Steve Long

Time for a quick "year in review" update.
 
I just finished the Etruscan Mythology chapter (a short one at only a little over 5,000 words) and have now begun the major task of the Hindu Mythology chapter. That'll keep me busy for quite some time.
 
Over the past year I've been able to devote a lot more time to Mythic Hero (though never as much as I'd like!), and in that time I added 162,000 words to the manuscript. That nearly doubled it from its length as of 01/01/2013. Currently it stands at approximately 338,000 words, with a long way yet to go. Unless I'm sadly mistaken I bet Hindu Mythology will add at least 40,000 words to the total. That will leave only one major mythology to go -- Celtic, which is so large I'm planning to split it into four chapters -- and about 20 smaller mythologies to research and write up. (Some of the latter may not support a whole chapter, in which case they'll get folded into another chapter or sent down to the "Miscellaneous" catch-all chapter at the end.)
 
So there's still a long way to go. I've been at this over two years so far, and it could easily be another two years. But now that I'm devoting more than just spare time to it (much to the chagrin of my bank account ), I'm making enough progress to stave off any despair I might otherwise feel when I look at the remaining mountain of work. I hope those of you who've been waiting patiently for the book won't mind continuing to wait so I can get MH Just Right. Eventually I'm going to have something pretty awesome to show you.
 
If anyone has any questions, comments, suggestions, or requests, as always feel free to post 'em.

No, that isn't really what I have in mind. If I do this the way I want to do it, I want to publish a big, quality book. I don't want to publish just a PDF, and I don't want to rely on the quality (or lack thereof) of PoD for the product.
 
In the end, if I'm going to publish this book, I don't want to cut any corners. I don't want to have to compromise anything. I want to do it the way I think it should be done... if that's possible.

Done and done! After a lot of research and writing I've finished the Slavic Mythology and Baltic Mythology chapters of Mythic Hero. Together they came to well over 20,000 words, longer than I expected.
 
Monday I need to start working on a novella I've agreed to write, but in the meantime, though, that leaves me a few more days to play around with mythology. I think it's time to bite the bullet and tackle one of the remaining three "major" mythologies (Celtic, Chinese, Hindu). I think I'll pick Chinese. I may need to order some General Tso's Chicken and egg rolls for lunch to get myself in the mood.

Done and done! After a lot of research and writing I've finished the Slavic Mythology and Baltic Mythology chapters of Mythic Hero. Together they came to well over 20,000 words, longer than I expected.
 
Monday I need to start working on a novella I've agreed to write, but in the meantime, though, that leaves me a few more days to play around with mythology. I think it's time to bite the bullet and tackle one of the remaining three "major" mythologies (Celtic, Chinese, Hindu). I think I'll pick Chinese. I may need to order some General Tso's Chicken and egg rolls for lunch to get myself in the mood.

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See?
 

 
If I agreed with that, there'd be no point in writing this book. There are lots of mythology books out there; this will be the only one with HERO System information on gods, creatures, items, and other related cool stuffs. Those who don't think gods should have character sheets are, as always, free to ignore 'em. Having them in print won't hurt anyone. And for those who do want 'em, they'll be available. It's a win-win.

1.  Gangrel, you'll be happy to know that Perseus does, in fact, have a full character sheet. I've already written it up in the Greek and Roman Mythology chapter.
 
2.  Megaplayboy, for raw text we definitely get more than 450 words per page, though of course character sheets, tables, and the like complicate the situation (as does a greater or lesser amount of art than usual). To take three recent examples, Champions Beyond gets approximately 613 words per page, The Book Of The Empress gets 628 words per page, and the MHI RPG gets about 715 words per page. Nevertheless, you're right that MH is likely to be one really big book. I'm already at over 250,000 words, and could easily have another 250,000 to go. Assuming it's a 500,000 word book and it gets 650 words per page average, that's still a 769 page book. The practical logistics of the situation may prevent me from making it one massive tome if I find a way to publish it, regardless of my own personal wishes.

