Lord Liaden

Okay, how about one of these?

I found a few. This is probably the best.

In general, the notebooks and tools Archimago left behind are much sought after by mystics looking for an easy route to power. But the many debts he incurred in life to the great occult powers are still being paid through the influence of those items, so they're risky to use. (The origin of Evil Eye, in Champions Villains Volume Three, is an outstanding example.)

Oh, I remembered another tome that might qualify, the Scroll of Andrith, the mystic writings of Andrith the Golden, prince of the Lemurians and one of their greatest sorcerers. Andrith was responsible for the spell that extended the Lemurians' life span at the cost of their native reptilian forms and shape-shifting powers, and that is among the spells in the Scroll. The Scroll was discovered on Monster Island in three fragments, each held by a different party. (See MI for more details.) BTW Steve, were you interested in any of the "good books" of magic?

Of the three known Cosmic Gems, only one is unaccounted for, the one claimed by the renegade StarGuard Tathregar a hundred thousand years ago, which was lost when he committed suicide by diving into a star. The Gem survived, though. Perhaps it was ejected on a solar prominence, and drifted through space until landing on Earth. Lots of other interesting things got here that way. Galaxia has had her gem long enough to build an interstellar reputation, and her powers are still relatively limited in scope. As we've been told a gem's power is proportionate to the will and power of its possessor, we shouldn't assume that every wielder inevitably progresses to "do-anything VPP." How long did it take to become proficient? Speed of plot. If you want someone with a Cosmic Gem to start lower-powered and build to their full potential over time, I would suggest looking at the write-up for any of the Meteor Mans as a template for their starting phase. Rather than increasing the wielder's power, perhaps you could instead buy off the Focus Limitation. That's one of the things I changed about Galaxia. As written if she's beaten you can grab the gem, and most of her power goes with it.

Hey, it's Jim Hendren's prediction. I hope he's right too, but I'm not counting on it either.

Does anyone have any news?

That was then. The party is polarizing, and looks to be fragmenting. Trump is taking the extremists with him. If Republican legislators try to chase after them, they turn off less extreme people who'd normally vote GOP. If they woo more moderate elements they alienate the Trumpists. In the meantime the real conservatives who believe in the party's stated values are abandoning both. None of those factions represent enough votes to win.

Jim Hendren, a state senator from Arkansas, declared that he is leaving the GOP to become an independent. In his public statement as to why he's leaving, among his various reasons, he said something that if true, bodes very ill for the future of the Republican Party: "You can't win a primary without Trump's support, but you can't win a general election with it."

It's COVID lockdown in Winnipeg in winter. How many other things can they have left to do?

Ya think? It's Dr. Strange.

The things lined up in the background look an awful lot like the Mindless Ones inhabiting Dormammu's Dark Dimension.

I buy Keaton and Durante, but the two on the left are unquestionably Laurel and Hardy, not Abbot and Costello.

