st barbara

I would be careful labelling ALL Nazis as occultists . While there is SOME evidence that some of them may have been into the occult (most particularly Himmler) or influenced by occultists the information is inconclusive. If you want books on the subject you could try to get hold of "The Occult Roots Of Nazism" by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, "Unholy Alliance" by Peter Levenda, "Satan and The Swastika" by Francis King or "The Spear Of Destiny" and its sequel "The Mark Of The Beast" (The first by Trevor Ravenscroft, the second by Ravenscroft and Tim Wallace-Murphy). If you want a nazi occultist character try to get hold of "Emerald Cup-Ark Of Gold" by Colonel Howard Buechner. Lt. Otto Rahn S.S. would make a fascinating character(with some occult powers for a "Champions" game, merely as an adventurer for a "Pulp" style of campaign).

The problem with "The Wild Bunch" is that I don't think that they are "Individual" enough to translate into "Champions" terms. They are really just a bunch of tough outlaws, with something of a code of honour. Come to think of it maybe "The Magnificent Seven" would work better as "Champions" characters !

Gee "St Barbara" doesn't really have a battle cry. Maybe I should think one up. What's the Danish for "Oh Hell ! What have we gotten into NOW !" ? The closest I came was during an incident when "St B" had a part time job at a university and was helping a professor by photocopying his papers for an upcoming exam. One of the students faked an accident and, while Pia ("St B"s" real name) was trying to help him, someone made off with the exam papers. "St Barbara" saw this and took off (in civvies, a skirt and blouse), flying OVER the building to confront the thief.As she came in to a landing infront of him, complete with rooster tail of multi coloured flame (her flight special effect) she said, in a very civil voice "I'll have those papers back now, if you please !" The ref and I both got a laugh out of that one as few people realized at that time, that she had super powers, even though she doesn't wear a mask !

What about some quasi mystical or occult characters ? According to some sources (Ravenscroft, Sklar, King, Brennan) the nazis are suppossed to have been heavily into the occult. If the occult is real, and the Nazis had characters with occult powers, wouldn't the allies want something similar ? (I can just see Winston Churchill saying "We canot allow an Occult gap !") Other sources have suggested that there was at least one active Witch covern in Britain during the war, perhaps a low powered magician could be appropriate ?

T "Assault" But of course ! Now the question is, what powers to give to "Curly"? How about beer powered super speed and agility ? Or maybe projectile vomiting (if we want to be gross) !

As an Australian I suspect that we may need an entry here. So may I suggest "Bluey" : A red headed Aussie wearing army trousers and boots, a blue singlet and a slouch hat with a cigarette permanently attached to his lip. He is a tough fighter with super strength only when he gets mad, otherwise very laid back and laconic with speech loaded with old time Australianisms. (For those of you who might not know "A blue" or "To Have a blue" is Aussie slang for a fight. "Bluey" is a common Australian nickname for a redhaired person)

Well "Black Cobra", while I don't mind "Beowulf" I'd rather not get mixed up with either Grendel or his Mother, thank you very much !

Given that my "other" champions character "Zianor" is er "blessed" by an angel I guess I should say something here. If you are looking for names and perhaps basic ideas try getting hold of a copy of "A Dictionary Of Angels" by Gustav Davidson. Although the descriptions are often brief, it may give you some ideas for names of some lesser known angels and even suggestions for their powers. "Zianor" for example is described as "An angel invoked in the conjurartion of inks and colours". My character "Zianor" is an illusionist (images) with flight, desolid and a visible T K hand !(he also has universal translator, but only for written languages, and i've just added some healing as well). But I started with the above quoted 10 word description !

Speaking of "What If's" (I know we werent, but some of the talk on copyright infringement made me think of it) What if Phillip Wylie had sued Siegal and Schuster or D C comics for the infringement of "Superman" on Hugo Danner, the hero of his novel "Gladiator" (published in 1930) ?

As I have mentioned in the past I am currently playing in an "Alternate Earths" type campaign. Our first alternative was known as "Earth Halo" and , apart from some different physical laws (See Scotty , you CAN change the laws of physics !) which led to "St Barbara's" energy blasts being MORE powerful, there were a number of changes including a much more repressive U S government headed by President Joe McCarthy. Team Zenith 3 (including "St Barbara") helped change that ! We also had a Soviet Union still dominated by Joseph Stalin, albiet a Stalin kept alive by machines ! Our next stop is something called "Earth Regency" in which the British Empire is still the dominant political force. I will be interested to see what havoc we can wreak (oh sorry !, what adventures we can get into) in this alternate reality, but it looks like it will be at least six months, probably longer (that's six games, we play this campaign once per month) before we get there. It also looks as if "St Barbara" may be the only original character left from the group that first started playing !

Given that "St Barbara's" energy bklasts are REALLY visible (imagine a skyrocket burst, in full colour !) I wonder whether I can wangle some extra points out of my referee ? (insert big smile here, in case the icon doesn't work !)

ethnic characters

Hmm ! Well one of the characters that I play is Danish ("St Barbara") and is probably a bad 60's Scandanavian stereotype (Blonde, cute, former nude model, etc ) but i have also done a few that attempt to get away from stereotyping, such as my only Australian Aboriginal hero "Paluma" who has electrical powers rather than being a mystic or puting a werewolf character in Spain ("El lobo Miedo" which i think translates as "The Dire Wolf") rather than in say central europe where most werewolf stories seem to be set. Two of the three female "bricks" that I have written up are placed in Turkey and Uraguay, although i have to admit that i created them by stealing characters from existing "Champions" supplements (The Turkish character "The Silver Crescent" is a depowered version of "Vipera", while the Uraguyian "la Bomba" is a rewrite of "American Beauty) while my "Green Lantern' copy was placed in Argentina. Looking at the list of characters that I have created over the years I realise just how many of them are cliched and "nation specific" (My group in India for example contains a super strong wrestler,a Yogi type with extreme flexibility and martial arts, and a mentalist as well as a gadgeteer who uses "chakram" (traditional Sikh throwing hoops) ) More cliched than I had at first thought.

