Lord Liaden

Re: Self Defeating Powers Oxygenation: Life Support, Expanded Breathing (breathes air).

Re: I need your opinion Thirded, for the reasons given above, and because very few super-worlds contain enough heroic paranormals to serve as the exclusive villain retrieval teams in all the cases where they would be needed. On the general advice front, Richard, do you have access to the Fourth Edition Champions sourcebook, Classic Enemies? That includes a detailed description of Stronghold, the Champions Universe superprison, with maps, facility and prison guard stats, procedures, and specialized supervillain-neutralizing and retrieval equipment, as well as discussion of some of the legal issues raised by such a facility. From what you say about your own Prometheus facilities, the Stronghold material should adapt to your purposes very easily. Alternatively, the old (I'm talking early 1980's) Champs adventure module, Escape from Stronghold, has most of the same material, albeit for an earlier version of the system.

Re: Presence attacks never work?

Re: Elder Worm Reference Collection Essentially, the Elder Worms are an ancient malevolent magic using race, in the style of "Lovecraftian" Horrors from Beyond. They served the Kings of Edom (think Lovecraft's Old Ones), and dominated much of this galaxy, including Earth in the days of Mankind's infancy, until being all but wiped out in a long bitter war with the Malvans. Pockets of the Elder Worms continued to survive in hidden refuges on Earth and other worlds; sometimes secretly ruling the natives, at other times entering a state of dormancy until conditions are ripe for them to awaken and attempt to seize power again.

Re: Working on New Constantinople GM'S SPOILERS WARNING! Hmm... it would probably be to the IHA's benefit to dispose of the bodies of deceased mutants quickly and quietly. They might not look too closely into the ultimate fate of the remains. I wonder what Teleios would do with an ongoing supply of mutated genetic material?

Re: Working on New Constantinople Replying to GMs Only SPOILERS etc. Hermit, I like the range of viewpoints represented by this IHA (council? committee? board?) Sounds like they run from sincere and resigned to necessity, to practical and cold-blooded, to hateful. For the IHA to be this effective at keeping the "aberrations" out of NewCon, they could likely include a ranking member highly-placed in the medical hierarchy in the city, with access to natal and pediatric facilities. Easier to identify mutants as they're born, and find medically-explicable ways to eliminate them. It also provides another line of investigation for heroes to uncover the influence of the IHA, e.g. an unusually high child mortality rate at certain hospitals.

Re: Elder Worm Reference Collection What's truly grotesque to contemplate is that human beings possess some latent Elder Worm genes. I don't even wanna think about how they got there.

Re: Simulating decreasing damage due to exhaustion:

Re: Building a sensory-deprivation tank for a mentalist Instead of Aid, I would use its variant, Succor, at 0 END and Persistant, since that's a Constant Power the benefits of which will stop as soon as it's shut off. See the rulebook entry for Aid for details of Succor. And I second Edsel's suggestion for Darkness - it was the first thing I thought of myself.

Re: Can anyone point me in the right direction? There are some good online conversions of weapon lists from various RPGs. I'd particularly recommend these links to weapon writeups from GURPS Ultratech, and for Warhammer 40,000.

Re: Holy Killer Angels And there's been no lack of conscience-salving rationales for killing in the name of "defending the faith," "destroying the heretics/infidels," "forced conversion" or "saving their souls." In fact a great deal of blood has been spilled at the instigation of "religious" individuals or organizations which profess to support peace and respect for life. It always seems to be possible to find doctrinary loopholes that allow you to do that to the other guy, particularly when the other guy has something you want.

Some thoughts on VIPER As this post contains information which would normally be the purview of the GM, I should probably put a SPOILER!! warning here. The local VIPER Nest in NewCon is referred to by its agents as Erebus. It's located in (and beneath) an abandoned silver mine to the northeast of Argo. The mine was previously a minor storage facility appended to the first VIPER nest in the city, based in Crescent. When that nest was smashed in the late 1980's by UNTIL and the superhero Colossus, the remnants of VIPER relocated to the mine. Since that time the mine tunnels have been greatly expanded, with hidden entrances leading from the original tunnels into the new facility. To conceal the new construction on the site, VIPER created a phony real estate development company which purchased the mine to develop as a tourist attraction. Today the Silver Rail Mine, a combination natural science museum and amusement ride, is a fairly popular destination for travellers to NewCon, particularly with students on field trips. As a result people coming and going from the area attract no undue attention. The tunnels and chambers of Erebus connect to the Ravenfeather River. Although since the river was dammed it's no longer deep enough for commercial traffic, it's adequate to conceal the passage of Erebus's Sea Serpent minisubs. VIPER has built connecting passages leading from the Ravenfeather into sewers and utility tunnels beneath much of New Constantinople, particularly Cross Town and the Downshores. This network allows VIPER to move goods and personnel discreetly throughout the city, and Erebus derives a great deal of its finances from traffic in stolen and smuggled goods (and people). Having grown over the years to become a medium-sized Nest, Erebus is efficiently run and quite profitable. Its leader calls himself The Ferryman. A commander to the previous Nest Leader, the Ferryman led the rebuilding effort after that Nest was shut down. A combination of the Cunning Schemer, Greedy Grabber, and Cult Classic leader types, the Ferryman typically wears a flowing black chiton over his VIPER uniform, and decorates his personal quarters with Classical motifs and art objects. His agents wear predominantly black uniforms with names, rank and other designations in Greek letters. The Ferryman's Field Commander, Intelligence Commander and Security Commander were hand-picked by him and work closely and well together. Everyone from the Ferryman to the lowest agent refer to the three Commanders collectively, as "Cerberus" or "C" for short. The Ferryman learned a lesson from the demise of his predecessor's Nest, and maintained a low profile while rebuilding VIPER's power base in the city. VIPER has benefitted from the sparse superhuman activity in New Constantinople since the death of Colossus; its agents are successful and well-paid, and morale is high. However, with his success the Ferryman has grown increasingly overconfident in his own brilliance, and has started engaging in more high-profile criminal schemes. It's just a matter of time until his actions draw the full attention of New Constantinople's defenders.

