KA.

Re: Attacking Diviners Well, if you could do a 15 AP 'Magic Missile' . . . It looks like a little divining rod, and it 'never' misses because it always knows where to seek you out. Something like a little bitty AoE One Hex, perhaps with NND, with the SFX of it follwing you around until it hits you. It might only do a tiny amount of damage, but it would make an excellent bluff. "Allow me to demonstrate my Inescapable Missile!" "Now, would you like me to cast the lethal version?" KA.

Re: Teen Champions - $9 Scalping would be offering to sell a book that was out of print (say The Ultimate Martial Artist) for a premium price (say $45). Pointing someone to a good deal is called 'helping'. KA.

Re: Overcomplex things? I just wanted to emphasize something that is often missed when people are first learning the Hero System. You have to get used to the idea of "Reasoning from Effect", meaning: "I want to do X. What Power most closely simulates that? How should I tweak it to get exactly what I want?" Forget about what things are named, and think about what they do. For example. In Hero being blind has some fairly major effects on a character, especially in a more realistic game. You can't just buy "Radar Sense" and say: "Okay, everything is back to normal, now." (You are 'allowed' to do that by the rules, but if you are playing a realistic game you would be hard pressed to come up with how exactly your character aquired that technology.) Which means that it is not standard to have characters get blinded by all the various hazards that exist. I am studying Auto Mechanics. There are lots of things in a shop that could blind you. Metal Filings, Brake dust, caustic chemicals, welding. But I don't think I would 'blind' a character just because he really blew his PS:Mechanic roll, even though an accident in the shop could do the same thing in the real world. And I doubt that it would be that common for someone to be blinded in combat either. I know that it happens, when you have an army of thousands fighting another army of thousands. But I would say that most of the time, if a bullet strikes your eyes with sufficient force to destroy them, it is probably going to go right ahead and kill you. So, Hero goes back to the basic ideas of the game. Being "Blind" is a Disadvantage. The way you inflict a Disadvantage on another character is to Transform them into a character with that Disadvantage. Now obviously you could replace all attacks with Transform. "I Transform him into someone that just got shot." "I Transform him into someone that just got punched in the face." But that would be awfully expensive and rather silly. However, to Transform someone into being Mute, Blind, Deaf, etc. makes perfectly good sense within the rules. It also allows for there being a built in method of restoring that damage, based on how the Transform was bought. Once you get past the preconception that 'Transform' means someone is waving a magic wand, and realize that Transform is the Power that allows you to make a temporary/lasting change to another character's physical form, it makes sense. KA.

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you? tesuji, Let me start by saying that I almost always find your threads interesting, because you tend to bring up rules considerations that people may never have thought of. However, you also sometimes seem to come into the discussion with a very strong point of view, and basically dare someone to 'prove you wrong'. I am not saying that you are deliberately trying to start arguments. But I think you might be waiting to post about something until you have gotten so annoyed about it that you have a hard time discussing it calmly. I am the first to admit that there are some topics I have a hard time with. It also seems like you game, or perhaps just discuss rules, in a more adversarial environment than most of us are used to. Your post above seems to indicate that. My group is basically on-board with the idea that something which is too 'efficient' is probably actually abusive, and that hurts the game for everyone. It sounds like you are doing things in a more 'legalistic' way, meaning that if the GM agrees to a build or a power, that anything the player can come up with based on that ruling is now 'allowed' and the GM has nothing to say about it. It is sort of like a parent who sees a baseball stuck in the gutter offering to pay his son $10 to get it out. If the boy asks "Gee, Dad, can I always get $10 for getting a baseball out of the gutter?" And the father says "Well, I guess so." That does not give the son the okay to gather up 1000 baseballs from all over the city, cram the gutters with them, and then demand $10,000 for the cleanup. More likely the son should end up cleaning them up for free, along with a good talking to for being a smart-alec. Now I don't think that a GM has the right to 'punish' a player that way, but if someone had Teleport, and I ruled that they could Teleport a person that they grabbed (ruling that being 'held' constituted 'willing'), I would still have no problem telling them they couldn't 'grab' a piece of dirt and teleport the entire Earth somewhere, or any other such nonsense. I think they key is that in any sufficiently flexible system there simply has to be an element of human supervision to avoid abuse. No set of rules would allow you to build whatever you wanted, but never allow you to build anything 'unfair' or 'unbalanced'. KA.

