white-skinned prisoners they took will eventually end up as snake-chow.

After an hour of questioning (and another couple bottles of banana beer), B’ami realized he was being played. He grew angry and started shouting, and then he passed out. Radley doesn’t think that his methods will get any more information out of the man.

To be continued!

Re: I Can't Believe He Played That!

"Hand Grenade Boy" had no powers. He was just a mentally unstable guy who carried a hand grenade. Whenever a fight broke out, he pulled the pin and threatened to throw the grenade. The player wanted to give him a PRE of like 70, because he figured everyone would be afraid of this unstable guy and his grenade.

I tried to convince him that bad guys with 30 PD/ED wouldn't be afraid of a single grenade, but he would not be deterred. He wasn't invited back.

Bill.

Re: Iron Age/Dark Champions Concept

Sounds good. Why only a one shot though? It sounds like you could tell quite a few stories there.

Thanks! I'm planning to use the setting for one-shots and Convention games, if the first game is successful (with any luck, I'm running it at NukeCon next month...)

BIll.

(Not sure if this should go on the DC board or this one, but what the heck...) This is a concept for a one-shot I'm planning to run. Low powered (around 250 points) superheroes. Any thoughts?

"A Broken Heart"

The city of Nocturne sits amid a great swamp, straddling a mighty river that empties into the sea just to the south. It's a wretched place to live – blazingly hot in the summer, freezing cold in the winter, humid and rainy year-round. It is an ancient place, the crossroads of a dozen cultures over its 3+ centuries of existence, filled with mystery and decadence.

It is a corrupt place with a dark heart. Politicians buy their way into office. Those police not afraid to leave their precinct houses are bought-and-paid-for by the kingpins who run this place. It's a staging ground for drugs, weapons, and illegal immigrants to enter the country, and for cash and kidnapping victims to leave. The economy is in shambles – the middle class fled the city more than a decade ago, leaving behind only the very rich in their glass-and-steel towers, and the very poor in their filthy, huddled ghettos.

But it wasn't always this way. Only a decade ago, Nocturne was the shining city of tomorrow, filled with hope for the future and home of the nation's premier superhero squad – the Strike Team. Its members were known as Salt (a wizard), Star (an energy projector), Power & Might (brothers, both bricks), and Ouragan (a weather-manipulator).

But that ended in a massive fireball. The Strike Team's airship exploded high above downtown. The wreckage of the plane carved a swath of destruction across the east part of the city. Hundreds of civilians plus everyone aboard the ship died that day. Everyone aboard the ship, that is, except one – Power, strongest of the Strike Team, nearly invulnerable and with the power to heal any injury. But even he was badly hurt. He lay in a coma for months while his shattered body tried to mend itself.

When he finally awoke, the world had changed. The powers that set him above humanity and made him a champion burned themselves out healing him. Broken in mind, body, and spirit, he retired to his team's mansion and disappeared from the public eye. It was a time when the city needed a hero more than ever, but there were no longer any to be found.

It didn't take long for Nocturne to turn from a shining example to a sordid display. The drug lords, mercenaries, and gangsters who had been held back by the Strike Team moved in and made the city their own. They used their money, influence, and ruthlessness to take control of City Hall and the Police Force. No one stood against them.

No one except Heartbreaker. She was a minor hero, an occasional ally of but nowhere in the league of the Strike Team. She stood up against the rising tide of evil, and where others failed, she stood strong. She became the city's hero – a darker hero for a darker time. Without her efforts over the last decade, the city would have plunged into the abyss, a hellhole of crime and corruption worse than any place on this Earth. She gave hope to the hopeless; she inspired fear in those who haunt the night; she was a glimmer of light in the darkness of Nocturne.

And today, the newspapers are reporting that Heartbreaker is dead.

Re: FH Campaign

Man' date=' I would be scared to death to migrate an AD&D campaign world to Hero. The sheer amount of monsters is mind boggling. Over the years there were probably 10 thousand different AD&D monsters published, and that is just in the official TSR stuff (counting Dragon and Dungeon magazines as well).[/quote']

 

I look at it this way: There may be 10,000 monsters, but I've only regularly used maybe 50-75 at most, and the Beastiary covers most of them. I mean, when was the last time you threw a Grell or a Gibbering Mouther at your players? So far in this adventure, my group has run into an owlbear, a bunch of invisible spirits, and a hoard of angry natives -- so I don't miss the AD&D list of monsters much.