Re: Working on New Constantinople

Re: Eygptian Sorcerer spells? Another one of those "if you have access..." suggestions, in this case Mythic Egypt from ICE. It included a couple of "spell colleges," the Church of Set and the Church of Bast, with a number of fairly flavorful spells.

Re: What are the "Cosmic Cubes" of the 5th Ed CU?

Re: What are the "Cosmic Cubes" of the 5th Ed CU? Also, the Jade Mirror of Transcendence has the power to reshape the world according to the possessor's desire. Dr. Yin Wu wants it to restore imperial China and make it ruler of the Earth (under himself, of course). The Basilisk Orb is somewhat similar, in that it can show visions of all possible futures, and cause any one of them to become immutable, no matter how improbable it is. The Mandragalore is able to induce devastating "natural" disasters (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes etc.) potentially on a global scale. Rather like the movie The Day After Tomorrow, only with a good explanation.

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members One of the things that I like about the way this team is shaping up, is that the "Canadianness" of it is more subtle than some other national teams that have appeared in comics or games. Of the names chosen so far - Mosaic, the Magus, Kodiac/Lynx, the Arrow, and Big Nickel - none leap out as being Canadian without some familiarity with the sources of the names. That said, don't forget that DC Comics did come up with a government superteam called the Force of July: Major Victory, Lady Liberty, Silent Majority, Mayflower, and Sparkler.

Re: Working on New Constantinople I think it might set this city and this campaign apart from other established Champions settings, if some of the less prominent villain groups were among the major players in New Con, or even the dominant ones. For example, the Institute for Human Advancement might be the reason why paranormals have been so few here until recently; they may be well established in this city and have been keeping it "clean." ARGENT could be the prime mover behind the growing high tech sector in New Con, and heroes probing the financial establishment too closely may draw their ire. The Chinese segment of Kong Town could provide a foothold for the Cult of the Red Banner, who control illegal trade with the Far East passing through New Con's harbor.

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members I've been thinking about the stretching hero. Right now proditor is divided between "Kodiak" and "Lynx" for his brawler character. What would you say to using Kodiak for him, and naming the stretcher Lynx, as a deliberate pun on "links" as in a chain?

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members Well, I do have another suggestion for the fire guy, which is fairly topical to Canada and might spark an origin story. Right now the hottest economy in Canada is in the province of Alberta, fueled by its abundant oil reserves. Oil wells sometimes catch fire of course, and there are firefighters who specialize in the very dangerous, and lucrative, field of well extinguishing. The most famous of these was the late "Red" Adair, who was given the nickname Hellfighter. His life inspired a film starring John Wayne, The Hellfighters. (You can read more about Red Adair here.)

Re: Seeking suggestions on speeding up the Hero System On the damage front, Scott Bennie had what I thought was a great suggestion: with characters throwing large numbers of dice in their attacks, use average damage for all but the last three or four dice, which you roll for. That greatly reduces the counting while still preserving some randomness.

Re: Seeking suggestions on speeding up the Hero System If you haven't done so already, look up "Nine Ways To Speed Up Combat" in the index of the rulebook. (I don't know which page it's on in Fifth Revised - I have the "unrevised" edition. But it will be listed in the Index.) Some of your suggestions are already there. I find it really helps to preroll a bunch of Attack and Damage rolls for all your NPCs before you get to the gaming table, and list those results. Then as each character's turn comes up you just have to cross the appropriate result off the list rather than rolling for it. If you trust your players you could have them do the same thing. The Standard Effect rule, having each damage die do 3 points rather than rolling for damage, really speeds things up, although it of course eliminates randomness from the damage that characters do.

Re: Some Villain Powers Help? Well, according to Steve Long, not as the default rule: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4429

Re: Help Requested: Name my Canadian team and it's members