BishopofB&W

Re: Gods and Champions Here's a cosmology I'm still thinking through, trying to hammer out any inconsistencies (at least as much as you can in a comic book reality:)) I borrowed a few concepts from In Nomine, as you can tell. From a lecture by Archmage Sun Haifeng to his apprentice, Harrison White: Have you ever tried to comprehend the sheer vastness of the universe, my son, with its countless stars, planets, moons, and other wonders? Yet for all its grandeur and mystery, it is but a drop in the cosmic ocean of the multiverse. Do you know what this is? It is a gui gong qui. In English, that means “devil’s work ballâ€. It is a spherical puzzle made by Chinese artisans. It consists of many intricately carved shells carved each inside the other from a single ball of ivory. The gui gong qui is a very simplistic depiction of the metaphysical nature of the multiverse. Our universe resides in one of the outer shells. The outer shells are called the Material Realms. They contain everything physical, including all alternate universes and dimensions. Each has its own physical and metaphysical laws. Some are like our own while others are very different, as you will discover. Inside the Material Realms lie the Emergent Realms. They contain dimensions that manifest the transition between concept and the physical reality of the Material Realms. Babylon, the Great City, exists there. Babylon contains all ideas of cities and city life ever imagined by mortal man. Should you visit, you will also find many beings of species you have never imagined. Babylon draws its substance from the ideas of many more races than just humans of Earth. Everything you can imagine and everything you can not can be found in some form in Babylon. The Astral Realms are the shells inside the Emergent Realms. They contain all the unrealized and yet-to-be realized possibilities in distinct forms. Dreams, powerful memories, spirits, the ancient gods and other icons exist here depending on the strength of belief in them. The Astral Realms have their own distinct properties but reach into all the Emergent and Material Realms. The Land of Faerie is there as well as the domains of every god that was ever sustained by belief and worship. The Astral Realms make the powers of magic, spirit and mind possible in the Emergent and Material Realms. The Realms of the Dead exist at the border between the Astral Realms and the Foundation Realms. The souls of the living gravitate there before passing on to the Foundation realms. The Realms of the Dead are divided into regions known as the Cradle of Harmony and the Netherworld. They correspond to traditional ideas of Heaven and Hell. Both extend into the Astral Realms. The denizens of the Foundation Realms try to influence living souls. The Celestials try to integrate a soul into the Creation Symphony while the Infernals try to corrupt the soul until its energies can be harvested and consumed. The degree of success on each side determines whether the soul ends up in the Cradle or the Netherworld. All religions contain some element of truth, however tenuous. This is what the Celestials work with to nurture a soul into the Light. The Infernals, on the other hand, try to conceal this element behind a screen of lies, distortions, and half-truths and draw a soul into darkness. When a soul reaches the Cradle of Harmony, it finds itself in whatever it imagined Heaven to be during its life. This is, of course, not really Heaven, but rather the last remnant of mortal preconceptions and limitations. When the soul matures enough to cast off this remnant, the Celestials guide it to its place in the higher Celestial Realms. Some great souls are marked for a special destiny and are able to return to life by being born into new bodies. Other such souls eschew reincarnation to remain in the Cradle, ready to help receptive beings in the Material Realms with small moments of inspiration and wisdom. The Netherworld is another matter entirely. Souls that end up there are tortured and deceived until their fullest potential for corruption is realized. Then their energies are harvested to feed the Infernals. They become livestock for their masters. As in the Cradle, these souls see the Netherworld through the lens of their mortal preconceptions. The Infernals encourage this by making themselves and their domains appear as the soul expects them to appear. As in the Cradle, some great evil souls can be reborn to continue their evil work from lifetime to lifetime. The Foundation Realms lie inside the Astral Realms and the Realms of the Dead. They are the homes of beings known on Earth as angels and demons. Metaphysically speaking, the Celestial and Infernal dimensions are at opposite poles. The Celestials seek to enlighten every soul and guide it to its place in the Creation Symphony. The Infernals were sundered from their Celestial cousins in a time before Time and, lacking the sustaining glory of the Creation Symphony, seek to enslave souls and harvest their energies through all eternity. At the very center of the multiverse is the entity that created the Realms. This being goes by many names such as God, Creative Principle, Lord of Creation, and Eternal Emperor. The Celestials say that this being created the multiverse, the angels and those angels that rebelled to become demons. They say this being also made possible all the incredible varieties of life that exist and that it desires that each eventually take its place in the Creation Symphony. The Infernals deny this. They say there is nothing there. They say that this entity lost interest soon after creating the multiverse and moved on, leaving its servants to manage it as best they could.