 

Second, I never use monsters straight out of the book anyway (too many bad experiences with players who had the Monster Manual memorized!). I'm used to taking the bones of a monster and fleshing it out myself.

 

In fact, it took almost as much work to convert my game to D&D3.0 as it did to convert it to Hero -- so much of my world is homebrew! The really hard part about the conversion is the spell list. Thank god for Killer Shrike's webpage!

 

Bill.

Posting this for a friend:

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Does anyone know anything about the methodologies of urban gang

warfare? Or have a link handy they could send me?

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Thanks!

Bill.

Re: FH Campaign

I'm enjoying following it too. I'd be interested in seeing the character sheets for the PC's as well.

I tried to upload them, but apparently the message board doesn't like my bizarre homegrown Excel character sheets...

Bill.

Re: FH Campaign

> The river journey was peaceful for three days; on the fourth day, they

> came upon the remains of a burnt village on the north side of the water.

The party immediately disembarked to investigate. The village had been burned nearly two weeks ago; there were no survivors to be found. Breena’s tracking ability told her that the attackers captured a large number of people and herded them upriver; a handful of others (probably survivors) went downriver. They discovered nothing else.

Two weeks past the main village, the landscape around the river (which until now has been relatively flat) began to grow hillier, and in the distance high hills could be seen. This excited Dungeness; he felt that the company might be near to discovering the source of the Black Blood River.

At the border of the hills, Hathym noticed a bunch of skulls on posts (like they saw before) and strings of human skulls in the trees tied together with vines. Closer inspection showed that these are not clever replicas, but the real things – some of them relatively fresh.

Breena and Hathym both checked out the riverbanks and determined that these areas saw frequent traffic – in fact, it looked like a well-used footpath along both sides of the river – but not for a few days. Most of the porters and the native guides were growing very nervous, and there was talk of turning back. Dungeness summoned his officers and guards together to discuss what they should do.

Hathym came up with the idea of letting most of the expedition camp on the banks of the river, a mile or two downriver from the skull warning posts. Then, he and the rest of the guards would, under cover of night, take a couple of canoes and explore further upriver to make sure there were no nasty surprises waiting for them. Dungeness agreed.

After darkness fell, the heroes (at least, those who could see in the dark) headed upriver, a few miles past the skulls, then they went ashore to see if the footpath continued here. It did, but while they were checking it out, they suddenly came under fire from a group of native warriors armed with bows and spears. They made short work of their attackers, then weighted down the bodies and tossed them in the river (so as not to leave any sign of the fight, nor of the heroes’ presence here). However, one of the attackers had only been wounded, and he managed to escape into the night while the party was distracted. He must have been intimately familiar with these woods, because neither Hathym nor Breena were able to follow his tracks

Since the night was almost gone, the heroes immediately set back downriver to the main camp. They found the place in an uproar. Apparently, after the heroes had left, a large band of native warriors attacked the camp. Marina, Slick, Dungeness, Huang-Jin, and Ulkjl were able to drive the attackers away, but not before the enemy managed to kidnap nearly a dozen of the porters (including Breena’s, Radley’s, Arialle’s, and Kishara’s).

There was now no doubt that the company would continue upriver to find the enemy and rescue the hostages; the only question now was… how should they go about doing it?

Re: FH Campaign

I've really enjoyed your FH Campaign posts. Hope you keep them up!

I was wondering, is your campaign based in the Turakian Age campaign world or is it a homebrew world? I'm not familiar with Hero or the TA setting.

 

Thanks for the good read.

You're welcome, and thanks for the compliment.

My campaign is a homebrew world that I've been running for many years. It started as an AD&D game, and moved to Hero only a couple of years ago.

More to come...

Bill.

Re: Champions miniatures

Thanks, guys. You make me blush! :redface:

He is a Heroclix Hulk, as Myrlyn guessed (actually, he's two Hulks -- I got them at "Free Comic Day" a couple of years ago, and they've been sitting in my box ever since).

I cut the arms off one, and the head off the other. I cut big chunks out of headless's shoulders to fit the new arms on, then filled in the gaps with green stuff. I also cut one finger off each hand (Grond's description says he's got only 3 fingers per hand), then filed the hand/wrist down to look right.

Since Hulk was wearing a torn-up shirt, I trimmed all the shirt bits off using a sharp X-acto knife and a very small file. This was the hardest part! (and I still don't think I got it quite right...)

