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Steve

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  1. Like
    Steve got a reaction from Boll Weevil in Stripping down the CU to basics   
    Like the Marvel and DC universes, the Champions Universe is a pretty busy place.
     
    I’ve been doing some thinking, wondering how far to strip it down for a future campaign, to get down to the core elements.
     
    For example, instead of thousands of superhumans across the globe with a multitude of origins, the pool shrinks to a few hundred or maybe less. Instead of a multitude of superteams, there are very few.
     
    Instead of a multitude of alien races and invasion armadas every few years, there are only a handful of races and no mass invasions.
     
    The same thing for mystic stuff. The occasional demon shows up, but not the legions of hell.
     
    Bring the agent groups down in number to just maybe UNTIL and VIPER.
     
    I’m pondering a more manageable variant of the CU, but don’t want to cut into the bone.
     
    How much of the CU is bloat and fat that could be pulled out, but still leave the core feel of it intact?
  2. Like
    Steve got a reaction from Doc Democracy in How to do a Three-Legged Race?   
    I suppose relative STR might come into play. If there is 5-10 or more STR on one side, maybe the other party becomes increasingly irrelevant?
  3. Like
    Steve got a reaction from Old Man in The Creation of Evil Races   
    One idea for how orcs multiply I once read is due to dark sinkholes gathering evil and starting to produce them, kind of like how their production was shown in the LOTR movies. Orcs are thus a type of corruption of the land.
  4. Thanks
    Steve got a reaction from DShomshak in Market Research: Creatures of the Night, Revised?   
    I would buy it, and I would find a way to use them.
  5. Like
    Steve reacted to DShomshak in Market Research: Creatures of the Night, Revised?   
    Several of the 4e characters I created in Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies were revised for later editions of Champions, ultimately making it to the Champions Villains trilogy. Most of them, however, did not. Tiger has expressed interest in updating selected characters for his Forgotten Enemies series (and used Lady Twilight with my blessing), but -- since I am still here -- I might like to do this myself. I've noodled around with Creatures of the Night Resurrected for the last several months, writing up 5e/CC versions of several characters. Before I go further, though, I have some important questions:
     
    Does anybody want this? Did you ever use them, back in the day? Would you use them if they were revised?
     
    Subsequent posts will discuss ways I plan to revise characters, but if they were never that useful in the first place I probably won't bother.
     
    Dean Shomshak
  6. Like
    Steve reacted to Drhoz in Quote of the Week from my gaming group...   
    Regardless of how the next few minutes play out, the rebellion in Kintargo is going to have to wildly revise their threat estimate of Lord-Mayor Barzillai Thrune. The trap he laid would have devastated us, even if we hadn’t shown up. But it’s equally shocking how many resources he must have expended setting this up. 
     
    Consider - in the Red Corner : Dozens of heavily armed Dotarri, Half a dozen Bearded Devils, a huge Bone Devil, an Erinyes, and a Contract Devil. Each of the devils has been concealed with expensive glamours and magical items until it was time to slaughter everybody in the building.
     
    In the Blue Corner - Four artists and intellectuals and a few of their friends.
     
    The Ghosts of Kintargo are not people suited to mass combat. In fact, our only member suited for face-to-face combat is Rajira’s cousin Mahat, who no doubt we’ll find sitting on a pile of dead Dotarri outside, later. Rajira is pretty deft with a kukri, true, but she got most of her skill at interpersonal violence while training for the Opera.
     
    At least the Contract Devil is dead, if that was indeed Cizmerkis disguised as Thrune on the stage. And the Dotarri are clearly dismayed by the apparent death of their Lord-Mayor. But we're still seriously outnumbered, some of us are already badly wounded, and the assorted Devils have clearly identified us as People That Need To Die. Unfortunately the really big Azata is really a really big Bone Devil. They can turn invisible. And Fly. As Civilla, still up in the chandelier, will shortly learn to her cost. The Azata that was already flying is actually an Erinyes, and a horribly efficient sniper. And Rajira is having really, really bad luck avoiding the Bearded Devils. And one of the latter is paying attention to Terzo again. 
     