Re: Gods and Champions Did Avengelyne go out of print? I picked up the first trade paperback a few years ago. Soon after, I stopped seeing it on the shelves. Did I somehow kill the comic?

Re: Gods and Champions Can't say I have, but I draw a good bit of influence from it. I liked their take on Ethereal spirits.

Re: Gods and Champions

Re: Gods and Champions To be honest, if I saw a woman dressed in Areala's old costume charging at me, I'd start looking for a weapon, not a motel phone number.

Re: Gods and Champions That's the one. I can't find any of the comics, but I've got a couple of trade paperbacks. I'll look in the #2 paperback: Rituals. In the plot, Areala nearly dies. While she's in coma, Mother Superior re-designs her outfit for more modesty. She explains that she never liked the old one due to its high '70s influence(Those mid-thigh slits up the sides:D). Understandable for a superhero comic book but inappropriate for a nun. BTW, her habit transformed into battle mode in a manner reminiscent of G-Force Transmute!) Anyway, an order of NY martial artist nuns complained and the writer got rid of the cleaveage and added leggings under the habit.

Re: Gods and Champions Warrior Nun Areala is fun in a quirky kind of way. The Catholic Church is still wealthy and powerful as ever because demons are known to walk the Earth and lead their minions such as the Demon Mafia. The Catholic Church has proven methods of fighting them. Their main soldiers are the warrior nuns and magic-priests. I didn't think it made fun of the Catholic Church in any way and the writer complied with a complaint from a real order of nuns that Areala's costume was too revealing.

Re: What would Dr. Destroyer *really* do?

Re: DEMON cover previews out! When the FX channel first aired in Washington, they had a Wonder Woman commercial that went: "Steve Trevor. Perfectly charming. Perfectly groomed. And perfectly helpless. Watch Wonder Woman pull his fat out of the fire every day at 2:00.

Re: I have it! I have it! Well, it looks like I've got every rule and suggestion I'll ever need for gunfighting now that I have DC and UMA. Am I correct that the HoJ in 5th Ed. doesn't teleport his guns to and from a pocket dimension? Are we going to see any more description of the Manifesto of Justice?

Re: Don't have it yet My FLGS called yesterday to tell me they have it in. I got one on hold to pick up tomorrow.

