st barbara

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

To Steve Long "Pulp Hero" ! I will absolutely, positively want to get THAT when it comes out. I have noticed that Byron Priess' attempt to do a pulp anthology/magazine from years ago (was it the 70's ?) are being reprinted. If you haven't seen these you might want to look for them. The series is called "Weird Heros" and I think that there are about six or eight of them , of which at least the first one has been recently reprinted. I just found my copies ! There are at least eight books in the series with stories by people such as Philip Jose Farmer, Ron Goulart, Archie Goodwin and art by Jim Steranko and Jeff Jones among others, and that is just in volume one ! Punlication date is 1975.

Re: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen question

Thanks "Emerald Mask". If you hadn't mentioned "Gladiator" I was about to. "Odd John" was published in 1935, "Gladiator" in 1930. Both stories are by writers who should be read a lot more by S F readers today and whose works are well worth seeking out. While I don't know how available they might be ( I have noticed that Wylie's work, except for the novelizations of "When Worlds Collide" and its sequel can be hard to find) I think that a search for wither book would be worthwhile. Please let us know what you think of them when you read them !

Re: What would your heroes do about this...?

"St Barbara" is Danish, and proud of it ! The LAST people she would cut any slack if they were commiting "crimes against humanity" (especially if it involved harming women or children) is her own government ! She would be just as unlikely to let the U S A get away with anything as she is a believer in the concept of the United Nations and before she gained super powers worked for UNICEF. The contempt shown by George W for the U N of late would be very likely to get her angry, so any U S "superpatriot" who gave her a hard time would get short shrift ! Let's just say that "St Barbara" TRIES to be reasonable, but has a passionate nature with all together too many "triggers" which can set her off !

Re: Archetype teams

I have come up with a couple of "themed teams" in the past, but never used them. First there was "The Pack" who took their names from types of dog ("Wolfhound" : sonic powers, "Bulldog" : brick, "Samoyed" : cold powers, "Terrier": Earth control powers, and "Mongrel" : martial artist with a bad attitude). After that I got much more ambitious and created "The Gemstones" I won't go into these as I have lost my notes concerning them, but there were quite a few of them with powers based on the mystical abilities of various precious and semi-precious stones.

Re: Looking for HERO stats for: "Bullseye"

Hmm Interesting discussion. Particularly when my "back up " character for our "Champions" campaign is inspired by "Bullseye" (at least the version in the movie, I haven't read the comic in a long time). If anything happens to "St Barbara" I will trot out "Quickfire" who has most of the abilities mentioned above, plus armour, acrobatics, a few less lethal gadgets (He's supposed to be a hero, after all !), and the martial art of "An Chi" and "Super Leap". I would be interested to se how a version of "Bullseye" would go in a "Champions" campaign, either as a hero or an opponent for the P Cs !

Re: End of an Era

Could we have a little bit of a rundown on the characters and their various abilities and backgrounds ? Those of their opponents too for that matter. I could be facetious and say that saving the world from a big nasty uberevil is something that my team seems to do every third session or so, but while it is something that SEEMS to have happenned a lot in the history of our campaign I think that this could only be a matter of perception on my part. I would certainly be interested in seing the characters from you campaign written up. Oh, and best of luck in the coming battle and the future of your campaign !

Re: Help: Sniper Syndrome

Hmm "Kelvin" our G M tried to do the body swap thing to us on one occasion; but one of the players objected so vehemently that the idea was abandoned ! In some ways this is a pity as the thought of playing the teams brick who was 7ft tall and looked like a traditional gargoyle from a Gothic cathedral with LOTS of strength when I normally play a 5ft 2'' lightly built, beautiful girl with energy blast powers could have been FUN ! (At least as a one off)

Re: Help: Sniper Syndrome

Most of those answers sound pretty good. How about having a super speedster or someone with teleport chase him ? This might keep him far enough out of the action to be ineffective.

Re: How do you get players to role play the genre?

Are there role playing tips in the copy of the rules that you are using ? If so you could read that out to them. I admit that that is a bit heavy handed but it might work. Otherwise if you have some comics with the sort of characters that you want to see you could bring them along to a game and perhaps loan them to your players as "background reading". You could sit down with each of your players individualy and take some time to go over how you want to referee the game and find out the sort of things that the player might want to do with his character. Perhaps leting them follow their natural inclinations to create havoc . then letting it come back to bight them. might teach them a little bit about role playing. Otherwise er yell at them a lot ?