To "Supreme" It's a while since I read "Wildcards" so I didn't remember that aspect of it. Given that I think that the person who played "Widget" may have read the books that could be where he got the idea from, because that is pretty much how her powers worked.

LOL ! "Trebuchet" "Rule of the super gymnasts" indeed ! Actually i thought that a "cuteocracy" might be an even better idea. None of your big ugly bricks allowed !(Only big CUTE bricks!)

Didn't one of the old Villain cuplements have a character whose sole weapon was a flame thrower? (he may even have been CALLED "Flamethrower") How did they handle it in that, does anyone remember ?

When our campaign first started we had a character named "Widget", a New Zealand (Maori) woman who could "throw together" devices out of whatever was handy, and they worked because SHE made them and was nearby. I thought that it was a brilliant version of a "gadgeteer' but unfortunately the player left the game much too soon. Apart from a character "Jury Rig" in the old "Allies" sourcebook I have never heard of another character like this. Has anyone else done anything similar in their games ?

I can empathise with "Trebuchet". "St Barbara" was sort of "dragooned" into being team leader over my objections because no-one else wanted the job either. I have trouble thinking tactically so she made a poor fist of it. Things have improved lately because the team has added a member who was specifically designed to be a tactician. However, in a few months we will be moving from one "alternate world" to another, with "St Barbara" being the only continuing character ! What's the bet she gets stuck with the job again, on the grounds of "seniority" .

To "Mister Vimes" A wiseguy huh ! I am sure that the comic that I read in which the "Challengers Of The Unknown" had super powers (or super gadgets, except "Rocky") was published well AFTER the "FF" were established at "Marvel".

"Team vibe "! Hmm. The team that "St Barbara" belongs to (and nominally leads on occasions, badly) "Team Zenith 3" seems to have a "vibe" somewhat like an ox that has just been hit with a mallet ! I probably shouldn't be even mentioning this on a forum to which the other players don't (in general) subscribe but yesterdays little debacle in which we suddenly got swapped across dimensions (again !) and had to play evil analogs of our characters was an absolute disaster ! To make matters worse our referee has so altered (the term "bastardized' comes to mind) the system that I can no longer recognise it as being a derivative of the "Champions" system ! I don't like playing villains, I am not good at it and I am very close to simply walking away from the campaign at this minute. To make matters worse our referee decreed that the one power that "St Barbara" has that might have enabled me to NOT take part in this debacle (Her E D M)was stripped away, for the sake of the scenario ! To say that I am dissapointed with what has happenned is an understatement !

I also don't think that I have ever used a god either as a played character or as an N P C. True my two characters are named after a saint ("St Barbara", patron of miners, engineers, architects and munitions workers) and an angel ("Zianor", defined in Gustav Davidson's "A Dictionary Of Angels" as "An angel invoked in the conjuration of inks and colours") The first is a flying energy blaster type, the second is an illusionist with desolid and a visible "T K Hand"). I guess the closest I came to using a god is when I named a greek heroine "Tisiphone" after one of the Furies of Greek mythology. Gods in comics can be either too powerful (as "Thor" has sometimes been, leading to a high powered campaign if they are common) or seriously underpowered compared to the way they appear in mythology(which doesn't really satidfy anyone)

Please "Pol Rua", it's early saturday morning here in Sydney and I don't think that I am ready to contemplate the "super Blackhawks" at this point! Although it does remind me of the time that D C had the "Challengers Of The Unknown" with super powers (mostly gadgets , I think I can remember a jet pack/flight suit and a chest mounted energy weapon among their devices, but it's a while since i read that issue), fortunately that idea was rather short lived.

Sorry "Cletus". I didn't mean that "St Barbara" HAS a "c-cup" just that IF she did it would be a SMALL c-cup. My most usual description of "St B" is "5ft 2'' tall, 48 kg,short blonde hair, blue eyes and built like an Olympic gymnast" oh yes and she started the game 18 years old, but I can never remember how long we have been playing in "game time". I figure at least a year so she is about 19 or maybe 20 now. This slight buils which makes he look younger than she is can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. She had at least one adventure where she had to infiltrate a cult run by a potential world conquerer, mostly because SHE was the only team member who looked young enough(and had had acting experience) to pass herself off as a teenaged recruit to the "youth camp" that the villain was running. At other times she has had trouble convincing the (usually male) authority figures that she encounters to take her seriouslt.

You beat me to it "Pol Rua". Nice to see that someone remembers "The Blackhawks" (even if i did cringe at the way "Chop Chop" was portayed in the 60's)

Hey "Supreme"(I think that it was you). "St Barbara" would LOVE to have a C cup ! Sex appeal and sensuality are not merely confined to the breast size, nor is comliness. Actually, now that I think about it a "C size breast" (it might be about 32 c I guess) would probably only get in "St B"'s road while she was doing her spectacular acrobatic turns and twists while fighting crime ! Now I don't know how much of this might be censored by our moderators but "St Barbara" used to work in the er less salubrious end of the modelling industry before she was 'rescued', joined the U N and eventually acquired super powers. She may be tiny (5'2'' tall, about 105 lbs) but she KNOWS how to be sexy !

I'm not actually Danish ("St Barbara" the CHARCTER is, but i'm not) but I might suggest that a name for a patriotic Danish hero might be "Dannebrog" which is (I believe) the name given to the national flag. The logical name for an Aussie or New Zealand hero might possibly be "Southern Cross" after the constellation that features on both their flags !