Lord Mhoram

I'd have to go with Black Cat. Not just because she shares a superhero I D with my avatar, but those luck powers tip the scales. I wouldn't read it unless they hired an artist to bring them both down to realistic proportions though.

Try Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son series.

Yeah both Angus Thermopolye and Nick Succorso make Covenant look like a saint.

My tastes in fantasy are rather odd. I don't really like a whole lot. I love Donaldson and Tolkien, as mentioned. Most of the rest of what I like is light fantasy - The Bazil Broketail series, Bahzell Bahnakson, some Hambly, the Riftwar books, spellsinger from Foster, Anything Harry Turtledove does, Eddings (even though it is derivitive), the first few Matt Mantrell books by Stasherff, and anything set in the world that Dragaera resides in by Brust, and Card's Seventh Son books. Most of the rest of my time is spent in SF. In defense of Covenant - he is self absorbed and whiny. But to me there is never "nothing going on" - there may not be a whole lot of phsycial activity, but there is a whole lot of psychology going on. Thomas' situation is a psychodrama, and is played out in the Land - which is why we get so much of what he was thinking, and feeling even if it was none to nice. Part of the reason I like it so much, is as a teen I read it and really identified with Covenant (at the time I had undiagnosed clinical depression and spent a lot of time near suicidal or worse) here was someone who seemed to be as bad off and as much of a jerk as me, and he is still the titular hero of the books. As I grew up and reread the books, more and more I feel that Mhoram is the true hero of the first series, just not the protagonist. I do find it amusing that the writer who wrote Covenant, and had the vile thing he did to Lena happen, in his next fantasy series won an award from a major femenist organiztion for a female character that shows all the things they look for in female empowerment (Teresa in the Mordant's need books). And as to the worst, I can't believe I forgot Gor. I read half of a book and gave up.

Ballistic would in all likelyhood ignore the message and charge right in. He is a mystic, but has only been that way for a year or two- most of his life he has been a cop and would react with old habits. Blackcat would inform her teammates that she will have to help from the outside. Cat was involved in a "days of future past" kind of scenerio that ended up killing her because of a warning from the future. When she came back from the dead it took quite a while for things to settle down, and she doesn't really want to go through that again.

Blackcat would use her ch'i based dimmak kinda drains and drain his ego into negative numbers and just question him. Ballistic would cast a will deadening spell that would drain his ego into negative numbers and just question him. Yeah sorta basic, and just a little similar there.

Ballistic (DNPC fiance) would shift his mystic pool into "cure lycanthropy" and fix her. Then over dinner later that week, he would politely inquire about when she got bit by a wererwolf. Blackcat (DNPC - graduated primary student, who started a MA based "superagency" when her secret ID went public) would use ch'i healing to fix the flows of energy and eradicate the beast, and take him to the dojo. Then she would have a long talk about getting involved in the mystic stuff, and begin to train him on how to fight off the effects of lycanthropy, vampire bites and whatnot (chi based Power D).

Doing Bugs "You realize of course that this means war!" The Covenant books are my favorite fantasy of all time, with LoTR just right behind it. But I do know that his style is not for everyone. In responce to the thread title (swords and sorcery) I would have to say Conan, Elric and the Fafred/Grey mouser stories. I read great chunks of all of these books (due to strong recomendations) and wanted that much time of my life back. After that I pretty much avoided the subgenre.

Here you go http://www.patric.net/morpheus/cast/legend/captain_ultra.html

Blackcat would look over and shout "Oracles you idiot!! We'll discuss this later, somebody died because of your impulsiviness this time" then one punch him (which she has done before). Ballistic would immediatly mentally/mysticall call for Psyche (a teammate) to unmindcontrol whoever did it, as no one on his team would act that way.

Blackcat would just start laughing, realizing where she was. She would then EDM home, and find Foxbat (or Clown) and warn them to hide, that Destroyer will not be pleased with thier little joke. Ballistic would do much the same. But he would try and figure out the mystical connections between Earth and this Land of the Lost (socks).

Blackcat has no powers. She is just an amazing martial artist. She would find people and begin rebuilding civilization. If no people were found, she'd walk the world. Ballistic is a supermage supersuit. If he had no suit, he would rely on his magic. If he lost his magic, he would rely on his old cop skills to survive and find other people, and live out life. He might try to work on convincing others that civilization needed to be rebuilt. If no people were found he would slowly go a little crazy. If his suit or his magic were intact, he'd find out what happened, and fix it.

Re: FWIW That is correct.

