Steve

I vaguely recall coming across a discussion of how to simulate the seven lightsaber forms practiced by the Jedi in the forums years ago, but my Search Fu has failed me. Perhaps it once existed but has since been deleted. Does anyone else recall this, or am I suffering from the Mandela Effect?

It’s like a type of timeshare, I suppose. How much would you pay to be a boxer for an hour? You’d feel the thrills and pains of the fight for that time, then the recovery would be felt by the body’s owner.

I’m talking about armor, a consideration of its interaction with Combat Luck might be valuable, especially if the campaign has set maxima on defenses for PCs. For just six character points spent (five in settings like the Valdorian Age which add an additional limitation that it does not work if wearing more than 15kg of armor), a cap of 8 rDEF means that 4-5 rDEF from actual armor is all that is needed. Buy two levels, and 2 rDEF leather becomes all you can wear. It’s a consideration that probably should be taken into account.

Yes, the character had Distinctive Features and a Social Complication. They didn’t really come into play during the one-shot, but they would cause trouble eventually.

One of the PCs in my recent one-shot was Drindrish-blooded (basically a half-elf), a legacy of their race mixing with humans long ago. He had an ancient, inherited elfin chainmail hauberk (the only advantage it had was that it was half-mass).

I’m now curious, DS. What were your favorite parts of the Turakian Age’s setting that were outside the Weaterlands? Regarding the Valdorian Age’s setting, it seemed to have plenty of flavor, but it needs the GM to do a bit of work to expand what’s outside Elweir. There’s a skeleton to build on, but there does need some work on the part of the GM to flesh it out.

I recently used Elweir in a one-shot test for a possible S&S campaign set in the Valdorian Age, and my players all enjoyed themselves a lot, so that gets it a thumbs up from the four of us.

The funny thing is that the spellchecker on my phone kept trying to change the spelling to COVID from corvid. Having bats would be interesting, but I was trying for something with a feel suggestive of Hitchcock’s “The Birds” movie.

Have you ever wondered how supervillains just starting out get their first minions? What does a minor master villain do when one of their agents gets sick or incapacitated right before a big job? Mook Temps is an underworld temporary help agency that matches mooks and thugs with aspiring supervillains and short handed villain organizations. They also provide technicians for hire.

Corvid Cove is a small port town that apparently got its name from the almost ubiquitous quantity of ravens that live there, and who seem to have driven away the more normal seabirds one would find in such places. The ravens are everywhere, as if they are watching people. According to tales, it originated as a pirate hideout, the surprisingly deep bay concealed by high cliffs and a twisting passage entrance that required excellent sailing skills and nerves of steel to enter or depart back then. However, the pirates eventually made too much of a nuisance of themselves and were massacred by the navies of several nations in the region. Their bones lie strewn about the bottom of the cove along with several sunken wrecks said to contain untold wealth for those willing to risk it, but they are rumored to be haunted. It is said that the ships rise from the briny deep and head out into the ocean like in days of old to plunder unwary vessels on nights when the moon is dark and the fog is heavy. After killing off the pirates, the narrow channel leading to the cove was blasted open and expanded, making it easier to traverse. Over the next several decades trade began flowing through the town, taking advantage of its qualities as a seaport. Alas, years later, other locales began rising up that were more convenient to use, and the town slowly died. Corvid Cove is a barely living shadow of itself now, its buildings huddled and archaic. It is like a medieval version of Lovecraft Country, with whispered secrets enticing the curious and unwary to their doom.

Yes, I backed the Kickstarter as well, so I know where you’re coming from. As it is, I use it as source material for a potential Hero campaign setting I would run.

As one of the pillars supporting the town, the farmers have long been organized as the Grammarspire Guild of Crofters. The weekly meetings are mainly an excuse for the men to get together and drink and gamble a bit, but they also set prices for grains and gathered nuts and fruits from the woods and come together to support each other during times of trouble, like fires or suchlike. A number of them are decent brewers, sharing their products with each other and selling their wares to passing merchants. They are semi-friendly rivals with the Grammarspire Fraternal Order of Ranchers and Sheepherders, the other main mens group in the town. Grammarspire Wool is known for having a certain softness and sells well in neighboring towns and cities. The milk from the local cows stays fresh for far longer than normal and makes quite excellent cheeses, which makes for a decent trade with merchants. They also sell their excess sheep and cattle for eventual butchering. The Craftsmen Guild is smaller than the other two but its membership includes businesses in town such as candlemakers, silversmiths, paper makers, bookbinders and so forth. Wine is their favored drink, viewing it as a bit more highbrow than the ales and beers the farmers and sheepherders drink. The Quill and Parchment Club is even smaller and includes those men who provide scribe and accounting services. As a clergyman and a man of letters himself, Father Ebenezer socializes with them. They are more the brandy and tea sort of drinkers.

