Lord Liaden

Re: Fantasy Hero Exalted Very nice work, UltraRob! In particular, I'd say your "combat bonus rubrick" is very much in the spirit of "Appropriate Unlikely Actions" as described in the Champions genre book, if not actually matching the suggestions there. Have you considered putting your last two posts on the "Exalted HERO Conversion" thread on RPGnet? I think it would really stimulate the conversation there for all those Exalted boosters to see more examples of how their stuff would translate into HERO.

Re: Space Wizards (info, advice, & suggestions sought) This just occurred to me tonight as an element that might fit into your setting: how about the Nagas, the enemies of the Dragon from The Mystic World? We know almost nothing about their origins, other than they're an ancient mystical race that's somehow connected to the Dragon. AFAICT there's nothing to say that the Nagas don't originate from another planet in this galaxy. Given that they seem to be on Humanity's side against the Dragon, they would probably become involved as mankind moved out to the stars, as long as magic is still potent.

Re: Super vehicles Okay, I'll just pull out the best of the working ones : http://www.up-ship.com/ptm/dropstuff.htm http://jpcolliat.free.fr/xfv12/xfv12-1.htm http://aeroweb.brooklyn.cuny.edu/database/aircraft/getimage.htm?id=982 http://prototypes.free.fr/vtol/nouv1/hawkerP.1214-3_03.jpg http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/SpaceLVs/Slides/sld047.htm http://www.luft46.com/misc/wes1003.html http://www.luft46.com/luftart.html http://www.fantastic-plastic.com/LockheedL-133Page.htm http://www.unrealaircraft.com/wings/ccf_liftbody.php http://www.aero-web.org/specs/grumman/f7f-3.htm And of course, proditor's webpage is functioning again: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/champsstuff/index.html

Re: Help with a Super Villain Hmm... I'm not familiar with Terror by Night, so I don't know what role Baron Victor Heinrich plays in it. There are vampires, and there are vampires. The most formidable "super-class" vampire that I've seen under Fifth Edition is the assassin Angelina, from Digital Hero #6. She's a scion of an old Mafia family, a highly-trained hitwoman, and has been a vampire for many years. She's a pure mercenary, killing anyone if the money's right; but you could certainly change her motivation if that doesn't work for the adventure. She is noted as Hunting those that she feels have wronged her. Angelina is built on 600 Character Points, and is much more efficiently designed than the Greater Vampire from the Bestiary. She's very formidable in a physical confrontation, but has substantial mental powers and stealth abilities as well. Besides her supernatural abilities and considerable combat training, she typically carries a silvered katana and an advanced needler pistol, and "ballistic cloth" armor. These things are said to bear some resemblance to VIPER and UNTIL equipment, so the character has at least a slight tie to the mainstream Champions Universe. BTW the DH article featuring her also provides a "basic vampire" template, and describes various abilities that vampires might possess which you could use to customize that template. They come across as similar to the abilities of vampires from White Wolf's RPG of the same name, which I suspect is deliberate. I hope that's helpful.

Re: Super vehicles True, but most of the other links on those threads still work.

Re: Super vehicles I think you'll find interesting stuff below: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35453 http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22106

The following was posted on the RPGnet discussion forums. It looked too good not to share.

Re: Space Wizards (info, advice, & suggestions sought) Hmm... nope, not in the Enemies books. Even the Slug didn't look much like a Mind Flayer in his first incarnation. Could you possibly be thinking of the Prime, leader of the "Old Ones," from Wrath of the Seven Horsemen? The look of the character is bang-on Flayer, and his main schtick is various mental powers. Aside from being another ancient alien occult horror, though, he and his minions have no connection to the Thane. They're much more similar to the Elder Worms in both origin and their relation to Lovecraftian "elder gods."

