Lord Liaden

Re: Necrons Oooh... there has to be something terrible I can do to my PCs with that concept!

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con I've long wanted to work the adamantine sickle of Cronus into a game plotline. AFAICT there's no further mention of the sickle in legend after Cronus used it to castrate his father Uranus. I always figured that Cronus would have wielded it in battle against Zeus, but it might have been lost after Zeus overthrew him. Since Cronus is often depicted as an agricultural deity, and the sickle was given to him by Gaia, IMO it would be reasonable for it to have powers over elemental earth and plantlife, as well as being a nearly-irresistable cutting weapon.

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con Excellent ideas! I'll have to owe your Rep for them, though.

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con This plot seed builds on a suggestion I made on the previous NewCon thread for the region beyond the city: Some twenty miles northwest of New Constantinople sits Mount Cale, the site of a protected Oregon state park. Before the land was protected logging interests attempted to harvest it, but were thwarted by what appeared to be a series of freak accidents. In fact the goddess Artemis had found the area appealing and claimed it as one of her personal hunting grounds, acting to protect it against any who would harm it. Recently a group of poachers entered the park to kill some of the animals there for their body parts, for the lucrative Oriental medicine market. While Artemis doesn't object to the occasional camper or hiker, she has no patience for those who would kill the animals under her protection without permission. As has always been her wont Artemis changed the offending mortals into animals, planning to hunt them at her leisure. The poachers' friends reported them missing (claiming that they're just campers), but park rangers have been unable to find any trace of them. The park commission asks for help from any PC heroes with special sensory abilities (Mind Scan, Detects, Tracking Senses and the like). If the heroes try to find the lost men - especially if they use any obvious powers - they will eventually be accosted by Artemis. Can they persuade or force the goddess to restore the missing men? How will they feel when Artemis tells them what the poachers were actually doing?

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con Apollo discovers that there's a descendant of the Pythoness, his oracle at Delphi, living in New Constantinople. He decides to start granting her visions of the future, whether she wants them or not. The new oracle could be a DNPC, or even one of the PC heroes. This can be a handy GM tool to get the heroes started in the direction you want, or give them clues when they don't know what to do next. Of course they may first have to convince the oracle (and maybe her family, even the authorities) that she isn't insane. One of the Greek gods has recently fathered a child in New Constantinople, who is already beginning to show signs of his/her demigod potential. However, the IHA has identified the child as a superhuman mutant and marked it for termination. The god maneuvers the PCs into protecting his baby.

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con The Kong Town film studios are the location for their biggest-budget project yet, starring supermodel/actress Ashley Marlowe, aka Aphrodite. While in NewCon Marlowe takes a shine to a comely PC hero, perhaps wanting him to act as her bodyguard. Aphrodite is used to getting what she wants. OTOH her husband Hephaestus may not be too happy with the hero...

Re: Borrowing your brains: Greek Gods in New Con Well, the first thing I did was check The Mystic World to see what mythic gods might be up to in the modern world. According to that, Dionysus has an Earthly avatar named "Dion Bach" who's a major rock star. His concerts tend to be drug- and dance-fueled frenzies, which count as "worship" for him. Hecate has often patronized the Circle of the Scarlet Moon, so perhaps she would have a particular disciple in NewCon who might run afoul of the PCs. As the Circle wields vast non-combat influence, that could cause interesting complications. Hecate also has worshippers among lycanthropes (moon association), neo-pagans, and "seekers of vengeance." Any of these could impact NewCon. OTOH Hecate also cultivates friendly relations with mystic heroes - she likes to play both sides. I noticed an earlier reference on your NewCon thread to the Warlord's interest in the city. Now, the 4E Champs supplement The Olympians suggested Ares leading his own mercenary supervillain team, the Ravagers. Perhaps Ares has a superhuman avatar working as a mercenary around the Pacific Rim, but based out of NewCon. Ares might have an association with the Warlord, everything from colleague to friendly rival; his presence in the city might lead to the Warlord's involvement, or he might be why the Warlord has laid off it up to now. I'll give it some more thought and get back to you.

Re: OK, so what makes an interesting villain? In addition to the other excellent points above, I always find it interesting when a villain affects one or more of the heroes on some personal level. This goes beyond the villain just being the heroes' recurring nemesis. The villain could have a close personal relationship to some heroes, such as being a family member "gone wrong" (Darkseid to Orion, or Loki to Thor), or be a former friend or romantic relation (Magneto to Professor X, Catwoman to Batman). The villain might have been a rival to a hero in their youth, (Dr. Doom to Mr. Fantastic, Baron Mordo to Dr. Strange). Perhaps the villain is the "dark reflection" of a hero, either because their powers are comparable (Professor Zoom to the Flash), or because the villain is the antithesis of what the hero stands for (Red Skull to Captain America). I find that that personal dimension adds a great deal to the interactions between heroes and villains. If using teams, it's usually easy to work one or more such villains in. OTOH it's possible for one villain to affect several members of a team that way; the most recent appearance of Ultron in the Avengers comic highlighted the long and complex connections between that monster and various Avengers.