The head came from a Reaper Lizardman Tyrant. I had to cut Hulk's neck down a little to make it fit properly.

The horns are (believe it or not) actually the tips of a couple of toothpicks! I filed the lizardman's head flat in those two places, then glued them on.

The only thing wrong with him is that he doesn't have the big flappy reptilian ears. But other than that, I think he turned out pretty good. Glad y'all like him.

Bill.

Re: FH Campaign

The heroes were made welcome in the village, which was one of the larger villages along the river, so the people here were used to strangers – traders from other tribes coming up or down the river. Of course, they'd never seen anyone as strange as the heroes, with their pale skin and white hair, strange clothes and outlandish speech, but they were still quite hospitable.

The damage to the village was extensive but not irreparable, and after funerals were finished, the people got back to their day-to-day tasks. Arialle was still hurt, and Radley decided she needed a week of recuperation, so Dungeness used this as an opportunity to take extensive notes about the peoples' daily rituals and habits, dragging Ulkjl and Huang-Jin around with him everywhere. He essentially left the heroes to do as they would, with one caveat: Don't get into any trouble.

Marina pulled everyone aside to discuss what she had learned in the chief's council. She told the others that areas marked with skulls are considered off-limits and taboo. She said that one of the village elders had told a story about an ancient, evil, shape-shifting people who lived in the jungle a long time ago, before the gods wiped them out for crimes too terrible to contemplate. She also mentioned how the people here have a very bad superstition about snakes.

Breena asked if she could go out hunting with the men. They refused to allow it, saying that hunting was men's work, and not suitable for a woman. Hathym, on the other hand, was invited to go out hunting. He respectfully declined, preferring to explore the jungle his own way. Radley considered trying to teach card and dice games to the locals, hoping to bilk them out of some valuables, but ended up deciding against it. Instead, he learned some of their games (though he never really got a good understanding of how they worked).

Marina decided to spend some time with the village elder and ask questions of him; maybe get clarification on what he told her earlier. He was delighted to spin tales of the old days (especially to someone who hadn't heard them all a dozen times before!), and answered her questions freely. He explained that the other villagers wouldn't talk about such things because they feared the bad luck their words might bring. He, however, was not afraid of bad luck, since he was so very old and would die soon anyway.

He told her that fake skulls were left near the old ruins as a warning for people to stay away. All the tribes in this area knew that the skulls were a boundary that they should not cross. The tradition started many generations ago, in the time that human beings were just beginning to settle the jungle. The Old Ones would sometimes hunt humans, and left gristly trophies behind as a warning for other humans to stay away. After the gods destroyed the Old Ones, the tribes continued this tradition – though they did not use real human skulls, but fake ones made from clay, rock, or wood.

Kishara wanted to find out more about the spellcaster the heroes had fought, and about the giant snake he summoned. However, she found that the villagers were reluctant to say anything about it, making a strange gesture with their left hand and avoiding eye contact. Realizing she would get nowhere with the adults, she decided to ask the children. She entertained them with simple but flashy cantrips (which they loved!), but they too wouldn't talk about the snakes, saying only that if a child was bad, snakes would come out of the jungle to carry her off forever.

On the third day, though, Kishara found a young boy, maybe 10 years old, who was not afraid and was determined to prove himself a great hunter, guide, and explorer. His name was Lencho, and he told her that he knew where some old stone ruins were. The other children were too afraid to go to them, but he has gone to them and actually touched the stones once, during the hot season last year. He volunteered to take Kishara to see them, and she agreed (though first she told Breena where she was going). Breena, bored with hanging around the village, went with them.

The stones were about a half-day's hike away from the river, and weren't much to look at – but the boy was thrilled that the others were interested enough to come out here and see. They poked around for a half hour or so, finding nothing of interest. In fact, the ruins were hardly even recognizable as such – just a few stones loosely arranged in a rough circle, mounds of earth and vegetation obscuring anything interesting.

However, while poking around, Kishara, Breena, and the boy were interrupted by a group of hunters from the village, who happened to be in the area and heard noises. They were angry (perhaps "livid" would be a better word) that the boy had come here, and upset at Kishara and Breena for breaking a sacred taboo of the people. The hunters dragged the taboo-breakers back to the village, and then spoke with the council of chiefs in hushed tones while the rest of the villagers gathered around to watch, worried looks on their faces.