Okay, Steve, let's see if we can find you some more dark light reading. 😈 The Mystic World pp. 90-91 sidebar names and briefly describes several artifacts from myth and legend, of such power that good-aligned mystics will use them only in extreme need. Power-hungry evil mages are more likely to seek them. Two of them can be counted as "books" (or at least written upon). The Book of Thoth: Egyptian tales tell of a grimoire written by Thoth, god of magic. The spells in this scroll make its owner the master of all the powers of nature, gods, and the dead; he incidentally understands the speech of birds and beasts. A terrible curse protects the Book from mortal hands, though. The last person to seize the Book, the priest Na-nefer-ka-ptah, lost his entire family to the curse, and ended up as the grimoire’s ghostly guardian. The Tablet of Destiny: The primal chaos-dragon Tiamat was the first owner of this tablet that ordains the laws of the universe and the social order. When the Mesopotamian gods defeated Tiamat’s army of monsters, they took the Tablet as well. When the storm-bird Anzu stole the Tablet, the gods lost their power. Perhaps the Tablet controls the relations between gods and the mortal world, in which case it could overthrow the Ban at a stroke. The tablet’s power comes from the Dragon, however, making it perilous in the extreme for mortals to wield. A great deal of the text for The Mystic World was transcribed from an earlier Champions source book for 4E Hero, called The Ultimate Super Mage (on sale in the website store). That book actually gives Power stats for the Tablet of Destiny. Because of the strong continuity between TUSM and TWM, I believe it would be reasonable to mention an original creation from the former, also game-statted: The Clavicle Infernalis: Translating as "the Key to Hell" or "Nether Key," this book is described as "the premier text of black magic." The spells it confers mostly involve the summoning and control of demons, and transporting beings to or from Hell, even transporting some of Hell's environment to Earth. But its spells take considerable time to cast, and if interrupted the caster suffers a disaster "of Biblical proportions" (specifics left to GM). Finally, casting back into the pre-super history of the Hero Universe, we find: The Bloodstained Scroll of Thronek: This item was the premier source on the lore of necromancy, inscribed by its namesake wizard, the first "master villain" of the Turakian Age -- see the book of that title for more info. After the defeat of Thronek, over centuries his Scroll would sometimes magically appear in the fastness of some great wizard, disappearing again after part of it was read. Thanks to that trick it's possible the Scroll could have survived to the present day. Kal-Turak/Takofanes long sought the Bloostained Scroll, so it might be in his possession. If it's elsewhere the likeliest place to look would be the closed stacks of the Library of Babylon, which has some Turakian-era volumes.

For the current official published Champions Universe, darkest magic book #1 would have to be the Liber Terribilis, aka "the Harrowing Book," discovered by Luther Black the founder of DEMON, which relates (metaphorically) the history of the five Kings of Edom whom Black sought to free in his apotheosis scheme, as well as the rites and rituals associated with them which form the basis for the most important initiations in DEMON. Black retained the Harrowing Book, but however his scheme fell out may have affected where it is now. You can read more about the Liber Terribilis in DEMON: Servants Of Darkness pp. 7 and 28. There are some other possibilities from Hero publications which are more peripheral, but I'm a little pressed for time this morning. I'll be back later with more.

Fair enough. Perhaps having viewed the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy, I was more sensitized to the differences than some. But Kong standing, walking, and running fully upright rather than on all fours struck me immediately, and led me to pay attention to other details. It's a distinct contrast to Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong, in which Kong is very clearly a giant gorilla.

To anyone actually taught by nuns growing up, that picture is hardly a surprise. 😈

It's an understandable perspective, but note that Legendary Kong doesn't look exactly like a real-world animal in other ways than just size. Unlike every real ape on Earth, Kong's locomotion is fully bipedal, although his legs are proportionately shorter and arms longer than human. His feet have much shorter toes than real apes do, and don't appear to be prehensile. Kong's torso and abdomen are built more like a muscular man's than an ape's. You could say he's like a giant sasquatch, but I will offer no opinion as to whether the sasquatch is real.

If you don't mind Spanish subtitles, you're covered. https://archive.org/details/the-beast-from-20-000-fathoms-1953

The mind boggles over the magnitude of insensitivity required to publicly gloat over profits from prices gouged out of millions of suffering people.

What's the temperature in your house, Ricky?

Sorry to break the flow, but do you think maybe it's time to update the thread title? Oh, and, Colossi.

Personally I would have loved more Hero products from Allen Thomas. He's a very creative writer with a distinctive approach to the material. I hope he's doing well. If you did consider doing ARGENT as a sectional book (not saying you should), my own summary of published ARGENT data grouped it into related sections: History, Goals and Methods, Structure and Personnel, Front Companies, Global Activities, Associates and Allies, Rivals and Enemies, ARGENT-Created Superhumans, and ARGENT Technology. Perhaps that could be suggestive of a similar breakdown?

It's not even possible any more to shame Republican politicians for past hypocrisy. They just try to brazen their way out of it, like Trump does.

I read that the Democrats are now in a position to redraw the congressional districts. Generally a questionable power, but in the current circumstances I can't decide whether that's problematic or necessary.