    Then Civilla drops a Chthonic Ankylosaur onto the stage.
     
    Civilla: If I kept the Xill around there was a real chance somebody would get implanted with more Xill.
    Ayva: The opera about these events is going to be hilarious.
     
    Happily, if Terzo dashes to the front of the orchestra pit then most of the party (and the Ankylosaur) can be buffed with the spell Good Hope. Another aria arises from the chaos.
     
    Ayva: I can’t WAIT to see this opera.
     
    Some of our other allies - Captain Cassius Sargaeta of the Chellish Navy, his boyfriend Marquel Aulorian, and the faerie dragon Vendalfek - keep working on getting the civilians out of the building alive, without too many of them being trampled to death.
     
    Up on the balcony the Painted Nox and original continue to mutually annihilate - happily our fake is smart enough to stick as close as possible to Thrune’s bodyguard, to prevent her using her own evil glaive to best effect. And the original Nox has a Baleful Gaze attack now, after tearing a pair of blinders from her eyes in a brutal display. 
     
    Although that affects her own allies as well, and the Painted Nox is immune. And for that matter everybody is too busy to even notice her trying to catch their gaze. At least Shimza can do ranged healing in the form of Scorching Rays and Flaming Spheres that make people feel better (with the added bonus that the Bearded Devils pause their attacks on people that are apparently already on fire). And Civilla and Shimza can Dimension Slide to somewhere safer than the chandelier and hide in an Invisibility Sphere. And the Dire Corby we’ve been having trained by a barbarian is finally able to help in combat. She might not be optimised for Face-to-Face Combat but she’s very very good at Beak-to-Spine.
     
    Ayva: Our Lady of Squawking Death.
     
    Although she hasn’t actually dismembered anything but training dummies lately. We’ve been trying to teach her to use her rage constructively.
     
    Ayva in Flashback: ‘No no, you don’t cut them in half, because that’s murder. And murder is…?’ ‘... and Murder is wrong’
    Rajira in Flashback: No, murder is crows.
     
    Still, the Bearded Devil that Chough lands behind is definitely going to be murdered, after she grabs each side of his head and tears him in half down the middle.
     
    Chough: RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE
     
    Upstairs, our Painted Nox prevents the original from using the gaze attack again. Or gazing at anything ever again, by slicing her shiny magical glaive through both Nox’s eyes. If that WAS Cizmerkis the Xill killed, then the original Nox might just have been released from her contract, and is free to flee. Not that she can see to flee. Further, since it was Civilla’s Xill that landed the killing blow, she might be able to claim Nox’s contract by Right of Conquest. 
     
    Terzo OoC: You MIGHT want to consult a lawyer on that idea first.
     
    It probably won’t matter anyway - Civilla shadow-conjures a Holy Javelin and runs her through - Arcane Casters are ridiculously versatile. The original Nox staggers as holy light and clarions ravage her, and gets pushed out a window to a Disney Death. Where everybody can see that there are clearly two Noxs, and this one was some kind of abomination, and our one a blazing figure of goodness.
     
    Rajira’s player: Oh god, we’re conflating two great songs - Blinded By The Light and Holy Diver.
     
    The Bone Devil manages to critically injure itself (possibly it was blinded by the light of the Nox Kebab) but the Erinyes mages to mortally wound Terzo even as he’s trying to assist his friends with their own injuries. It can also see straight through the Invisibility Sphere. It’s just as well Shimza has an Amulet of Life’s Breath that Civilla made for her, to keep her going beyond any normal amount of injury.  
     
    Civilla: We magic-users know exactly how squishy we are. 
     
    At least the burrowing Ankylosaur continues to be effective. At the very least the nearly dead Ayva can hide behind it.
     
    Civilla: I brought a siege engine to a knife fight.
     