Re: Timelines These entries are a little long but I find it easier to keep my notes straight in this form. 1794—The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel retires at the end of the Reign of Terror. Their final group of rescues includes a Duc d’Erlet, who demonstrates his gratitude by incapacitating his rescuers with an alchemical gas and attempting to sacrifice them in a summoning ritual. He hopes to bargain for new magical powers with a demon prince. Lord Blakeney revives just in time to stop him from killing anyone and runs d’Erlet through the heart with his rapier. 1866—Sherlock Holmes and John Watson meet for the first time at a London boarding school. They match wits with the school’s fencing master, Rathe. Thought to have drowned in a fight with Holmes, Rathe resurfaces years later as Professor James Moriarty. Watson never publishes the story of their adventure but in 1978, his diary ends up in the hands of an American who launches a successful writing career with the novel Young Sherlock Holmes. Eventually, Chris Columbus writes a film adaptation of it. 1887—The greater vampire Count Vlad Dracula, having sensed the increasing flow of the energies that sustained him in undeath, arrives in London and sets about establishing himself in his new home. Dr. Van Helsing and his companions discover him. They pursue him back to his Transylvanian castle and apparently destroy him. 1888—Jack the Ripper terrorizes London. Sherlock Holmes teams up with London occultist and Temple of the Silver City agent Simon Campion to stop him. 1892—Mycroft Holmes becomes the director of the British Secret Service. He (and his successors) is referred to as “Mâ€. July 1943—The U.S. Navy conducts tests of a new stealth technology known as the Philadelphia Experiment. At first, everything seems to work perfectly. Then something goes wrong and several crewmembers either die or go insane. Eyewitness reports also place the ship for a few seconds in two different locations hundreds of miles apart at approximately the same time as the test. August 9, 1965—Sorcerer Nerius Greene attempts to open a dimensional gate to the realms of Apophis in Middlebury, England. He is stopped by a group made up of third-generation descendants of late 19th- through early 20th-century adventurers, adepts of the Temple of the Silver City, and some of the world’s most unorthodox intelligence operatives. Greene dies in the ensuing battle. April 18, 1966—A mysterious, inhuman creature murders several people in a rite to resurrect Greene as a lich. Greene takes the new name Father Qlippoth and is, if anything, even more evil than in his mortal life. May 1967—With President Eisenhower’s approval, Vice President Nixon and Henry Kissinger form a plan to infiltrate the Army’s first paranormal covert ops unit, codenamed Team 19, into Israel in anticipation of the Six Day War. While confident the Israeli armed forces will prevail with the help of U.S. weapons and supplies, they both see a chance to simultaneously hedge their bet and test Team 19 in the field. The team works with Mossad operatives and successfully completes its objectives, destroying several cells of Soviet, Egyptian, and Syrian spies and saboteurs. They discover that their targets include some paranormals, as well. They are so successful that Eisenhower signs an order increasing funding to the Army’s paranormal asset program and encouraging the other military branches and intelligence agencies to develop their own. June 8, 1967—The Six Day War is well underway. Believing all the bugs are worked out, the U.S. Navy tests the Philadelphia Experiment stealth technology under war conditions by sending the US Destroyer Liberty just outside of Israeli waters to invisibly observe the fighting. They observe an Israeli Special Forces unit attack and kill a mixed group of about eighty Arab soldiers and robed men who appear to be conducting some kind of ritual. The group is attempting to summon one of the demons supposedly imprisoned by King Solomon. The summoning fails, but the forces already unleashed interact with the time-space distortion that conceals the Liberty. The result is a small dimensional rift onboard and the possession of the crew and ship by energies and beings from the Apophic realms. The Israelis have no choice but to bomb the ship into scrap, killing all but a few of the crew. The survivors are too traumatized to remember what really happened and the U.S. and Israeli governments cover it up as a mistaken attack. The Philadelphia Experiment is shut down permanently. September 11, 2001—Terrorists hijack four airliners and crash one of them into the World Trade Center in New York City. The second and third planes are prevented from hitting the WTC and the Pentagon and the passengers are rescued by the superhero Paladin and the government superteam Guardians of Liberty. The passengers on the fourth plane, led by Bernie Goldblum, an insurance investigator and low-level mutant brick, overpower the hijackers. Guardian II and Blackbird of the Guardians of Liberty rescue the passengers and land the plane safely. One tower of the WTC collapses. Total loss of life is estimated at 2,000 people. President George W. Bush declares a “War on Terrorâ€.

Re: The Mystic World I liked the nice, vague treatment Glen A. Larson gave God and Heaven in an episode of Battlestar Galactica. Apollo gets sent on a “mission from God†to do something I can’t remember. Apollo disappears from a routine patrol and finds himself in an immmense white room, wearing an all-white version of his uniform, and facing about a dozen glowing white beings. Part of the dialogue goes something like: Apollo: Are you angels? Being: That’s close enough. Apollo: Why is the Evil One allowed to spread fear and misery? Being: We can’t interfere with free will. Not yours. Not his.

Re: Timelines No. It's a work in progress. I started by copying the main timeline distinctions in the official timeline and have been trying to fill it in as I have time. Most of my stuff is in the modern era because I decided that superpowers first come about in 1965 after a lich-to-be tried to use the energy resonance from the Los Alamos tests and the Japan bombing to open a gate for my campaign world's Cthulhu/Edom-inspired horrors. I'm trying to come up with ideas for earlier events to create more continuity. I also said that the first U.S. paranormal special ops team was secretly deployed in the Six Day War. Then there's my take on the Philadelphi Experiment and the Israeli bombing of the U.S.S. Liberty... I'm in the same boat as Acroyear. I'll try to post a sample tomorrow.