Re: Space Wizards (info, advice, & suggestions sought) BTW Bob, if you have easy access to it you might look up the Fourth Edition Champs book Alien Enemies for characters and concepts you could use. I can think of a couple that might fit with the campaign you have in mind. One is the Arcane, a race of pseudo-Lovecraftian creatures dwelling on an dying planet. These creatures are skilled sorcerors, but have almost exhausted the magic on their world, so they seek to conquer another with more potential. They bear obvious similarities to the Thane and could be used to add more details to your version of them. I was always intrigued by their creation of the Midnight Society, humans enthralled by an alien artifact the Arcane sent to Earth, who are working to summon the Arcane themselves to this planet. Another appropriate concept from Alien Enemies is the Pantheon. This is a group of immortal energy beings (which the 4E Champions Universe book calls "the Alpha") who interact with the physical world by bonding with organic beings, creating a blended personality and granting their "hosts" formidable superhuman powers. They often masquerade as the gods of any planet they visit, Roman gods in the case of Earth. I've used the Alpha in my own campaigns; while the Pantheon from AE were mostly what we'd now call "standard superhero" level, I decided that they were relatively young members of their species, and that ancient Alpha could be far more powerful.

Re: Space Wizards (info, advice, & suggestions sought) Well, according to Classic Enemies, Avar-7 was vulnerable to magic due to the actions of the Thane, who were enemies of Avar-7's civilization, the Unity (an ancient culture of sentient machines, according to 4E Champions Universe). 4E CU also describes the Thane as a fantastically ancient race of malevolent sorcerors, now existing as undead beings animated through sorcery. I imagine Takofanes would feel right at home amongst them.

Re: Space Wizards (info, advice, & suggestions sought) I think I may be able to help you a bit, Bob. 1. There hasn't been much more mention of the Thane in official Hero Games books. However, in Digital Hero #5 Scott Bennie wrote an adventure, "Stars Of Blood," which includes a writeup for a Thane necromancer and his undead minions. As he points out, though, this isn't an official writeup; the stats were based on the Thane as he used them in his own campaign. Scott provides a few more details about "his" Thane in this post. There was also some info about the Thane in the first edition of Champions Universe, for the Fourth Edition CU. To me it looks like that was part of the inspiration for Scott's stuff. 2. I'd say that the real-world magical traditions detailed in The Ultimate Mystic, such as Voodoo and Hermetic Theurgy, would be reasonable to use in a human-occupied future world where magic worked. If you plan to allow low-level supers in your setting, you might also consider the numerous "supermagic" spells from The Mystic World. IIRC TMW also includes Technomancy. Of course there are several excellent HERO fan websites with writeups for magic spells, artifacts and the like, e.g. the ones by Killer Shrike, Markdoc and Robert Hall, that I could direct you to if you like. 3. For other CU aliens, your best resource would be Digital Hero. For example, DH #8 includes more detailed information about the Osathri, the Shiseki, and the Az'arc'a, including game stats. There's a substantial free sample from that article here. In DH #9 there are additional tidbits about the various aliens from Terran Empire that were cut from the main book. Again, some of that article is in a free sample. There's also an adventure revolving around the Shiseki in DH #11. Now if you'd like to include true superpowered aliens in your setting, you might want to check out Mike Surbrook's expansion of the Nehkojin (from Ninja HERO) in the upcoming DH #35. This isn't official HU material, but Mike has provided a background that integrates the Nehkojin into the HU. If you'd just like HERO stats for interesting aliens from various sources, you could always check my RPG conversion list. There you can find detailed stats for aliens from Traveller, GURPS Aliens, and Star Frontiers, among others. 4. You probably have these books already, but just in case : there might be useful campaign guidelines for the kind of game you describe in Ninja HERO, while the various characters in Galactic Champions could be adapted with a power reduction and name change. I hope that helps.

Re: Terrible Thoughts -- Simple Concept, Expensive Build 'Fraid not, presti. Continuing Charges can only be used with Powers that are Constant or Persistent. (FREd p. 182/ 5ER p. 284) You'd have to make an Instant Power Constant before you could slap Continuing Charges on it, and that still requires Continuous.

Re: !SPOILER! Vibora Bay You're all very kind. This outline would still require some work to prepare for alternative actions that the players might choose to take (contrary little devils that they are). Perhaps I'll flesh out some that I can anticipate later when I have more time, if anyone's interested.

Re: Hindu-themed hero And there are three more fully written up in Champions Worldwide; but I get the impression than Vanguard00 would like a rationale for creating his own original characters.

Re: CU question: See through super material? I also found this section of the article very pertinent to the conventions of a supers campaign: All those "cost-effectiveness" reasons for supertech not penetrating to wider society may not be so far-fetched after all.

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