Lord Liaden

Re: Old Version of DC? Since this is the Dark Champions forum, I suspect that that's the "DC" that Polaris is referring to. (I told Steve Long that if he kept using the Dark Champions title, someone would mix those up.) Polaris, would you be interested in ordering the book from an online retailer? There are several good ones I could point you to who regularly stock older Hero Games material.

Re: !SPOILER! Vibora Bay Given that we're talking about the Champions Universe, I would say that it's more likely that God in this scenario isn't actually the Supreme Deity. In the CU there's an "imaginal realm" in the Astral Plane called Elysium, the home of all the gods of the "ethical" pantheons of modern religions; but these are beings created out of the spiritual energy of their massed worshippers. Perhaps the mightiest of these is Yahweh/ Jehovah/ Allah, but awesome as he doubtless is he's still not necessarily omniscient. He is also served by angels that fit the various traditional descriptions, with a similar origin to his; it's likely that Therakiel would be one of these. So Therakiel's plan might actually stand a chance of working! I must admit that before this thread I hadn't considered how the final war between "Heaven" and "Hell" (or the Netherworld, another imaginal realm, in the CU) might play out, but I've become intrigued by the concept. Since Brick requested ideas, I might as well spell out a few of my thoughts. If I were going to run this as a storyline, I'd start with the following premises: - However low-key the war might start out, the finale would have to be BIG. Final war between God and Satan is pretty much the working definition of the Apocalypse. - There should be a clear logical in-story reason why Vibora Bay would become the site for this battle, other than it just being "magically charged." - Robert Caliburn is supposed to be crucial to the outcome of the war, but the PCs should clearly be the focus of the story, and their actions should lead directly to that outcome. - As corollary to the above, the PCs should ideally have encountered Caliburn before these events and developed a sympathetic relationship with him. It would also be helpful if they had a relationship with some benevolent agency in the Mystic World who could let them know what grand events are afoot, such as the Trismegistus Council, one of the powers of Elysium, or the superhero-sponsoring god Marduk. With all that established, here are my ideas for a plot. I'll include some variant ideas for more options: Recently Robert Caliburn did a favor for the Emperor of the imaginal realm of Babylon, and was rewarded with an artifact or gift of power. Already possessing gifts from Elysium and the Land Of Legends, Caliburn has fulfilled three of the four main criteria for becoming Archmage of Earth. All that remains is a gift from the demons of the Netherworld. Some of the Demon Princes have decided that they could use such a gift to seduce Caliburn to side with them - having the Archmage in their pocket would greatly advance their cause on Earth. The PCs' mystic contact warns them of this development and leads them to try to intercept the demons. This could be run as a straight fight between demons and heroes, or as a roleplaying opportunity for each party to try to convince Caliburn where to stand. In either case, Caliburn appears and accepts the demons' gift. However, at that moment he's revealed as Therakiel masquerading as Caliburn, who steals the gift and disappears. The PCs should be given a means to follow him to his lair, where they will learn the Halfway Angel's background and plans. They can either spy on him talking to himself (he's already mad, and has had no one else to converse with for a long time), or if they confront him Therakiel will indulge in the time-honored villain's habit of boasting about his master plan. Therakiel has already captured Robert Caliburn. He will allow Caliburn to ascend to the status of Archmage, but with his will and power firmly under Therakiel's control. With the might of the Archmage added to his own, Therakiel will attempt to immediately provoke the final conflict. My thought for this would be for Therakiel to attempt to free the Dragon from its bonds, or at least incarnate it on Earth. (For those who don't know the Dragon, see The Mystic World for details. Suffice it to say that the Dragon essentially is Satan, the primordial source of all evil on Earth.) Therakiel is certain that doing so will prompt the powers of Elysium to descend to Earth to oppose the Dragon, while the forces of the Netherworld arise to support it. Something about Vibora Bay should make it the ideal site for this great magick. Perhaps Therakiel's enchantment of the area amplifies his own spells, or allows his power to be conducted directly to the Dragon's bonds. Perhaps the vast sentient lifeforce in San Sebastien Swamp would make the perfect sacrifice to fuel his ritual. The PCs will doubtless try to stop Therakiel, but should be no match for his now-immense power. (You can keep him from finishing the heroes off by saying that they are beneath his notice, and that he is eager to begin his great spell.) Instead they will have to find and free Robert Caliburn from Therakiel's lair, which should be perilously but not impenetrably guarded. Once they free Caliburn, Therakiel will have to be stopped. Caliburn may join with the PCs in assaulting the Halfway Angel, but it would be difficult to keep the new Archmage from overshadowing the other heroes. Alternatively, Caliburn could attack Therakiel alone while the PCs attempt to protect the people of Vibora Bay; the powers of Elysium and the Netherworld have detected Therakiel's spell (although not Therakiel himself), and the vanguards of the Heavenly and Infernal Hosts have started popping in all over the city. The heroes will have to get between the warring angels and demons to keep them for destroying the city and slaughtering the populace, probably alongside the other heroes of Vibora Bay. Or, Caliburn could depart to try to reverse Therakiel's summoning of the Dragon, leaving the other heroes to keep Therakiel occupied long enough. (It would be in-genre for Robert Caliburn to sacrifice his life to stop the coming of the Dragon, probably with accompanying remarks of self-mockery. That would not only be emotionally affecting for the PCs, but pave the way for Witchcraft to succeed him as Archmage, as she does in the official CU timeline.) Regardless, the Dragon should be prevented from appearing (unless a GM wants to deal with the consequences of that) ; and during the course of the battle Therakiel would be revealed to the warring factions as the true instigator of their conflict. There are several possible outcomes to this event. With the Dragon out of the picture, the forces of Elysium and the Netherworld might conclude that further battle is pointless and depart, leaving Therakiel to face the total failure of all his plans and his reason for living. Alternatively, both sides could be royally p.o.ed at the Halfway Angel and combine their might to end his tormented existence once and for all. Another possibility - the one I would favor - would be for Therakiel to be moved by the devastation he has caused, and inspired by the courage and self-sacrifice of the heroes (and perhaps Caliburn's sacrifice) to wholly embrace the side of Light and help drive back the demonic army. I would find it emotionally satisfying if this act redeemed Therakiel, so that Heaven welcomed him back. Besides the need to rebuild the devastated Vibora Bay, there could be several consequences for the PCs in the aftermath of this war. If Robert Caliburn survived, they would now be owed a favor by Earth's new Archmage. OTOH they would have earned the wrath of powerful demons, not to mention the Dragon itself. And if Therakiel survived and was not redeemed, the maddened and desperate Halfway Angel would now have nothing to live for - except, perhaps, revenge on the heroes he blames for his failure... Anyway, that's what I came up with.