Re: Post Your Steam Age Heroes and Villains

Take a look at the "League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen" comic. It shouldn't be too difficult to develop those characters as heros. The "Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde" character who takes a formula to turn himself into a huge massive muscleman, the woman with neo-vampiric powers, the "Invisible Man".The writer Fitzjames O'Brien wrote a story about a character (I think it was an alien) with super speed ("What Was It ?), and then there is the super detective as personified by Sherlock Holmes with his raft of skills including martial arts and disguise as well as deduction, criminology etc perhaps an "Annie Oakley" type who is an expert shot or uses a whip or a lasso. There are also plenty of 19th century "Gadgeteers" whose equipment might be a bit "clunky" but still could work well, maybe someone has studied the works of "Leonardo Da Vinci" and has a working ornithopter (among other devices) or what about "Robur" with his flying craft or, well I could go on but I won't. Take a look at a reference book on historical S F if you can or the works of Jules Verne or H G Wells could provide you with inspiration.

Re: Your Character's Greatest Fear?

I have often wondered what "St Barbara's" greatest fear would be. Her psych lims are mostly about going "postal" if certain things happen (like people threatening women or children). There are times that I think that she might fear not being "liked" (or at least being found attractive by others) as much as anything. Perhaps "abandonment" would be a fear as well; this has happenned in her past and it led to her getting into trouble and having to be rescued. Not being able to help peole might come into it as well (she worked for UNICEF before she obtained super powers; now she has powers she feels that she should be able to help MORE people in bigger and better ways). Hmm, much to ponder on here !

Re: an update on my Centennial City Superhero team

Let's see; my English/Spanish dictionary lists "incendio" as "uncontrolled fire" and "combustion" seems to be the same in Spanish as in English so there are a couple of ideas to play with.

Re: Need Name For Telekinetic Villain

I've always liked "Poltergeist" myself. Hmm, from memory there was a minor T K using villain called "Lifter" in comics at one point. As others have suggested other names could be suggested by whatever special effects the power has or a preferred attack that the character has. I used the name "Spindizzy" (taken from James Blish's classic "Cities In Flight" S F novels) for a TK character who had the ability to make people and objects spin.

Re: The Shadow Stats+Powers

I realise that the MOVIE version of "The Shadow" (the one with Alec Baldwin) might not be considered "cannon" in this regard but it seemed that he had either "invisibility" or some form of super speed useable in short bursts (when he beats up "duke's" gang) and the ability to cuase mental illusions (when he convinces one of the characters that the window of the "Monolith" hotel is really an exit and he leaps out of it, plunging several stories to his death !) Having learned his powers in "the mysterious East !" he might also have access to one of the eastern martial arts that was little known in the west at that time.

Re: What comic book villains would make cool heroes, and vice versa?

I've always liked the idea of say "The Joker" as a hero. Of course he would have to be a bit more sane than he is in the comics these days, but the idea of perhaps a "Gadgeteer' hero who enjoys humiliating super villains could be a lot of fun. Then there are characters like say "Dr Alchemy who might make a very powerful hero with his "philosopher's stone" giving him the ability to transform anything ! Of course there are also the members of "The Frightful Four"; any of the original three male members "The Wingless Wizard". "The Trapster" or "Sandman" would make cool heros (not to mention powerful heros !), although i'm not sure which of the several "fourth" members that the group has had over the years would fit best.

Re: Uncle Sam

From my memory of the "original" "Uncle Sam" (From Quality Comics in the 1940's) He also couldn't be photographed. I don't think that he could ever fly, but he seemed to have "super leap", at least in his reappearences at D C. Of course he also has the advantage that his strength is "invisible" in that whike he is super strong he doesn't LOOK muscular in the same way that "The Hulk" or even "Superman" look super strong. Other than that the figures and descriptions given sound good to me.

Re: Dream Teams - Champions Style

I suppose we all get a little nostalgic for the "First" team that we played in in our various "Champions" campaigns. Ours "Team Zenith 3" consisted of a rather eclectic international collection. They were : "St Barbara" , Danish flying energy projector. "Knight", American brick in an armoured suit, "Ravenscroft", British Magician. "Animato", Italian telekinetic. "Dragon's Claw" Japanese/ Australian (I think) martial artist with a samurai sword and "Widget", New Zealand gadgeteer who could cobble together useful devices out of available materials. Since then things have changed and only "St Barbara" (now a lot more versatile) is still around. Sigh ! I miss those guys (and girls).