Well, sometimes good things result from a serious bout of insomnia:  I finished my chapter on Australian Aborigine mythology! It came in at 17,500 words, a lot longer than I expected. This is despite only having three gods who get character sheets (tied with Armenian mythology for the smallest number, so far). Mostly I think the wordage comes from some detailed cosmology stuff, a complete system for Aborigine magic, and descriptions of a bunch of weird monsters.
 
Now on to a new chapter. I suppose I should tackle one of the remaining "major" mythologies (Celtic, Chinese, and Hindu), but I'm more in the mood for Slavic/Russian, so that's what I'm gonna work on.

Howdy Herophiles! Time for a WDYWTS thread about our next awesome book: Mythic Hero, which I've been itching to write for a long time now.
 
Our shorthand description for MH around here is "Steve's version of Deities & Demigods," and while that's a good one-sentence pitch I think the key words there are "Steve's version." I think this book is going to go significantly beyond other gaming supplements on the subject. Or at least, that's my intent.
 
Here's what the book will contain as it's currently conceived:
 
Chapter One: Gods In Gaming: A review of a bunch of useful introductory material, much like HSB has its own Chapter One. It will cover "Templates" for common divine abilities, a discussion of how to use gods in your campaign (such as the various approaches, from "ultra-powerful" to "basically just like the PCs"), and even how to play gods in mythology-based campaigns.
 
The rest of the chapters are descriptions of individual pantheons, arranged roughly in this order: the cosmology/setting; other interesting bits (such as unique magic systems, spells, or pantheon-wide items); the gods (major/important/fun gods get full character sheets; lesser deities just get textual descriptions; heroes; villains; and monsters. For example, the Norse monster section has Fenris and Jormungandr; the Russian/Slavic monster section has character sheets for vodyanoi, domovoi, rusalka, and other such spirits.
 
Here's the current list of pantheons I'm intending to cover:
 
American Indian (selections from major tribes like Cherokee, Haida, Iroquois, etc.)
Arthurian Legends (but see second post below about "Legendary Hero")
Assyro-Babylonian
Aztec and Mayan
Celtic
Chinese
Demonology (medieval Christian demons like Belial, Moloch, maybe even Satan )
Egyptian
Finnish
Greek and Roman
Hawaiian and Polynesian
Hindu
Hungarian
Japanese
Norse
Slavic/Russian
Sumerian
Voodoo
Yoruban
 
And then I'll have a final chapter on mythoi I don't have enough information to write up in full, like Aborigine, Armenian, Hittite, Zulu, and so on. If in my researches I come across enough information onany of them, that pantheon will get bumped to "full chapter" status.
 
The main guideline about which pantheons get a chapter is, generally, whether the subject has good, approachable resources in English that I have or can obtain. One reason gamers in general tend to emphasize/know about Greek/Roman and Norse mythology is that there are such excellent resources available on them. My library (see picture below) contains a lot of good references on a lot of mythologies, but there are some mythoi that just aren't covered well in English (or at least not for prices I'm willing to pay ). If you know of a source for a mythos that I haven't included on my list, feel free to mention it. Please include author and title so I can easily look it up on Alibris or the like.
 
So, now that you've got the basics... what do you want to see in Mythic Hero?

Well, sometimes good things result from a serious bout of insomnia:  I finished my chapter on Australian Aborigine mythology! It came in at 17,500 words, a lot longer than I expected. This is despite only having three gods who get character sheets (tied with Armenian mythology for the smallest number, so far). Mostly I think the wordage comes from some detailed cosmology stuff, a complete system for Aborigine magic, and descriptions of a bunch of weird monsters.
 
Now on to a new chapter. I suppose I should tackle one of the remaining "major" mythologies (Celtic, Chinese, and Hindu), but I'm more in the mood for Slavic/Russian, so that's what I'm gonna work on.

Time for another update!
 
I've finished the Ainu mythology chapter. It came in at 14,600 words, which was a lot longer than I expected when I started it.
 
Haven't decided what to tackle next. Australian Aborigine is most likely, but Hawaiian, Slavic/Russian, and Voodoo are all in the running. Don't want to think about the remaining "big three" (Celtic, Chinese, and Hindu) just yet...