Re: CU question: See through super material?

Re: Hindu-themed hero Getting back to the issue of how a devotee of Hinduism might rationalize gaining superpowers; in later Hindu tradition a common recurring theme is the granting of various divine gifts to persons as a reward for exceptional piety: ethical and honorable conduct, avoidance of temptations of the flesh, and especially, sincere devotion and prayer to the gods. "Piety" in this case appears to be divorced from issues of good and evil as Western tradition defines them. Several individuals of what we would call "evil" nature and motivation were still gifted by the gods for their devotions, even if they used those gifts to harm or oppress their fellow men. This extends even to the greatest demons, or asuras. They were deadly enemies of the devas, or gods, but a few of them were still lauded for their notable piety.

Re: Hindu-themed hero I might as well mention that for the campaign featuring those three avatars of Vishnu as heroes, I also created an epic villain based on the tenth and last avatar of Vishnu, who in Hindu belief is still to come: Kalki ("Time"), who will appear on a white horse and wielding a scimitar. Kalki will end this era of the world, destroying the unrighteous and ushering in a new age.

Re: Pre-5e FH Settings Here is a followup to the excellent tips posted above. The "Free Stuff" section of the Hero Games website has a download of maps of the Broken Kingdoms, from this webpage. Our own Curufea has greatly elaborated on the Western Shores campaign setting on his personal website. His version departs from the original on several points, but could still be a good source of inspiration, as well as of details you could use to flesh out your version of the WS.

Re: Hindu-themed hero You might want to check out the Encyclopedia Mythica. Its section on Hindu "myth" is extensive, and may give you some ideas. In the past I've created Indian supers based on three of the avatars of Vishnu: Vamana, who had powers of Growth and Shrinking; Narasimha the lion-man; and Parasurama ("Rama with an axe"), a martial artist with a powerful magic weapon. You can look up all three in the Encyclopedia Mythica.

Re: Character: Nina Corovic (Galactic Champions Very solid brick build, and easy to insert into Galactic Champions or any similar setting. As her body is still new to her, it would easy for a player using her as a PC, or a GM, to justify her not only learning new "brick tricks," but discovering entirely new built-in powers.

Re: Resurrection Making JC's restoration of Lazarus that much more impressive.

Re: Curiousity about vampires and werewolves

Re: Champions Worlds

Re: Champions Worlds I would never expect such limited imagination of any HERO GM. OTOH DoJ is already catering to the "I don't want to do all the world-creating and number-crunching" GM, with quite a few books full of prebuilt stuff.