    Chough is certainly going through the opposition like a Ballista, too. She nearly kills a second Devil as it’s trying to Greater Teleport out of her way. And then the Ankylosaur becomes even more like a siege weapon, because Ayva casts Fly on it (and Rajira), from where she was hiding underneath. The Bone Devil and the Erinyes certainly weren’t expecting THAT. The concussed Erinyes crashes to earth just as the Euphoric Cloud obscuring half the room disperses. 
     
    Rajira yells to Terzo get in behind the Erinyes while she attacks from the front, but this nearly backfires terribly as the Bone Devil casts Hemisphere of Ice first - or attempts to. It would seem it forgot about the Ankylosaur. You’d think a Flying Chthonic Ankylosaur would be difficult to forget. The devil gets thagomized in the face. At least if it suffers True Death at the dinosaur's tailclub it won’t have to explain to anybody what happened. That would just be embarrassing.
     
    Painted Nox does a Superhero Landing from the balcony (Constructs with Regeneration don’t have to worry about broken ankles) and contributes to the flanking on the Erinyes. Rajira Flies in to the attack. Chough leaps clear across the orchestra pit to contribute some properly directed violence. Ayva adds Mydriatic Spontaneity, to keep the devil’s pupils constantly dilating and contracting and leaving it half-blind and nauseated. The dottari still intoxicated by the Euphoric Cloud watch all this with fascination, swaying slightly.
     

     
    Ayva OoC: I can't wait until Civilla can summon Chthonic T. Rexes. 
    Terzo OoC: We’ve all seen that episode of The Goodies.
     

  7. Like
    Steve got a reaction from Doc Democracy in The Creation of Evil Races   
    I wonder. If you substituted orcs for the xenovores, with the orcs suffering the same horrendous losses in population that the xenovores did, would that “natural selection” leave a less inherently hostile species? I’m not so sure. They also gleefully ate other sentient species.
     
    Per my understanding of Tolkien’s writings, orcs continued in Middle Earth into the Fourth Age and were eventually hunted down to the last one.
  8. Like
    Steve reacted to Lord Liaden in The Creation of Evil Races   
    There is an important distinction, though. The Xenovores are sapient. By the time they cross interstellar space they have advanced medical technology, which they use to genetically modify themselves to create castes suited for particular roles in their society. There's every reason to believe they could remove their dependence on eating other sapients. The fact that later generations of Xenovores overcome it through natural selection, as Dean points out above, proves that it's possible. Instead the Xenovores embrace it, glorify it, make it central to their own cultural myth of superiority. They unapologetically and enthusiastically murder untold millions. You can say that it's part of their heritage, that it's become ingrained in their civilization so that they never question it. That may be true, but the fact remains that they have a choice, and this is what they chose.
  9. Thanks
    Steve reacted to Lord Liaden in The Creation of Evil Races   
    And I know a perfect example, the Xenovores, from Hero's sci-fi future settings. They were genetically engineered to be able to consume and digest almost any organic matter, but to derive intense addictive pleasure from consuming other sapient beings. In fact their term for sapients translates as, "food-that-pleads."
     