Re: How would you have handled this (GMs)? This shows what happens when you forget to add a smilie to your post. I really was just kidding. As far as I remember, I have never actually been in a game where CLOWN appeared. I have read a lot of the 'war stories' describing the various awful uses CLOWN has been put to, and I remember basically hating the concept the first time I read the write-ups. But I think my major objection to CLOWN is that they, more than other groups mentioned, seem to be designed to bully the players. Yes, I know about Bat-Mite, Myx, etc. They are okay in the source material, because, Batman and Superman are not actually being 'played' by a real human being. When the writer decides to add Bat-Mite to a story, he is in control of both sides of the conflict. There is no second party to be humiliated. CLOWN, in concept, reminds me of the nastier form of bully I remember from my childhood. Not the 'in your face' bully, that would just want to fight you, or demand you pay tribute. You could just fight them and they would eventually go away. CLOWN is more like the 'social bully'. The person who uses their seeming inferiority, and/or connection to authority figures, to inflict pain and still play the part of victim. I am sure we have all met them. In most groups, there is usually one jerk who will trip you, frog you, put something in your food, and when you prepare to respond, will back off defensively saying: "Hey man! I was just kidding! Gosh! What's the matter with you?" thereby making it appear that they are somehow the injured party. Perhaps the most obnoxious example of this that I can remember is Nellie Olsen from Little House on The Prairie. She would do/say the nastiest thing she could think of, and then go running for the nearest Teacher, Parent, etc. wailing: "Laura is trying to hit me! Make her stop! I didn't do anything!" That is what CLOWN represents to me. They are built to inflict both physical and emotional damage on the players, and then hide behind: "Well they don't harm any innocents." "They don't use killing attacks." "They're just kidding." That last line has been the battle cry of the social bully since the dawn of time. I still don't buy it. To me, CLOWN is the symbol of: "The GM is going to crap on your character and any way that you respond will be wrong." If you are playing Toon Hero, then they are perfectly appropriate, other than that, no. I think that if I was playing in a campaign and CLOWN showed up with any frequency, my response would be: "Oh, it's CLOWN. They don't really hurt anyone, so we might as well just leave. Back to the base." I might not enjoy having my character squashed like a bug by Dr. Destroyer, but at least, if I get the chance, I can pound the crap out of him. He will do his best to kill me, but he won't back off with his hands up saying "I was just kidding." KA.

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you? A few thoughts: As to the general question, no, I don't allow Limitations just to save points. Actually, to be completely accurate, it is not that I would not 'allow' them, it is that I would enforce them. Which means that if you expect a -1/2 for "Does not work on Tuesday", then expect your adventures to take place on Tuesday 'about one third of the time'. I think the question, as you set it up, is based on the idea that you would not let a player save points by adding a Limitation that isn't actually going to limit anything, so why would you let them buy a cheaper version of a Power, and then basically 'give' them the full functionality of the most expensive build. I wouldn't. Either way. If they choose to save points by not buying the appropriate Advantages, then they aren't going to get those advantages. I might let someone try to do it once as a Power Stunt (if they had the Power Skill for that Power), but if they want to do it all the time, they are going to have to pay the points. Now it is possible that I might look at a specific power and say: "That is just too expensive for the good you will get out of it in my game. I am going to reduce the cost to X, or I am going to give you Advantage Y for free." But that would be on a case by case basis. On the side topic of enforcing the limitations (small "l", meaning either a Limitation or the lack of an Advantage) on a Power, there is one shining example that every GM can point to: Early Hal Jordan Green Lantern stories. I don't know what kind of point saving he got for "Not vs. Yellow", but unless it was -2, his GM was a ruthless bastard. Everything Hal fought was yellow in those days. Gangsters who just happen to be wearing a yellow suit. Monsters that just happen to shoot yellow death rays from their eyes. Aliens who just happen to paint all their ships yellow. Now that is enforcing a Limitation! I bet the next character that guy built payed full price for everything! KA.

Re: How would you have handled this (GMs)? Even Batman would violate his CVK to take out CLOWN once and for all. KA.

