Allen Varney

Re: Coming Soon: The Sylvestri Family Reunion!

I don't think so' date=' no. The Vandaleurs are Allen Varney's creation, as are most of the "also mentioned" family members. I wouldn't feel comfortable with it. Caretaker and developer of another person's inspiration on DOJ's behalf, yes. Selling a version of it as if it were entirely my own work, no, even if there were no legal issues of intellectual property. (And I suspect there are.)[/quote']

Can't speak to issues of intellectual property -- I'm pretty sure Hero Games, or somebody else in the Great Chain of Legalities, owns the material from Mystic Masters -- but as a creator, I'd be happy if Dean cared to use any or all of the Vandaleurs in his work, in any level of detail from passing mention to full writeups.

 

I must give due credit to David Rogers, designer of the Champions 3e supplements Red Doom and ATLAS Unleashed, for creating and writing up the subordinate members of the Vandaleur family in Mystic Masters.

Re: Expanded PULP HERO Bibliography

I'm not seeing pulp historian Jess Nevins in this bibliography. An oversight? Although his comprehensive Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes is in preparation, Nevins should still count for his unofficial companions to the League of Extraordinary Gentleman books, as well as his older online contributions like his Geocities index of pulp and adventure heroes.

Re: Escapist "High Adventure" column about Hero

if I could choose who to pen Horror HERO for Sixth Edition' date=' Allen would be at the top of my list. [/quote']

I would just farm the book out to Kenneth Hite and then steal the credit. "Really," I'd say with a charming, self-effacing humility, "anyone could do it."

For the online gaming magazine The Escapist's "Days of High Adventure" column, about the early days of tabletop roleplaying, I have written an installment about the Hero System from the earliest days down to the Champions Online MMO. I quote Steve Long and Ray Greer, and Steve worked in a nice plug for this forum:

"The Age of Hero"

On my home page I have posted (with kind permission from Steve Long) the text of my 1990 CHAMPIONS Fourth Edition superhero-horror adventure "Anopheles," published under the title "Horror World" in Iron Crown's supplement Champions in 3-D, edited by Rob Bell. The URL:

http://www.allenvarney.com/anopheles.html

This adventure, one of a collection of alternate-universe scenarios, is set in a modern-day parallel world where Cthulhoid monstrosities have taken over. The premise is that back in the 1920s, heroic investigators fought dark cults to keep the world safe from these other-dimensional entities -- and they failed. Now it's decades later, most life on Earth has been wiped out, and it all gets pretty horrific before the superheroes save the day. Or fail.

I haven't tried to update this adventure for FRED. If any kind Hero fan out there would like to take on the task, please call dibs in this topic and send me the updates at APVarney (at) AOL (dot) com.

I hope you enjoy "Anopheles."

Re: Lovecraft Horror Hero

It seemed to belong with the Call of Cthulhu stuff.

Call Of Cthulhu was my inspiration when I wrote "Horror Hero" (which all right-thinking people should call "Anopheles," my original title). The premise of the modern-day alternate world depicted in the adventure is that all those pulp-era investigators, 60-70 years past, who were fighting Cthulhoid cults and other-dimensional monstrosities, failed.

Maybe I should try to locate the file for that adventure and, assuming the good DoJ folks approve, post it on my home page.