    Because Xenovores can prey on everything else, they've concluded they're the highest form of life in the galaxy, and all other beings exist to provide them with slaves and food. They built an interstellar empire, conquering other species, hundreds of millions of whom found their final rest down Xenovore gullets.
  10. Like
    Steve got a reaction from Doc Democracy in The Creation of Evil Races   
    A supernatural power modifies a subset or perhaps an entire species of humanoids so they find enjoyment or pleasure in harming or killing others not of their kind, a change on the genetic level so it is inheritable by their descendants. While they technically still have a choice to resist these urges but none of them choose to resist what their instincts lead them to do, with sweet dopamine hits in their heads for doing so and a cultural upbringing that embraces these urges, are they then inherently evil?
  11. Like
    Steve got a reaction from Lord Liaden in The Creation of Evil Races   
    One idea for how orcs multiply I once read is due to dark sinkholes gathering evil and starting to produce them, kind of like how their production was shown in the LOTR movies. Orcs are thus a type of corruption of the land.
  12. Like
    Steve got a reaction from Doc Democracy in The Creation of Evil Races   
    One idea for how orcs multiply I once read is due to dark sinkholes gathering evil and starting to produce them, kind of like how their production was shown in the LOTR movies. Orcs are thus a type of corruption of the land.
  13. Like
    Steve got a reaction from DentArthurDent in Traveller Hero: Pirates of Drinax   
    @Durzan Malakim @thudgun@King RedAs you all know, Krrsh the Vargr was an interesting case of NPC neglect that I could finally find a plotline use for. He is a former Vargr pirate captain who was betrayed and left aboard a space station, and the PCs picked him up during one of their earliest adventures. With his aid, they managed to get to the pirate world of Theev, and then he was simply forgotten about and given no duties on board for months of in-game time and also real world time. His character description in the module is that he is a loudmouth, a drunkard and an astrogator, and so in my notes he has just been off in a corner quietly getting drunk while all the PCs have been having their adventures as they jump about star systems in the ship. Months later he shows up again in one of the PCs quarters @King Red, caught raiding his private stock of expensive wine, and then he gets a plotline of getting beaten into shape. I suppose we will see if it takes.
     
    I was actually quite impressed with how the whole Vanderbilt storyline last session ended up. This bunch of NPC dilettante losers shows up hoping to sponge off their relative, the PC, who has managed to get a piece of a planet and a noble title (baronet), led by his widowed mother. Despite her having only just shown up for the first time on camera in the campaign, that PC refused to take the easy way out with her, because she was his character’s mother. He could have had her mind wiped and turned into a meat puppet with an AI installed to drive the body. Then there was talk of doing this with useless cousin Gaston Vanderbilt, and he went along for a little while then changed his mind. Then there was talk of leaving a clone of himself behind to deal with the useless bunch of dilettantes that is his family, and the abandoned, arranged marriage fiancee that is part of his backstory, and just heading off for the stars to be a pirate. It was all quite an interesting look into the mind of Harrison Vanderbilt IV.
  14. Like
    Steve got a reaction from DentArthurDent in Traveller Hero: Pirates of Drinax   
    It's been a while since the last update. Our intrepid group of pirates have made a lot of progress in the campaign, traveling up into the Spinward Marches to the distant worlds of Mirage and eventually all the way to Neumann, a journey of almost twenty-five parsecs or 13 jumps. They almost managed to catch her at Fist, at the most Rimward border of the Spinward Marches, but they encountered complications that enabled the nanotech infected scientist to escape and continue to Mirage.
     
    Thanks to plentiful expenditures of HAPs at the climax of that adventure, they were able to enact a cure to the nanotech plague on Neumann that had consumed half the planet, ending up getting paid but then subsequently banished from that world. They then made their way back down to the Trojan Reach, trying their hand some more at doing some honest trading along the way. They had done some of this on the way up as well.
     
    During their long journey back, they picked up an archaeologist who paid High Passage all the way to Drinax, who had a message globe dating back to the end of the Sindalan Empire, getting the PCs involved in a hunt for a legendary treasure, not of gold and jewels, but planet-destroying weapons of biological and nuclear varieties.
     
    The last session had them reach the world of Cordan, where they had gained landholdings and the rank of Baronet thanks to helping the Baroness Lux there. In the many months they were gone, one of the PCs who comes from a fallen, formerly noble family, had his mother show up with a whole retinue of the family, all looking to squat and plunder basically. Thanks to a technological find they made while in the Spinward Marches, they had obtained the equivalent of cortical stacks for use. Using one of them to replace one of the PCs useless cousins with a copy of their ship's AI personality was discussed and almost happened but was stopped at the last minute when the PC decided against the plan after initially being for it.
     