Re: Heat of the Moment I think a mandatory 'Team Member' package deal, that includes a 10 pt. Psych Lim "Does Random Things" would do fine. Just call them The Plasmoids. "Rather than punch the villain, the character totem spirit that is currently inhabiting me is going to fix a toaster." Sorry, I've been up all night and reading this thread is giving me a headache. I think that Robyn can find a way to recreate the 'Random Actions' mechanic within the Hero System. And if the group is able to play Hero in a way that satisfies them, then that is a good thing for the system. To me the whole concept just sounds a bit pretentious. It sounds like your group has gotten so swept up in the affectation that your fictional characters are 'real', that you enjoy saying: "My character is so real, even I don't know what it is going to do in every situation. As a matter of fact, I want the rules to force me to not know what my character is going to do sometimes. That proves how real it is!" Sorry if this comes off as hostile, I really don't mean it that way. But, when you get to the point where you believe that your characters have a distinct reality of their own, and that they are somehow 'communicating' their ideas and feelings to you, and that they are just as 'real' as people who occupy physical space, then you are exiting Role Playing and taking the ramp marked Schizophrenia. Having seen a few people who have been there, I have no interest in even reading the brochure, much less taking the trip. KA.

Re: Can anyone point me in the right direction? Nice! I don't really play Star Hero much, so I didn't even know that existed. KA.

Re: Can anyone point me in the right direction? In that case, try here: http://www.starherofandom.com/ Just click on the links under Star Hero Conversions, it looks like there are some excellent write-ups of weapons, based on the genre being converted. KA. P.S. I found the link by doing a search of these forums using the keywords: "weapon" and "writeups" under the Star Hero forum.

Re: Holy Killer Angels This is the premise of a series of books called The Inquisitor by Simon Quinn (pen name). It is sort of a cut-rate Mack Bolan type series, but the premise is that the main character is an assassin for the Vatican, and indeed spends much of his time doing pennance for the people he kills. Not really a bad read if you can find them cheap. KA.

Re: Paladins of Venus

Re: Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

Re: Questions about different HERO editions After 4th Edition, instead of creating a 5th Edition of The Hero System, the owners at that time (Cybergames) released Fuzion, which was, indeed a mixture of Hero and another system. Most of the Hero faithful hated it, and many felt betrayed because they thought what they were going to get was a new edition of Hero, not this new hybrid system. Hero System 5th Edition, which is what is in the stores now, is the actual 5th edition of the Hero System. It was produced by the current (and future) owners, DOJ Inc. So tell your GM that what is on the shelves now is the "real" Hero System, not Fuzion. KA. Edit: I knew someone would beat me to it.

Re: A very strange build for critiquing. SableWyvern, Nice to meet you. It sounds like you are planning to GM, and you are building things just to learn the rules. If that is the case, you have picked an interesting project. Before I get too deep into the details of the build, there are a couple of things I want to bring up. It looks like you are thinking of having a PC that is like Stormbringer (not as powerful, of course), so that the sword would have its' own agenda. It is an interesting idea, but as a GM I would hesitate to allow it, as built, in my game. Why? Because, as written, the sword could easily choose to get its' current host killed in combat. It could even choose which opponent got to kill the host, by having the host engage them in combat. Then the sword could attach itself to a much more powerful warrior. It would not take much Mind Control to get a warrior to want to use a powerful magic sword, which means that it wouldn't be long before the sword went from being wielded by the 30 point follower to being wielded by the 150 point "Most Powerful Swordsman in the land". Which means that the Sword/Follower combination would now be way above the campaign limits, which would probably annoy the other players, and possibly unbalance your game. You could build the same concept by having a fairly normal character with most abilities bought "Only in Hero ID", and the rest bought "OIF" through the sword. You could include some Psych Lims like Berserk, that would be explained by the sword going into a 'killing frenzy', etc. You could even have something like "Accidental Change" where the character with the sword might revert to their normal form under some circumstances (They temporarily broke free of the sword's influence.) This does not mean that your way is wrong, but just that you need to remember that there is always more than one way, and that some ways are more trouble prone than others. KA.

Re: Having a painful movement My answer depends on whether you want to damage the opponent, or move them somewhere and damage them. If you just want to damage them, why not just buy whatever attack you want with No Range (NND, EB, HTH). Half-move Teleport to them, and use your attack. If you hit, then the SFX are that you 'grabbed them and Teleported with them', back to the same place they were originally standing. If you want them to 'move', you could just choose an attack that Does Knockback (either normally or by buying that Advantage for the NND) and the SFX of the knockback would be 'that is where they landed' when I let go. If you want to say you Teleport with them a bunch of times, buy the attack with Autofire. KA.