Sheriff Brawn is a brutish-looking man that some whisper might have more than a bit of orc blood flowing in his veins. A widower, his wife was never a strong woman and passed away in the dead of winter less than a year after his assignment here over a decade ago, leaving him with two young children to care for, a girl and boy, both under three years old. Uncertain if it was blasphemy but unable to manage raising his two children alone, he bought a binding charm from the wizard’s apprentice and made his way into the woods two days after his wife’s passing, unwilling to wait for the spring thaw when the unwed local men first start looking for a nymph bride. More often in summertime, but never in winter. His Faewife Ella is a statuesque, Nordic beauty with silver-white hair and ice-blue eyes, always having a sternly imperious gaze in public to go with her very regal bearing. The locals whisper fearfully that she’s a Fae noble of some kind who will bring an endless winter upon them if she is displeased, and the other Faewives keep a respectful distance from her, refusing to say why.

Fair enough. Having the wizards and Fae is already plenty magical. Father Ebenezer does not even have to be a spellcaster, I suppose. He has plenty of drama to offer PCs from wrestling with his own issues and as a potential source of information as more of an outsider to the town despite being a resident for some time. Maybe a low magic feel for most of the town might be better. Yes, there is a wizard and an apprentice, but they may be more cloistered sorts that don’t make many appearances and are more there for background. The townsfolk look at what they are doing as a necessity and blame the Fae for the lack of women, I would think. Its a creepy tradition, I admit.

I suppose the wood could have a modest contingent of druids, now that I think of it. The townsfolk look at them as cult-like weirdos, attracting a few impressionable youths now and then, but mostly keeping to themselves and having their own children in a more symbiotic relationship with the human-sized Fae, since they would have no girl children born either. After generations of breeding in the woods without very much human stock being added to dilute the Fae influences, instead of being Fae-touched, they might be more akin to half-elves or full-blooded elves in ability and appearance. Their membership would be in mild contention with the church of the official state religion which has a local priest in residence in the town. Father Ebenezer Grimm is a young, idealistic, missionary sort of priest instead of a die-hard heretic-hunter, seeking to open lines of communications with non-believers to expand his flock. He found it more than a bit disturbing that the local women attending his church with their husbands were bound Fae, but he is gradually being seduced to accept the idea. The many journals kept by his predecessors are helping him along this path, and he wonders if taking his own Fae-wife would gain him greater acceptance by the community. To earn money, the druids maintain small groves of fruit and nut trees, gathering the produce for sale in town in the farmers market. Their appearance causes some concerned murmuring among the townsfolk, but they are not actively discriminated against.

Maeve Tanner is an example of such a nymph bride, the mother of two young boys who bakes excellent apple tarts that she sells in the marketplace to make some extra coins for the family, and she is always smiling and humming happy melodies. Her husband Edwin Tanner is of the ninth generation here and owns a small tannery near their home that he inherited from his father, specializing in making vellum for the wizards and selling his excess product to traders passing through. He is a quiet, meek sort of man who tries to be a good father and husband, but he is haunted by lingering guilt about what he did to make Maeve his wife and knows she will someday return to the woods after he is dead, forgetting all about him and their children, just as his own mother did after his father died. Just as happened in all the generations before his did.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Yes, I was thinking businesses providing wizardly materials would most likely be the town's core industries, so making paper, vellum and ink, along with bookbinding would indeed be thriving businesses. And any excess not needed by the wizard and apprentice could be traded to other towns and faraway cities for items not made locally. Spinners and tanners would also find buyers for their wares, and sheepherders and their flocks would support them in turn. Likewise, for candlemakers, glassworks and silversmiths. I had not thought of beekepers in all this, but the beeswax and honey might have some minor magical properties from fairy dust-infused pollens the bees picked up from flowers in the woods and grasslands surrounding it and so be in demand by wizards and temples for their properties. Grammarspire is not huge, perhaps only a few hundred people or so (about 500 or less), and there is a certain "Grammarspire Look" among the locals whose families have been here for more than a generation, a certain Fae quality to them. Visitors to the town have also noticed that the local women, those who did not originate from elsewhere, are all very attractive specimens, even those who are past their youth. This is due to a town secret: no girl children have ever been born here, long believed by the locals to be some kind of fairy curse on the town. This situation has gone on for so many generations now that no one living knows why things are like this, and it caused the founders of the town to look to the woods for a solution when they first realized the problem. Young men nowadays have a rite of passage when they reach a certain age, taking with them a special charm necklace provided by the wizard and seeking out one of the nymph glades to capture themselves a bride. The binding charm only lasts until the human dies or releases their mate, freeing the captured nymph to retreat back to the woods, forgetting their brief years (or decades) among humans as they revert back to their Fae selves and abandon the more human-like guise the charm imposed upon them, even causing them to appear to very gracefully age if they remain longer than a few years. At any given time, there are dozens of such nymph brides in town, taking care of households and children, and working alongside their "husbands" in local businesses and trades. They are constantly smiling and always appear happy, giving off a "Stepford Wife" sort of vibe.