    The transhumanism elements of the campaign continue to shine as a major subplot. One of the PCs is a cyborg; they killed and cloned a towering Aslan male pirate lord named Irontooth and implanted within the clone body a copy of their ship's AI; several members of the crew are either robots or advanced bioroids; the captain acquired a genetically altered spare body they keep in a Low Berth to aid him in alternating between his pirate guise and his old Brigadier ID; and they have a dozen spare cortical stacks that one of the PCs is just aching to use, to make more copies of the ship's AI and implant them into organic bodies.
  15. Like
    Steve got a reaction from Khymeria in Games of FEAR   
    I run an occasional game of Delta Green Hero, and it is difficult to generate fear in players unless the setting for where you play supports it. Sitting around a table in a brightly lit room makes it hard to generate fear, but my players do roleplay their characters being afraid.
  16. Like
    Steve got a reaction from DentArthurDent in Treasure Hunt in Space   
    I would suggest the Pirates of Drinax setting put out by Mongoose for Traveller. It easily has enough meat for twenty to thirty sessions, and it also has several treasure hunts. It’s a terrific space setting with a lot of plot potential, and I’ve been running it as a Traveller Hero campaign for many months now.
  17. Like
    Steve reacted to BoloOfEarth in Who is the MOST Annoying Villain you have Encountered?   
    To show how much I like Foxbat...  see below.
     
    In a past Champions campaign, I created the Foxbat Five (25% better than the Fantastic Four, because... Five).  They were always a lot of fun, both for me to play as well as (I believe) for the players to battle.  The best was when the Foxbat Five dressed up as villains from the 1960s Batman TV show and tried to kidnap Adam West and Burt Ward at a mall opening (forcing them into ill-fitting Batman and Robin costumes).  Without knowing the FF were going to show up dressed as Joker, Penguin, Riddler, etc. the heroes decided to wear costumes for the *same* villains.  It was epic.
     
    But yes, he can get tiring with over-use.  You need to create just the right adventures for Foxbat.

  18. Like
    Steve got a reaction from Khymeria in Best Option for Drama?   
    My vote is for option #1.
     
    I’m getting flashbacks to one of the seasons of “Agents of SHIELD” from this scenario setup.
  19. Like
    Steve reacted to Susano in Strike Force Organizations   
    In 2016, I was lead writer for Aaron Allston’s Strike Force. It is one of the highlights of my game writer career. I had hoped to be able to continue work in Aaron's world by developing something I wanted to call "Strike Force Organizations." And now, I can. Note: This product will be dedicated to Aaron (of course), but also Darren Watts, as when I first discussed this, he wanted to develop the section on the Circle.
  20. Like
    Steve got a reaction from LoneWolf in Best Option for Drama?   
    My vote is for option #1.
     
    I’m getting flashbacks to one of the seasons of “Agents of SHIELD” from this scenario setup.
  21. Like
    Steve got a reaction from Jkeown in Best Option for Drama?   
    My vote is for option #1.
     
    I’m getting flashbacks to one of the seasons of “Agents of SHIELD” from this scenario setup.
  22. Thanks
    Steve reacted to DShomshak in Dealing with the undead   
    The undead are a major factor in the game Exalted, though I don't recall the term being used much if at all.
     
    In this setting, humans have two souls: the rational higher soul, and the animalistic lower soul. The more-than-godlike Primordials who created the world ordained that higher souls would reincarnate, while lower souls would grow with the body, then die and rot with it. In cases of traumatic death, however, the lower soul may rise as a rampaging hungry ghost. This can be stopped by proper rites, especially salting the body. Hungry ghosts are also unable to cross a line of salt, so salt is an important commodity.
     
    When the Exalted defeated the Primordials, however, they broke the world. The Primordials whom they slew were not subject to their own law of reincarnation, but were also too powerful to cease existing. The paradox created an Underworld where both higher and lower souls can lodge indefinitely. At the center of this shadoed reflection of Creation is an immense pit that goes down to Oblivion -- another new thing. Hovering just short of the event horizon of Oblivion are the immense temple-tombs of the Neverborn, the god-ghosts of the slain Neverborn, asleep but dreaming of Oblivion, and sending whispers of mad revelation through the Labyrinth of caves that form a sort of Under-Underworld. These are undead of cosmological p[roportion. You deal with them by staying away and out of the Labyrinth.
     
