Cantriped

Re: Herophile Fantasy art

and here is the seond half. sorry for the cropping on the hair and foot, my crappy Scanner did that and I couldn't figure out why.

Re: Herophile Fantasy art

Here is part of one of my most recent pieces, you can definitly see the improvement over the last year or so. Its actually a much larger peice with two views of the character, but I cropped to to maximize upload space, I'll post the other half seperatly just below this one.

As I'm not sure wether it will be visable at whatever resolution your running, the stem with the red on the end inbetween the fingers of his left hand is a Rose, complete with thorns. Onyxclaw, your work is amazing, I dream of being to do stuff like that, I'm not all that great with non-humaniods, most of my attemptes come out looking either odd or cartoonish

Re: Crazy idea for a magic "system".

Hmm, I think much of the problem with hero is Indeed its versatility, not only can you do jsut about anything, but you can do jsut about anything in a lot of different ways, back on topic though

I really can agree with what your saying though Stormspace

For my magic system I used 2 different Domains with 3 schools each, and each school stands for a particular group of thematically tied effects. Such as protective and supressive magics (Abjuration), or spells that decieve or trick (Sorcery). So though all mages Buy the same VPP and the same Spell Research Skill to learn spells any two mages might be vastly different simply because on focused on different schools of magic then the other

Re: Class in Fantasy

Very very interesting thread, Somthign I feel must be commented on though is that social class, at least innitially, is nearly always determined by one factor... Power, it may degenerate to a chaste system, but these governments are almost always formed by those few who had greater power then the average human, either they were cunning tacticions, prodigious leaders, or mighty soldiers.

bareing that in mind I find it hard to imagine that, in a world setting where magic can pop up, the vast majority of governments wouldn't be at least partially magocratic (ruled in by those with the most powerful magic). in such settings bloodlines known to produce powerful Mages would be highly sought after. Certain taboos would also develop, such as Mage+NonMage couplings.

Religion is another point that should be adressed, the early religions usually developed to explain things that humans didn't understand, where as some later religions developed to consolidate power.

Thus what you really get would depend on era, an early era world would likely be a very fudal Mago-theocracy, in which he positions of power were held by the Mage-priests and Ill-informed peasentry treated the ruling class as somthing akin to Gods.

In later eras, when magic has been more thourghly studied and mages are more common, Mages would be treated as somthing more similar to brillant scientists, and power would have shifted to the middle class, Somthing similar to a Magocratic-Rebublic might develop, in which all Mage-gifted were treated as the Upper Class and given and equal vote. The Peasants would still be in essentially the same position they were before, however its much harder to think of a Mage as a god when there is a chance your own child could be born Mage gifted, and when chances are you work (albeit distantly) with the area's local Mage, and know perfectly well that he's mortal.

Of course infinite exceptions to this could exist, depending on entirely on whatever the GM desides to do.

Re: Crazy idea for a magic "system".

Hmm, I've found a lot of really really good ideas in this forum, the Spirit idea was one of my favorites.

Atm I'm setting up a VPP based system in which all spellcasting is split up into one of 6 different schools dependant on its general effects Heres the favorite spell I've made so far

As it Was (Spell; Abjuration)

Effect: Healing(Body) 1d6

Target/Area Effected: Single damaged inanimate object or very small group of objects (Such as a wall, chair, or Ice cream float)

Casting Time: Half Phase

Casting Procedures: Gestures (Both Hands; Throughout), Incantations “As it Wasâ€

Duration: Constant

END Cost: 3

Prerequisite:

Invented by human mages during the rebellion that destroyed the Soratami Empire, this extraordinarily useful abjuration spell served a vital role in the rebel’s efforts. “As it Was†will restore to its original state any object broken or destroyed within the last 7 days. This spell still sees a fair amount of use in cities, where it is used to repair damages from fires or building collapses. Unfortunately, such repairs still take time, and are exhausting for the mage, not to mention expensive for the client. It is also quite useful for when an experiment goes wrong in the alchemy lab. I personally find the spell useful when my clumsy apprentice breaks my ice cream float.

Game Information: Healing (Body) 1d6, Continuous (+1), Cumulative (up to 8x maximum effect)(+1 1/4) (32.5 (32) Active points); Gestures (Both Hands; Throughout)(-3/4), Incantations (“As it Wasâ€)(-1/4), Limited Power (“Only Works On Inanimate Objects), Limited Power (“Only Works on Damage dealt within last weekâ€)(-1). Total Cost: 10.6 (11) Points

In the system I'm working on magic is an innate talant, but the Spells themselves are formulaic, thus anybody with the talant can learn spells given enough time and practice. the way I've set up the ruleset for magic ensures that though magic may be more versatile in some aspects a Warrior or Rogue is no less effective a character type because there are things they can do that magic simply can't. Powerful mages are also fairly rare.

In general though it seems to me that what makes magic, well, magic. Instead of just limited Superpowers is that any mage could potentially have the same kinds of abilities you have, most Supoer heros are built to be as unique as possible, while a pragmatic mage wouldn't care if everybody and thier mother knew Magic Missile, if its that useful you can be sure they will learn it as well.

Re: Herophile Fantasy art

This is my first time on the Hero boards, but I thought I'd throw this little snippet up, this was done a year or two ago before I really started practicing a lot, I'll put on some of my more recent work if I get enough feed back.