Grammarspire is the name of a centuries old wizard’s tower located on the edge of a forest with an ancient history of faerie enchantments and dangerous magical beasts that attracted the original builder of the tower here when he was an adventurer, but it has been fairly quiescent for many decades thanks to the irregular efforts of various roving bands of adventurers passing through from time to time as well as past wizards plundering the slowly dwindling magical resources from the woodlands. Years might pass between visits by such adventuring companies nowadays. While not located on a major trade road, it still sees some occasional visitors and generally needs to fend for itself. The local population, while kind of insular and maybe a little creepy at times due to the lingering powers of the Faewood, is not anywhere close to the level of malevolent, gothic weirdness like Innsmouth from Lovecraft lore, just some minor quirkiness. The tower is what gave the town its name and has been handed down from master to apprentice since it was first built several hundred years ago, occasionally added on to with things like an alchemical lab or enlarging the library. Wizardry is a very, very rare gift, requiring an inborn talent that few have, so the presence of the wizard is a point of pride to the locals. During the course of time, a small town has risen up around the tower, taking advantage of the presence of the wizards who provide the heavy artillery of the town’s protection with their magics. The local Duke sends a new sheriff to manage law and order every decade or two, and the wizard allows this to keep from being bothered to deal with every minor bandit problem or suchlike. If things rise to a level beyond what the sheriff and his few deputies can handle, the current apprentice will be sent out to handle things. If that still isn’t enough, then the wizard will get involved. I’m looking for input in what sort of individuals or businesses might congregate around such a place to provide needed services and products for the current wizard and any apprentices or who would feel comfortable living on the edge of an enchanted wood that still has a few mysteries deep within it and remnants of Fae enchantments. Since it’s been around a while, some of the local families might have been present for ten or more generations.

As I recall, the Gestalt setting had tiers of power, and to increase your abilities to the next tier above the campaign’s level (with tier names something like Novice Hero, Experienced Hero, Respected Hero, etc) required purchasing a Perk for each level upwards. It struck me as a nicely straightforward way to do power increases. In an old Chanpions campaign, I let characters rank up like in Gestalt after a certain amount of XPs (like 50 points, I think).

I'm looking forward to Hero Games starting a Patreon account and plan to join it as a supporter, and I'm especially excited to hear about the Martial World supplement.

One way I am considering doing fast, early growth in an upcoming campaign is to taper it off at different point totals. In 6th Edition starting characters at 50 points and 25 in Complications, then granting 20-25 XP per session for the first few sessions, then lowering that to 10 XP once characters reach 125 total points. Then to 5 at 175 and see how things go from there. Maybe stop to 2 points per session once characters reach 200 points. We play every other week, so quick initial growth followed by slower growth seems good to me.

It’s the end of 2021. Whatever happened with the IHA book? I read back through the thread and didn’t see any recent updates. Maybe I missed it? Will there be a 2022 announcement thread next week/month?

Another supplement was just released. Are they selling many at their current price points? Even without much art and substandard production values, I’d still buy them if they were about a third of what they are selling for now. Ten to fifteen cents a page would be reasonable to me. As things stand, I’m waiting on the collection to be published in a year or two.

Bumping for another Christmas.

As we start heading into the Christmas season, I hope my fellow Hero fans will consider helping the less fortunate. Here are a few charities I am supporting and hope you might give something as well. WaterAid has been working to transform lives for more than 40 years through the power of clean water. Imagine being able to go online and purchase three chickens for a family in a developing country. Or lifesaving nutrition for a young child. Or a beehive to families who have been impacted by drought, to help them generate income. Volunteer to help those around you. There are opportunities everywhere.