Lord Liaden

In the books and Netflix series a cortical stack effectively grants you Life Support immortality by way of an obvious inaccessible focus. The books describe rich people having banks of blank clones for them to download into. One punishment in this world is to forcibly remove someone’s digital self from “their” body and adding the now empty body to the public bank of available bodies. The first book has the main character walking around in someone else’s body and having to deal with their nicotine addiction and attraction to another character. This might be a transform attack in Hero terms. Transform from human body to cortical stack digital human freight and vice versa. 

Well, my apartment's water heater broke down. I'll have to borrow hot water from my landlord downstairs until he can get it fixed. The pump was making some rather disturbing sounds, though, maybe it's possessed.

Jurassic Park eat your heart out: scientists really are bringing back extinct beasts

I didn't see any of that, but Cthulhu dropped by to borrow my lawn mower.

That's still a better look than any of her three catsuits. At least it's a uniform. 

Hmm... well, those times I've seen "cosmic/primal energies" referred to in Champions SFX, or in the comics, it's usually for things comparable to the Silver Surfer's Power Cosmic, Darkseid's Omega Beams, Green Lantern's green energy, the Infinity Gems/Stones, and the like. Implicitly, something grander and more fundamental than even stellar plasma. But for your game, of course you can define it as you like.

Most of what magic feel magical in Hero is focusing on the special effects and description rather than mechanics.  I mean you can buid all the D&D spells with Hero, but there's a big difference between "8d6 blast vs ED (fire) Area Effect Radius Explosion -3 to Magic Skill roll" and "a spark of fire flies from his fingertips and erupts into a gigantic ball of flame!"

Enterprise was just starting to find its footing in season 4, exploring the founding of the UFP and the first conflict with the Romulans. And finally exchanging Jolene Blalock's ridiculous body stocking for a proper uniform.
 
Sad that it got cut off so soon.

I think this was the perfect response to a GOP proposal to rename Dulles airport after Trump.
 
Democratic congressmen unveil bill to rename a federal prison after Trump (nbcnews.com)
 
I'm just disappointed that nobody pointed out that renaming an airport after him wasn't so out of bounds, either, as he's likely a flight risk.

A disturbingly large proportion of the population needs that book, though the ones who need it most are least likely to read it.
(( merged ))
 

$10.00

Turkey’s Erdogan dealt major election blow as opposition party wins big cities

Turkey’s Erdogan dealt major election blow as opposition party wins big cities

The keys to making magic feel magical in my opinion are:
 
keep much of it mysterious -- we don't know exactly how it works
don't worry about consistency -- yes, you can turn beans into peas, but not peas into beans
make it inconsistent or untrustworthy -- yeah I can blow up those orcs but it might not go exactly as I planned
let it be whimsical -- I can make you stronger, but you have to tie this toad to your forehead
don't make it too systematic or scientific -- my magical experiments are not always replicable
put limits on it -- magic cannot make your hair blonde, I'm sorry
make it difficult -- I studied 18 years to transform this block of wood into stone
make it have a cost -- yes, I can bring him back from the dead but it ages me a year, and he will have no memory
focus more on flexibility and utility than power -- no I cannot blow the orc horde to pieces, but I can conjure up siege engines and food for your armies
Make sure it feels magical -- I cannot fly like Superman but I can sprout huge bat wings and fly at night during the full moon
 
This kind of thing makes magic feel set apart from science or superpowers or mutant abilities, etc.  Magic only feels magical if it is made to seem that way.  If you can do the same things with magic as a superhero, or vice versa, you've lost its special sense.

Turkey’s Erdogan dealt major election blow as opposition party wins big cities

Turkey’s Erdogan dealt major election blow as opposition party wins big cities

Turkey’s Erdogan dealt major election blow as opposition party wins big cities

I've always been intrigued by the Byzantine Empire, so I'm inclined to consider using the reign of the Emperor, Manuel I Komnenos (1143-1180). Manuel had particularly good relations with Western European realms, including the Crusaders who held territories in the Middle East. He formed military alliances with those nations and with the Pope, and even adopted some of their cultural traditions such as jousting tournaments. The Empire thus presents an interesting "East meets West" flavor. Manuel's conflicts with Hungary in the Balkans, and the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia, leave plenty of opportunities for scenarios of battle and intrigue. And of course, there's no better location for big-city adventures than Constantinople.
 
The Byzantine Emperor's elite personal force, the Varangian Guard, were recruited from foreign countries with a Norse-Germanic tradition of personal loyalty to the lord they swore to serve. Originally these were from Rus, later Scandinavia, and by Manuel's reign, primarily Anglo-Saxons unhappy with Norman rulership of England. So there's plenty of rationale to have PCs from other lands emigrate to the Empire and experience its unique culture for the first time.