Re: The Mystic World Some random thoughts… I’ve never cared to delve into Kaballism. My perception of it was an esoteric thought exercise for mystic-minded, religiously observant Jews and, for Hollywood celebrities, a flavor-of-the-month fad. If TMW accurately reflects the basic concepts (not necessarily the details) of the Kaballah model, I’d say Kaballah is an attempt to reconcile medieval sorcery practices with the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim prohibitions against consorting with familiar spirits and making obeisance to pagan religions. That may sound harsh, but I’ve already said I know very little about it. My exposure to it comes from TMW and GURPS Cabal, so I have a highly stylized Reader’s Digest version of it. I dusted off my White Wolf Book of Worlds for comparison. It’s less specific but seemed to be basically the same ideas. It seems to me that one of the basic premises for most, if not all, religions is that if they do not already do so, a god or gods can be persuaded to take an active interest in mortal affairs. IMO, a Creator, as presented in the above-mentioned books, is incapable of caring one way or another about an individual because it (a) operates on too large a scale (do you have any special affinity for the E. coli in your digestive tract?) or ( is the embodiment of creative principles and can’t be bothered with the details beyond opposing its opposite. If all religions are both true and false in spite of the differences, then religions and their respective afterlives are a massive self-delusion humans have placed on themselves. Either angels and devils (and their equivalents in various faiths) are just part of the delusion or they are simply taking advantage of the situation for food (devils) or who knows what (angels). This in itself could be a starting point for several campaigns. I understand the need to have some rationale if you want to have all the old pagan gods in your campaign, but I wouldn’t dare try to present this to a group of players because you never know if it’s going to hit a deeply buried nerve and cause disruption in the group. There are plenty of alternatives to this scenario, anyway. That said, I found TMW to be well written with many useful ideas for incorporating magic in a superhero campaign that I anticipate using. I saw this on a birthday card: Q: Why do men like women dressed in leather? A: Because they smell like a new car.

Re: Timelines I've found it helps as a springboard for campaign ideas, i.e. what happened in the past that caused this today. It is also great for flavor. For example, I decided that the events portrayed in the movie Young Sherlock Holmes (starring Nicholas Rowe) really happened but with sorcery. Watson never published the story but an aspiring American writer found Watson's school diary in a flea market and launched a successful writing career. The publisher (a member of an Evil Organization ) had him remove the more fantastic elements. The diary mysteriously vanished....

Re: The Mystic World Will The Ultimate Mystic include alternatives to the Kabballah model of the multiverse?

Re: The Mystic World I must lodge a protest about the ruthless teasing in The Mystic World. All the hints and taunts about characters in Arcane Enemies has given me a temporary PsychLim: Must acquire Arcane Enemies(Uncommon, Total). I swear, I can almost hear the Dragon whispering in my ear, "Get it, get it."

Re: The Mystic World (Raises hand) Mr. Long or Mr. Shomshak, it says all the legendary gods live in the Land of Legends, but doesn't say anything about interactions between them and the gods of alien races. Is there something that makes this unlikely or is that in an upcoming supplement? Just curious.

Re: X-Men Evolution Bryan Singer said he got a lot of ideas from watching all 70 episodes. Never read the comic before but loved the series.

Re: Does Sapphire bug anyone else? Madonna would be like the Hellfire Club's White Queen. Blonde Ambtion, anyone? Astro City: Confession is a good example of maturation. Bryan Kinney wants to be a superhero for the acclaim but comes to understand that being a hero means self-sacrifice and putting up with misunderstandings and bad press.

Re: Mystic World cover I thought for a second that Witchcraft is showing waayyy more leg than she used to but then realized her tights have been flesh-toned. Just having a 7th-grade moment.

Re: Galactic Champions I know what you mean, but who was going to take him out? Witchcraft sacrificed herself to beat Tyrranon and no way can Takofanes fit into a non-magical cyberpunk or sf setting. Still, with magic back, some nutcase could find a way to revive him!

Re: Galactic Champions According to Thalya's background, Cateran is still around (nice low-key homage to Highlander ) I wonder who else survived to see the Federation? What about that amnesiac that ran VIPER's boot camp? Anyone else?

Re: Galactic Champions Look on page 30. The Prime Minister of the General Coucil Assembly is a Mon'dabi named..... ZORNWILL