Re: Astro City: How to get the feel of the series in Champions? In reading this thread, and based upon my own take on this topic, I think the key to an Astro City campaign might be having the whole thing be about the "Normals" Since Astro City is more about people than superheroics, I think it would be hard to get players into the proper mindset if they were playing Superpowered beings, especially at the start of the campaign. You could have a campaign where all of the players took the part of "NPC's" or "DNPC's" for some of the major players in the city. They would be around to see the superfights, but rarely participate in them, except in some very minor role. But, they would be spending a lot of time exploring the ways that superbeings changed the world they lived in. After enough game sessions to get the players in the proper mindset, you could have them become more directly involved in the super side of things. Perhaps the Cub Reporter's Editor notices that he seems to be friends with The Revenant, so he starts sending him to cover stories that The Revenant seems to be involved in, hoping for an exclusive. Or, a young ER doctor gets tired of seeing so many patients that have been hurt by Acro-Batter's "fastballs", so he tries to find out exactly how they work, hoping to find a better way to treat the injury. While doing his "field work" he runs afoul of the villanous Acro-Batter himself. After a certain amount of time, the players may find themselves moving into more of a "sidekick" role. They aren't superheroes themselves, but painful experience has taught them that they need to learn to take care of themselves, and that they can occasionally provide a crucial distraction. As time (and training, and a few possible radiation accidents ) go by, the Players can work their way up into being a part of the "super" community, but by now they should have so many strongly developed NPC contacts and personal relationships that they will be able to play a supers campaign that is about more than just punching villains. Another way to do it, would be to emulate the recent Justice League Unlimited episode "Flash and Substance". The Players could build "normal" Superheroes, and then receive an education in how things are done in Astro City. KA.

Re: Hit from behind I understand that it would be laborious to try to track every microsecond of combat, and I would not want to play a game that even tried. My original thinking (again, this is not what the rules say) was that when you are dealing with two characters that act on the same Segment, that having a higher DEX gives the character the right to begin their action first. Which means that if Gunfighter A and Gunfighter B are standing 20 yards apart on Main Street at High Noon, and they are both performing the same action (Shoot), then if Gunfighter A has the higher DEX, he will Shoot first, before Gunfighter B gets to act. But, I thought (erroneously), that if Gunfighter A chose to Move and then Attack (like running all the way down the street and tackling Gunfighter , and that all Gunfighter B wants to do is shoot, then he could do that while Gunfighter A was running. I may have been subconsciously thinking that if you used a Half Phase Action to Move, and then another Half-Phase Action to Attack, that someone who was only doing the Attack, could do their Attack after you started your Move. I also figured that you would be at a penalty, since you were shooting at a moving target. I wasn't really intending to have some complicated set of formulas for where exactly you were in your move when your opponent shot at you, or how many inches of movement you could achieve, based on the difference in DEX scores before your opponent got a chance to shoot. I just figured that if you chose Move then Shoot, and your Opponent chose Shoot, that they could get off a shot while you moved. Again, it was not in accordance with the rules, but it did seem to make sense at the time. I am not trying to argue with you, since my debate is between myself and my own understanding of the rules, but . . . according to what I think are the official rules, what you suggest would be entirely within them. If someone who has a drawn weapon pointing in the general direction of an opponent, does not have time to tighten their finger on a trigger before that opponent can run the length of a football field and tackle them, then how would they have time to shift their entire body around to a new facing? I know that is an extreme example, and I am not trying to be snarky toward you, but "stasis" seems fairly accurate as far as the rules are written. I am not trying to carry on a fight with you, I am just a bit annoyed with the rule itself. I can understand how it might approximate an extremely comic-bookish sort of combat. But even in comics, I see people getting shot at while they are running. In the few cases where someone lets out a battle-cry and runs toward their stunned opponent, who stands their motionless with a gun in their hand until the hero attacks, I see that as more of a Presence Attack kind of thing, than the standard way that combat works. Anyway, the rules are what they are, and of course, we are all free to adapt them as we see fit. KA.