Kishara explained that she had not seen any skulls nearby, so she thought it was safe to look around. This worried the chiefs even more, since apparently the skulls around that area had been stolen or destroyed. After some consultation, the chiefs said that those who touched the stones would have to go through a purification ritual. Both Breena and Kishara agreed, and Marina and Dungeness also volunteered to go through the ritual (since Breena and Kishara are under their command, they felt they bore some of the responsibility for their actions).

The four of them, plus Lencho and his uncle, were ceremonially cast out of the gates, which were then closed and barred. For the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening, they heard some kind of construction going on inside the village. After the sun had set, they saw a large fire blaze up above the walls, and heard drumming from within.

After an hour or so, they were allowed back into the village, where they found every villager gathered around a huge bonfire, men and women in elaborate masks dancing to the jungle rhythms with wild abandon. Men in masks greeted them at the gates, and then led each one in turn three times around the fire, then into the chiefs' hut.

What happened in the hut, they were sworn to never speak of. However, when they returned to the main square (an hour or two later), the drumming and dancing became more frenzied. The masked guides told their newly-released charges to dance and drink, and they all joined in. Before long, most of the rest of the party joined in the dancing and drumming. Ulkjl pierced the night with his ox-horn; Radley and Slick decided to cut loose, even Arialle jumped up to dance (despite Radley ordering her not to). Only Huang-Jin and Hathym hung back – the former for propriety's sake, the latter because he wanted to keep an eye on things to make sure no one got hurt.

(How very un-Elflike of Hathym – to refuse to party, dance, and drink!) =

The next morning, when they woke up, the memories of the night's activities were little more than a blur. Radley, after his head stopped pounding, bound Arialle's wounds (re-opened from the night's activities). Everyone else stayed in their hut for most of the morning.

Four days later, Radley proclaimed (at Dungeness' urging – he was getting anxious to get back on mission) that Arialle was fit to travel again. They loaded up their boats (filled with new supplies and trade goods), and set up the river once again.

The river journey was peaceful for three days; on the fourth day, they came upon the remains of a burnt village on the north side of the water…

Grond!!!

Here's the Grond I just finished...

Bill.

Re: Champions miniatures

Nice!! I like the diorama base a lot. Cool conversion' date=' I can only assume you dremmeled the purity seals off. If you hand sanded them...well, you are a braver man than I. [/quote']

 

Yep, the dremmel is my friend.

 

Someone asked me in PM how I did the base, so I figured I'd just say it here in case anyone else is interested.

 

The concrete sidewalk on which Harbinger is standing is 1mm cardstock. I used a circle cutter (you can get them at Michael's) to cut it in the half-circle shape. I used an X-acto knife to cut the edge of the sidewalk to look like it's crumbling. I used a triangular file to cut the "blocks" (the squares in the sidewalk... dunno what they're called), and carved out the cracks with a knife.

 

I used a bunch of brown stuff modeling epoxy to make the hill. Just built it up slowly. When I was happy with the height, I stuck the sidewalk on it. I cut off a straw from a juice box to make the pipe sticking out into the ditch.

 

The uneven ground in the ditch is just several layers of tallus glued on top of each other. The grass is static grass. The empty coke cans are itty bitty plastic tubing cut to the right size. The bullet casings on the sidewalk are the same thing, just thinner gauge and cut smaller.

 

The wanted posters are just pieces of paper cut to size, painted to look dirty, then written on with a teensy pen (.35 mm is the size of the pen, I think). They didn't turn out as well as I hoped; I guess my hand was shaking as I tried to write.

 

The water is superglue. When it dried, I painted it with a glossy sealer. It actually looks pretty good -- very muddy and gross-looking.

 

The dead guy is from a cheap, crappy wargame (same game as those UNTIL figs I posted earlier). I chopped off his arms, legs, and head, and reglued them to make him look dead. I thought about drilling holes in his torso for the bullet wounds, but decided that would look cheesy.

 

BTW' date=' I'm not sure I ever mentioned this, but thank you so much for the Digital Hero article on Superhero minis. I pretty much credit that article, Redmenace's work on HC Realms and Heroclix as the reasons I'm stilll modding/painting minis today.[/quote']

 

Thank you! I'm glad you got some use out of it.

 

I finally finished Grond this weekend. I'll try to get some pics of him up soon. He looks really good.

 

Bill.