Here is mine, tying in a bunch of long running plot threads and old bits- all of this tied into the big huge plot at the end. 1) Golden Avenger goes rogue calling himself Vengence - swears an oath to destroy The Marshall - the person that took his place as head of the superagency that absorbed Primus. 2) Vengence having a years long running conflict with the "batman" in the group who stole his AP gauntlents the first time they fought. 3) The Marshall is one of the creators of Mechanon - he calls her Mommy. 4) the other creator of Mechanon is Dr Avery Allanis. 5) The Marshall before she was a superhero was like Henry Peter Gyrich and she and Dr Allanis ran a study camp of superheroes (the first supers were in 1990). After she got powers and was imprisoned she found that Dr Allanis was killing the people in the camp. Allanis wants to kill all supers. 6) Vengence is anti super not anti mutant (part of the reason he was forced out of office) 7) The money behind the PC team was Matt Ambruster from Normals unbound. 8) I ran the Knight sabers plot from Heroic adventures.. mind control machinery- ex US supersoldier program. This all happens over the course of years - with the two players mentioned being the only ones there the whole time. I run the Paranormal Registration Act. Senetor Jeremiah Relm dueling with Shanna Armbruster. The act looks like it will fail, is fillibustered. Rep Armbruster, the strongest anti RA congressperson, comes up for her time at the fillibuster and says "Lets just get this over with" and calls for a vote. She abstains. It passes. Relm and others move to the Marshall's office to get her records on supers. She says no. She also has the support of the supereme court (yeah comic book politics so what), due to the team telepath and the team detective finding the old Knight Saber mind control machienery in DC, being used on elected officials to vote Relms way, and expose him as a the mastermind. Relm goes nuts.. his plans failing, and calls in help. Relm - the Black king. Vengence (Ex golden avenger) his bishop Dr Avery Allanis - White King Mechanon - The White Kings Bishop "Tried to help you out mother, but you were unresponsive, I'll try things dad's way". And a number of Minuteman robots (whom Mechanon helped build). Big Brouhaha in Washington DC. So I had half the core of Genocide tied intimatly into the backgrounds of the characters, and they had no idea what was coming. I spent a year weaving the final plot from the dangling plot bits I left behind.

So any hint on which 16.. I would assume the villians in the showdown? I'd also like to compare the good Dr. to the SAS characters in thier native system. heh.... that and see how close my "re-imagining" of Alice in HERO is to the "official" version.

Nice vignette Hermit. Dunno about the CU characters too well, so on to my own. Ballistic - I have no idea. The only living person he has any kind of romantic sparks with is another superhero The Marshall. He is a excop supermage supersuit. She is a Cap level patriotic character with connection to a Green Lantern like galactic peacekeeping force. (They fight crime - sorry). Thier kid would be scary. Both parents are intense and very moral and old fashoniod and involved in law enforcement in some way, and would justification for just about any power in the book. If I built that character, she would probably end up being a somewhat mystic urban character, a street level, but one who didn't kill, and treated the police okay. She would probably be something of a minibrick as well. Blackcat is arguably the worlds best martial artist, and he SO is a reformed villian who is in the top 5. So the kid would grow up doing martial arts. So this kid could just be a chip of the old blocks and is a total MA geek. If he got tired of that, or because of all the wierd energies mom and dad were exposed too, I could see him being a mutant (Cat started as one before being depowered) and end up with some basic force projecting powers, or something.

What is interesting about Nightwing, that in a standup no gadgets just fight in a ring fight, he is actually better than Bats. Bruce admits this even. And the character and tactical growth he has gone through in the last few years (and how the writers have treated him) he is moving much closer to his mentor in a all out fight. I might not even consider him a middleweight. If he is, he takes everybody.

Ah that would explain it. The last board game I looked at was Trivial Pursuit back in '87.

Color me confused but what are these games? I don't know of them, and I consider myself fairly well versed in the RPG world.

Ballistic would teleport to a safe house and start mystically scanning for his teammates, and trying to figure out either who mind controlled them, or to try and figure out what the tactician on the team had figured this would give them by going undercover as agents of the villian. Then he would follow up depending on the answer to that question. Blackcat would contact a telepath to get a mind control deactivator and go after he teammates. During her time as a possessed villian she beat them all in a strait up fight, so she could figure she could take them down and fix them, or if it was of free will, send them to jail.

1) Flexibility - the system has to be able to handle whatever kind of character I want to make. There must be no randomness in character creation. 2) Cross genre ability. Many have mentioned the ability to handle genres - that is something I don't look for as much. I play cross genre games SF/Western/Kaiju, Crossworld Fantasy, or sky's the limit superpowers. I could care less if a system can handle one genre, if it cannot do multiple genres at the same time. Crossworld fantasy is probably my mostplayed (and GMed) kind of game. So the system has to be able to handle Cyberpunk, High Fantasy, Jedi, Modern Action adventure, and pulp - all at the same time, and with consistent rules across them. After that you have to be able to do supers... in such a way that Superman and Batman can work in game together and both have something to do (or if you prefer the other company, Thor and Captain America). Those are my big two criteria. I've not found a system that does that to my satisfaction but HERO.

Oh Goody goody goody! I like getting my stuff at cost, and as this was on my must buy list..... Be happy to.

Will it be orderable through normal distribution channels (Alliance or others) to our FLGS or will it need to be ordered directly? I work at a game shop, so I get my goodies at cost - so this very personal question - and I can push it to our four superhero RPG customers. We have two HERO system regulars, one SAS and one MnM. As a retialer I like the multiple system stats in books (I mentioned much the same thing to Mark for Dragon's Gate).

Blackcat would immediately go to the other heroes and let them know where Destroyer's hidden base is. And fight with them. Ballistic would fly into orbit and take out the cannon satilite.

Flying brick knows Kung Fu. "show me" Does he wear a cassok? Sorry just Matrixing out recently.