Re: Hit from behind A couple of thoughts: 1) This points out one aspect of Hero combat that annoys me (now that I am doing it 'by the book'). I used to assume (incorrectly) that if you have two characters 10 hexes apart, both with the same SPD, if the character with the higher DEX decides to do a Move-by, Move-through, or just close to HTH range and Punch, that the lower DEX character could get off a Ranged attack while the higher DEX character was moving. However, as all of you probably know, the actual rule is that the Character with the higher DEX gets to do his complete "move and attack", while the Character with the lower DEX stands there and waits to be hit (barring an Abort, etc.). Based on that, it probably is book legal for a higher DEX character to run around behind a lower DEX character, again while the lower DEX character stands there waiting to get hit (barring an Abort). I am not saying that I want it to be this way, but I think that may be what the rules are. I know that in the first case I was talking about the actual order of attack, whereas the second case is more about getting to change your position, but if you consider: "Run around to the back and hit my opponent" to be your "attack action", then I don't know if the other character does get a chance to do anything, unless they Abort. Now I do not believe that the attacker should get anything for 'surprise', if the victim knows an attack is coming, but based on the basic structure of a bipedal humanoid, it is harder to defend your back that your front without special training (i.e. buying Defensive Maneuver), so you probably would get the 'From Behind' bonus. 2) One other thought that I have, as a GM who would quickly tire of this. If the character being attacked has a Held Action, and some Sense that would allow them to target the attacker without turning around, then I think they would definately be able to launch a Surprise Attack when their foe went around behind them. After all, when you are running up behind someone, you don't expect them to Mule Kick you in the groin, or thrust their sword straight back at you, especially if you think you are going to get to act first. 3) In general the GM always has a hard time walking the line between promoting clever player tactics and stopping abuse of loopholes in the rules. KA.

Re: To Post or Not to Post, That is the Question You are darn right! Which is why I want everyone to stop using the name "KA." immediately! I am sick and tired of all these posts about me, many of which make no sense! Especially all the ones comparing to me to some other poster named "EB". Even though I have never seen a single post from this person, I am constantly being told that I am not as good as he is. For some reason, I am usually portrayed as "Too random" or "Less Powerful" when this "EB" is mentioned. Some people have even gone so far as to say that I should be eliminated, and that I should be replaced by this "EB"! If this does not stop I will be forced to pursue a legal solution. KA. What? Killing Attack? Energy Blast? Oh! That's very different then! Nevermind!