Re: Differences between Sidekick and 5ER? Other than the various sidebars in Sidekick listing what's been omitted from the main rulebook (I think there's an overall one on p. 40, and each section has its own sidebar), I'm not aware of anything like what you're looking for. The request has appeared in past threads, but I couldn't find anyone who's actually taken up the challenge.

Re: Returning weapons?

Re: Underworld evolution Several ways, actually, depending on how you want it to work. Use the optional "Rapid Fire" Combat Maneuver, with or without the "Two Weapon Fighting" Skill. Use the rules for Multiple-Power Attacks. If paying Character Points for the guns, use this as the Special Effect for weapons with a two-shot Autofire Advantage. Alternately, build them as Greywind suggests: one gun bought normally, the other with the Linked Limitation, Linking the second gun to the first. All of these are described in the Fifth Edition rulebook, but if you need further clarification of any of them please post followup questions.

Re: What kind of aliens? Actually, if you posit a race which has achieved general peace and unity within its own society, "homogenous" would be a reasonable development. Different beliefs and practices are the most divisive features of the real world today; some have argued that creating a homogenous culture would be a prerequisite to an effective world government.

Re: Best Superhero Magic Supplement

Re: Best Superhero Magic Supplement If I was looking for general advice usable for comic-book magic regardless of what game system I used, I would choose Mystic Masters. Ultimate Super Mage, Ultimate Mystic and The Mystic World all have a lot of usable material, but as only part of a broader treatment of magic and occult cosmology. MM is very much focussed on the conventions of the super mage subgenre. That said, TSR's Realms of Magic is also quite good, albeit somewhat more restricted to the Marvel magic conventions. If you can find it cheap, though, it would be worth picking up IMO.

Re: What kind of aliens? Fair enough. I was thinking "dominance" as more along the lines of "top of the food chain," but I take your meaning.

Steve, let me assure you that this is not a design philosophy question. But I was looking at the character sheet for Survalesh (Champions Worldwide p. 181), and I noticed that he has bought Extra Limbs twice. Once is for his six extra arms (bought Inherent), and the other for his three heads (Inherent with Limited Manipulation). I understand the Limited Manipulation distinction for Survalesh's heads; but normally a character buys Extra Limbs only once, regardless of how many or what type of limbs he has, because the benefits remain the same. If this is just an error, that's cool. But if it's not an error, I have to wonder what the practical benefit to Survalesh is in buying Extra Limbs twice. What can he do this way that he couldn't do if he bought them once? As always, thanks for listening.

Re: "Down-to-Earth" special powers

Re: What kind of aliens? Unless it "dominated" by passively assimilating other organisms, due to the evolutionary advantages of becoming part of the symbiotic network. Or unless organisms who didn't fit in were all extinct before sentient life evolved on this planet, so that the sentients would have no precedent to color their conception of the "natural order." I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong in your assumption of the symbiotes' aggressiveness - just that there's more than one way to look at how it could have fallen out. We are talking alien, after all. Maybe "dominance," "competition" and "aggression" aren't universal elements of life. I can't really imagine them not being so, but of course I'm only human. Could make for an interesting sci-fi story premise, though. As a matter of fact, I read a story rather like that many years ago, The Prodigal Sun by Phillip E. High. In the story it was revealed that most of the aggressive behavior of species on this planet was the result of radiation from our sun warping the natural order. Screening out this radiation resulted in a rapid evolution toward cooperative rather than competitive organisms, right down to single-celled ones.

Re: Super-sorcery Necromancer Ideas... Help! Well, this is "Lady Hades" after all. Hades didn't just rule over a land of torments; the Underworld also included the Elysian Fields, a blissful paradise for those departed who were favored by the gods. Perhaps Lady Hades is kind of the opposite of Nebula, from Conquerors, Killers And Crooks. Rather than dispatching criminals to a dimension of punishment, LH can direct the souls of the dead to a realm of peace and beauty. She may see this as a blessing and a duty, and not understand why anyone would refuse her gift. And there would probably be plenty of suffering people who would willingly let her send them to such a place, as well as spirits of the dead who would gratefully return to help her when needed.

Re: Modeling, er, "sexual prowess" Lucius, that's a very practical and thorough approach to IMHO a rather eccentric character construct problem. I'm afraid I'll have to owe you Rep for this.

Re: What kind of aliens? The thing is, we don't know whether predation is "the pattern of life everywhere." Maybe another world's ecosystem would be dominated by organisms living in symbiosis, and that could affect the mentality of any sentient species. Lord "Here come the space communists" Liaden

Re: Modeling, er, "sexual prowess" In all seriousness, this sounds like a Professional Skill to me. The only issue that I see is if you allow it to be based on a Characteristic, which one would be most appropriate? I could make a case for DEX, INT or even CON.

Re: What kind of aliens? If we're talking "real" aliens, as opposed to the creations of our imagination, my own belief is that whatever we encounter is likely to be in some ways as alien mentally as they are physically, so I don't think that either of these extremes are sufficient, assuming that either of them will apply at all. IMHO it's more likely that the aliens will be significantly incomprehensible to us.

Re: Necrons Well, if you're referring to the Necrons from Warhammer 40,000, you might start with these: http://www.tigerseyemedia.com/tiger/40knecrons.html