Re: A tricky rules question (Hellsing) From your comments I'm guessing that you've seen various constructs for projectiles that are built as Vehicles and Automatons, so that they're self-propelled and self-guiding, with the guns Summoning them; and that that construct doesn't appeal to you. Do I have that right? If so, you might consider applying various Advantages that can allow for this, with the Special Effects looking like what you want. For example, you could give the gun Area Of Effect: Selective Target to allow the bullet to strike several targets in the same Phase, but with the Special Effect being that it strikes each target in sequence. Or Indirect to allow the bullet to "follow" a target around a corner or over an intervening wall. If you go to this webpage, you'll find a writeup for Clint Eastwood's "spaghetti-western" character, The Man With No Name. Advantages like those are used to account for his ability to shoot with infallible accuracy, including multiple targets almost simultaneously.

Re: Champions Worlds By my understanding of the situation, that's true. Doesn't affect the point I was making, but it's true.

Re: Champions Worlds Well, one of the exciting things that was left dangling at the end of the original Strike Force, was that the artificial restraints on technological development (i.e. the in-campaign rationale for all that comicbook "super-science" stuff not making its way out into general society) had been removed. Mankind was ready to start moving out into the stars, taking its place among the other galactic civilizations. Aaron's campaign has continued for almost twenty years of real-world time (which closely parallels game time in his campaign), so the progress along those lines is likely to have been quite substantial. The very fact that all that time has gone by means there's likely to have been much evolution in the lives of all the original characters. For those of us who liked Strike Force, the Shadow Warriors and the rest of their lively neighbors, I think it would be a hoot to learn what they've been up to. Then there are all the wonderful characters and groups that appeared in SF and other past Hero products which Mr. Allston has retained the rights to, which we'll only see more about when he publishes his new SF material: the Circle, the Blood, the Producer, Scoff, Yooso and the Shadow Clan, Overlord and his family and their Federation of Atlantia, distinctive hero teams like AEGIS and the Avant Guard, and so on.

Re: Champions Worlds Yes, perhaps we can conclude that. I have to wonder how much of that is self-fulfilling prophecy, though. Looking back on the release schedule for past years, it seems to me that Hero Games never really intended to flesh out either the Turakian and Valdorian Ages when they were published, at least for the foreseeable future. Would these settings have generated more interest among fans if, for example, the upcoming city sourcebook for TA had come out shortly after the main setting book? The fact that it didn't appears to be part of HG's publishing plan, but if so it's one that I'm not sure I agree with.

Re: Champions Worlds Well, that may or may not be true, but in the case of The Mystic World and Arcane Adversaries, they were to a large extent already written by Dean Shomshak, being mostly updates and expansions of material he and others had already written for Fourth Edition Champs. I've noticed that HG management is more willing to consider slotting a book into their schedule when there's an existing manuscript already on hand.

Re: Champions Worlds Okay, you've got me there.

Re: Champions Worlds

Re: Champions Worlds You know, thinking about this issue there does seem to be a bit of inconsistency in Hero Games's world-support policy. On the one hand they've said that they don't want to devote resources to supporting more than one superhero world; whether one agrees with that policy or not, the rationale for it is reasonable. OTOH Hero Games has put out two very different campaign settings for the Star HERO and Fantasy HERO game lines, and FH is scheduled for at least one more in the future. Now, you could argue that all these settings are part of the Hero meta-universe, and so not really separate "worlds" as such; but each is so unique that it amounts to much the same thing. Another thing that seems rather inconsistent is the great number of supplements that HG has put out detailing particular elements of the Champions setting - villain books, organization books, city/region books, adventures - while not giving the same attention to the other game line settings. Are we to conclude that what sells for supers wouldn't sell for fantasy? Given the large number of books sold that detail discreet sections of fantasy worlds by other game companies, that seems counter-intuitive.

Re: Alternate Initiative Rolls IIRC Dark Champions 5E made a formal optional rule out of something that lots of HEROphiles have house-ruled for some time: by DEX, if tied then by INT. This makes sense given that Intelligence as a HERO Characteristic is defined as mental processing speed. It also gives more value to each point of INT, and a reason to not always buy the "efficient" number.

Re: Question about posting reworked characters Provided, of course, that that "tribute" doesn't use substantial portions of the original writeup as its basis. You can read the specifics of Hero Games's policies on posting their IP anywhere on the Internet on this webpage. There have been those who claim that these policies apply only to other websites, not here on the Hero Games company site; but company folks have made it clear that they feel the same way about their IP posted to these public discussion forums, where anyone can read it for free.

Re: Old supplement question.

Re: Project 1000: Build a Legend/Megahero Sometimes trying to keep that list up to date is a royal pain in the kiester. But then I hear the thanks from all the people who have made use of it: So yeah, it's worth it.

Re: Project 1000: Build a Legend/Megahero Hey, you started this thread. A year and a half ago I thought I'd post a little list of other RPGs I knew of converted to HERO System. Look where that got me.