Re: Using Supervillain Psych Lims Kristopher, I realize that this discussion has become a bit heated, so please don't take this as an attack, but I do have some questions about your position. If you think that using Disadvantages at the listed frequency interferes with a good storyline, why not just allow for more base points and let your players take the Disadvantages at lower levels? I understand the concept that you use them more for 'flavor' in your campaign, and you have every right in the world to do that, but it does make for Players who may well rankle if they end up gaming with a GM who does enforce the rules in a more orthodox way. It isn't a 'moral' issue of 'right and wrong', it is just an issue of letting your players know what is 'standard' and what is 'the way you do things in your campaign'. Let me bring in an example from another arena. I am currently taking classes at a community college. Since most of my classes are in one particular field (automotive) and the program is rather small, most of my classes are taught by the same professor. He is also the person who runs the program, so he has a great deal of latitude in what he does, at least as far as the automotive classes. Because what we are learning is a trade skill, it is far more important for us to actually know how to fix things, than to memorize every possible name for the same part, etc. And, since we tend to do a lot of work in the shop, repairing problems related to the area we are studying (Brakes, Air Conditioning, etc.) it is not really vital to show up for every single class, because the odds are that if you don't get to work on something today, you will get to next week. However, he still holds us to the exact same attendance rules, grading policies, etc, as the rest of the college. Why? Because if he let us miss 10 classes in a semester (3 is the standard), then it is quite likely that at least some students would feel they were being treated unfairly when their English or History or Math teacher flunked them for doing the same thing. In the past he actually tried spelling out to the students that there were different attendance policies in the Automotive classes vs. the General Education classes, but there were always misunderstandings. Now this is a more formal situation than gaming with a group of friends, but the same concept holds true. If there were no easy way to deal with this, I could see the need for hand-waving, but there is. If you have your players take Disadvantages at lower levels, the levels that you want and intend to enforce, and give them more base points, at least they will have a realistic idea of how Disadvantages are enforced in a standard campaign. Otherwise, you are setting them up to see a GM who is playing according to the rules as 'grossly unfair'. It isn't a question of right or wrong, or even your rights as a GM. You have every right to modify your campaign as you see fit. But if you are telling your players that your way is the standard way, when it isn't, then you are misinforming them. I am not supporting the idea that every session is controlled solely by the random action of the Disadvantage dice, but I do support the idea that Disadvantages should be enforced at the level they are purchased. Which means that if Spider-Man is on the Space Shuttle for a couple of weeks, one of the following things should happen: a) Mary Jane and Aunt May stowed away on the shuttle. (A bit forced, I agree, but that sort of thing happens in comics all the time.) The shuttle is going to crash near New York, and Spider-Man realizes it is going to land pretty darn near to the Spa that MJ and Aunt May are visiting, which means that they will be consumed in a fiery holocaust if he doesn't save the day. c) The Supervillain who hijacked the Shuttle has gathered a group of hostages in his secret base, and that is where the shuttle is going to crash land because the retro rockets are malfunctioning. With the bad luck that only DNPC's can have, MJ and Aunt May are among the hostages. d) An old enemy has chosen the time of Spider-Man's absence to strike, and MJ and Aunt May are reported missing, while he is far above the Earth and helpless to rescue them. e) Spider-Man is going to return to Earth to find a heap of DNPC trouble waiting for him. And, if you don't want things like that to happen in your campaign, then tell Spider-Man's player to take them at an "8 or less", or perhaps collectively as a group at "8 or less" so they don't show up very often and it is easy to work them in. I think there is a compromise path between saying: "Even though you are in an undersea kingdom created by the Elder Gods, and the only way to get here was by using the Conch Shell of Cthulhu, which was destroyed in the process, Joey, your wheelchair-bound newsboy DNPC shows up." and saying: "Take all the Disadvantages you want. Those are just free points and background for your character. The exact same plots are going to run whether you take them or not." And this applies to GM characters as well as Player characters. If I want to just give them points, I call it a “Villain Bonus”. I don’t load them up with bogus Disadvantages that I never intend to enforce. As to the original thread topic: One classic example of a costly Villain Disadvantage can be seen in “The Running Man”. All through the film, Killian, the Evil Game Show host, acts like a total jerk. He especially seems to enjoy insulting and humiliating his employees, including his personal bodyguard. At the end of the film, the bodyguard takes a look at the bloody, buff, and very annoyed, Arnold Schwarzenegger and decides that taking a pounding for his boss is not really worth it. That is one of the side-effects of ‘evil’ Disadvantages. The hired help may slavishly follow you as long as you are in a position of power, because they fear you. But if it ever looks like you might lose, or aren’t in a position to kill them right now, they will either abandon you, or turn on you like snakes, because they don’t like you at all. KA.

Re: Horror/Fantasy Sick Concept

Re: Horror/Fantasy Sick Concept Just to toss out a couple more ideas . . . 1) You may just want to start out with it playing music like a flute, but with time and practice, a talented 'musician' should be able to make it 'sing' or even 'speak' in the former owner's voice. 2) Based on the above concept, a particularly nasty villain (we are talking Necromancer here) might want to start a 'collection' of famous singers, orators, etc. For that matter he may decide to collect an entire choir (Church, Children's, Mormon Tabernacle, Up With People!) so that he could 'process' them and put on a performance. He also might want to mock the friends and relatives of the departed by having a 'performer' using his 'Voice Flute' say unspeakably offensive things to them, from a hidden location of course, so that they would not realize what the actual source was. KA.

Re: Horror/Fantasy Sick Concept For a Necromancer, sure, why wouldn't it be possible? You need a source of air (it's a flute, I assume someone is blowing into it) a way to preserve/animate the dead tissue (Hello! Necromancer!) and a way to control the many muscles that control the sound produced. I don't think this would be past the abilities of a talented Necromancer, as long as he had a really good knowledge of anatomy, and knew how to design a flute in the first place. For one thing, he could learn how to do it by experimenting with attaching an exterior 'hose' that would push air through a living human's voice box without their consent. While we are on the subject, if you wanted to include some animated lungs and/or torso, you could also make 'bagpipes'. KA.