    At the height of their power and arrogance, some few Exalted broke into the tombs of five Neverborn and came away with the secrets of necromancy. This had dire consequences -- including that those five Neverborn are a bit more wakeful than the rest.
     
    Higher souls can develop various magic powers. Very old ghosts can become very powerful. Some of them have the power to enter Creation. Some mortals even invite this -- or are convinced to do so -- resulting in ancestor cults. Such "undead" can be helpful to their living descendants. Or they can be horribly exploitative.
     
    If you don't want your ancestors showing up and making demands, there are magical arts of exorcism that even unExalted mortals can use.
     
    Necromancy can raise corpses as zombies or skeletons. Nastier necromancy, combined with surgery, can create undead horrors of greater power. One of the more basic is the spine choin: Take a bunch of zombies, cut off the legs, and stitch them together with head inside abdomen like a series of plugs and sockets. Spine chains move quickly on dozens of arms. Mundane weapons can hack them apart, as with the zombie starter material, but it can take a lot of soldiers to do so. Necrosurgeons have created far more powerful and grotesque mosters, including necrotic analogues of mecha and gundams.
     
    After the Neverborn, the most powerful "undead" are the Deathlords. These 13 mighty ghosts are the result of a terrible betrayal. When the Sideral and Terrestrial Exalted murdered all the Solar Exalted, 13 ghosts sought revenge. The Neverborn whispered to them, and they listened. The Neverborn gave them power beyond all other ghosts. They have declared themselves now in Creation, conquering kingdoms where the living now serve the dead. Mortals, and even gods, cannot deal with the Deathlords. That challenge belongs to the Exalted... if they can develop their own power sufficiently before the Deathlords complete their revenge, and that of the Neverborn, by destroying the world.
     
    Dean Shomshak
  23. Thanks
    Steve reacted to Lord Liaden in Oddball Sciences   
    Temporal physics is the only "oddball science" I remember someone actually taking in a game, where time travel was at least encountered. But given the established Star Trek milieu, a number of other potential ones come to mind.
     
    Optometry and audiology. Dealing with species who see or hear at different ranges than Humans, or are sensitive to different intensities; not to mention lacking those senses at all.
     
    Nutrition/Dietitian. Various species have unique physiologies and biochemistries, so must have a range of distinctive nutritional requirements.
     
    Hematology. We have at least one official Trek race whose hemoglobin is based on copper rather than iron.
     
    Astronautics. The principles behind designing vehicles for space travel.
     
    Subspacial geometry, since they regularly access subspace for things like long-range communication.
     
    Psychology/Therapy. We have Klingons for whom aggression and bloodlust are fundamental traits; Vulcans who suppress all emotion; Betazoid telepaths; joined Trills with literal multiple personalities. Imagine what a ship's counselor would really need to understand.
     
    Zoology. Every newly discovered planet is going to have its own unique life forms, some dangerous to humanoids. Good to know how to recognize them. And related to that:
     
    Virology. There have been a number of references in the series to infectious diseases which have crossed species from entirely separate ecosystems.
  24. Thanks
    Steve reacted to Asperion in Dealing with the undead   
    Most of these were done by various religious groups,  especially the Roman Catholic Church, at different times.  Unmarked graves supposedly were to make the soul get lost in the afterlife and be trapped in Pergitory forever,  never to get to Heaven,  but then at that time they believed that the only way into Heaven was through cleansing bought in the last moments of life,  so only the wealthy could afford to get there. 
  25. Thanks
    Steve reacted to death tribble in Dealing with the undead   
    There was a medieval tradition of burying criminals and suicides at crossroads
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossroads_(folklore)
     
    The Christian tradition was that if a person had been baptised and confessed their sins before death then they would go to Heaven. So it was that the unbaptised and heretics and those that led evil lives would become ghosts etc
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