Re: Early Marvel Age x Silver Age

Well of course heros didn't kill in the "Silver Age" ! One of the reasons for this was the Comics Code. I can't find my old reference book that includes the code but, from a quick look on "the net" the code DID say that "excessive depiction of gunplay" and so forth wasn't allowed. It also said that (basically, I am paraphrasing here) the heros had to win in the end. This caused a number of problems when "Marvel" in particular was fond of creating villains who, if used with any intelligence at all, would have left a swathe of dead heros in their wake because their one "trick" was deadly ! This led to sme pretty inept villains running around in those days .

Re: What superhero character concepts are you tired of seeing?

One of the things (one of the GOOD things) that our referee did right at the start of our campaign was to tell us that he had certain "niches" that he wanted filled ("Brick", "Energy Projector", "Gadgeteer", "Martial Artist" etc) and we worked out who was going to fill which niche. My niche was (and still is) the "energy projector" of the group. He then asked as to write up a "background" for our characters lives before we joined the "Champions" training programme. My background for "St Barbara" got to be a bit convoluted; "Broken home, became a pornstar/nude model, was rescued by her brother who worked for the U N, went to Africa after he got her a job with UNICEF and "discovered" under extreme stress that she had super powers". All this was done at least a week before we actually wrote up the characters and at least two weeks before we played a game. As a result we all had well rounded (or thoroughly twisted, depending on your point of view !) characters with fully developed backgrounds including who and why our hunteds and DNPC's were. It was a good idea and our referee is continuing the concept with the "new" characters that will be joining "St Barbara" and our current magician "Runeweaver" when the game restarts.

I think that my greatest complaint with the animated "Teen Titans" is what they did to "Starfire". In the comics she has always been a voluptuous, supermodel type with very long red curly hair. In the cartoon she is a skinny, naive , hippy with straight hair that barely reaches her shoulders ! I think that I would also have liked to have "Wonder Girl" in the cartoon as well, but after the way they treated "Wonder Girl"/"Troia" in the comic i'm not sure that I could look at her again !

While I can't imagine "St Barbara" writing to a "Dear Abbey" type column I could easily imagine her RUNNING one ! After all she has been a gymnast,a "model", an "actress" and worked for UNICEF as well as being a super heroine, and she hasn't turned twenty yet ! Of course it must be admitted that her career as a "model/actress" started young and didn't entail an ability to either walk on a catwalk, or deliver lines of Shakespearean quality !

I once created a British "brick" called "John Bull". He was a large ex wrestler with super strength, very tough and 'wrestling" as a martial art. He was based (vaguely) on the traditional image of "John Bull" from the 18th/19th century; a big . slightly overweight looking guy. Imagine a heavier version of the "Johnny Walker" figure from the whisky adds !

As I have said elsewhere I tend to use more primitive linguistic aids (a German/English dictionary in this case) but one name that I liked for a German brick is "Eisenfurst". This translates as "Iron Fist" and should not be confused with "Panzerfurst" the German WWII anti tank rocket (which translates as "Armour Fist"). That would also make a good name for a German brick but might have too many Nazi connotations as would the other obvious name of "Ubermensch" (Overman or Superman)

One obvious name for a Russian character (especially a female energy projector type) is "Sputnik". If memory serves this translates into "Little traveller" (but then I don't speak Russian so I am not sure). Other Russian characters that I have usede include "Tverdoi" ("Resolute") and "Voinyi" (The Warrior") both bricks, "Chabroi" (Courage") actually a Lithuanian Super Soldier type, "Cherni Orel" (The Black Eagle) a winged woman with a modern high tech slingshot and a gadget pool and "Sturmovik" an armoured suit wearing type whose name is taken from the famous Soviet "tank buster" aircraft of World War Two. If you can get hold of an approptiate English/Rusian dictionary anmes for characters shouldn't be too difficult.

I would think that a person whose background included being brought up in a bi (or multi) lingual household should get one language free (of his choice from the various languages spoken at home) with a reduced cost for any of the other languages. Obviously it is up to the referee to keep an eye on it. Say for example a player is brought up in a Spanish speaking household as part of his background. The player would get English for free (assuming that the game is set in an English speaking country like the U S A or Australia) and could take Spanish at a reduced cost (say half ?)