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See?
 

 
That is certainly my general approach, particularly as I have limited capacity to provide bells and/or whistles.
 
Technically speaking, there is a "do the best you can with however much people pledge" option -- it's called IndieGoGo, which is like KS but the money is taken as soon as you pledge. It's not nearly as popular as KS, though, for obvious reasons. I'd rather go the KS route; I wouldn't feel good about taking people's money unless I'm sure I can provide them with something for it.

The latest update: I've completed the Japanese mythology chapter! Came in just short of 20,000 words.
 
As long as I'm in the Japanese islands I think I'll stay and write the Ainu mythology chapter. After that, it's on to something different.

Just a quick update for those interested in such things: I have declared the Egyptian Mythology chapter more or less "finished." It ended up being about 26,000 words long, making it the fourth or fifth longest chapter so far. The book as a whole is approaching 250,000 words and is nowhere near being finished. O.o
 
Next up: Yoruban Mythology! On deck: Japanese Mythology, because a friend's daughter put in a special request.
 
My current list of mythoi I expect to cover includes:
 
African (covering all tribes and parts of the continent not covered in other chapters)
Ainu
✔American Indian (split into six sub-chapters covering major cultural groups)
✔Armenian
✔Assyro-Babylonian
Australian Aborigine
✔Aztec
Canaanite*
Celtic
Chinese
Demonology (medieval Christian demons; may also include some angels)
✔Egyptian
Estonian*
Etruscan*
Filipino*
✔Finnish
✔Greek and Roman
Hawaiian
Hindu
Hittite*
Hungarian*
Inca
✔Japanese
Lithuanian*
Maori*
Masai*
✔Mayan
Mongolian/Turkic*
✔Norse
Oceanic
Persian
Scythian*
Slavic/Russian
South American* (possibly combined with Inca)
✔Sumerian
Ugric
Voodoo
✔Yoruban
Miscellaneous
 
(✔ = has been written; * = subject to being combined with other chapters, or moved to Miscellaneous if there's not enough material to support a whole chapter)

For those of you who are on Facebook I'll put in another plug for my "Wanderings In The Fantastic World" page, which provides not only pics of real-world locations that should be Fantasy, but inspirational captions for them as well, each and every day!
 
https://www.facebook.com/WanderingsInTheFantasticWorld?fref=ts

Re: Followup: AoE Grab to Single Grab
 
You need to take that up with the GM. There are no official rules on point or effectiveness ceilings, so if a GM chooses to set any, it's up to him to also address any rules implications that arise.

Re: Inner-Earth Update
 
No room for a beast-man city. Have to save that for something else. It's a big world; we can wedge in lots of lost civilizations.

Re: Activation Roll and Lack of Weakness
 
It's legal, though it kind of weakens the effectiveness of the LoW. Whether it's appropriate is up to the GM.

Re: Haymaker a Grabbed target
 
As a default, no, because Haymaker can’t be combined with other Combat Maneuvers except as indicated in the rules (see 5ER 389). But of course the GM can allow it if he thinks it wouldn’t be abusive or problematic to do so.

Re: Mindscan & Multipower Rule...
 
Nice try, but no cigar.
 
If a character buys his Mind Scan in a Flexible slot in a Multipower, and establishes a Mind Scan lock-on with a particular amount of Active Points’ worth of Mind Scan (say, 60, for 12d6 assuming no Advantages), and then reduces the amount of Multipower reserve allocated to Mind Scan, he breaks the lock-on. If he wants to re-establish it, he must use another Attack Action, succeed with an ECV Attack Roll, and so on. Since he now knows the “general location and presence” of the target mind, he’s subject to the modifier two steps better on the Mind Scanning Modifiers chart (assuming the target has not left the general area).

Re: f/u Grab: Throwing & Squeezing after initial Grab
 
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "either" roll. If a character attempts a Grab and misses, he's never going to get to the "Throw" stage of things in the first place, so the Throw rules don't come into play. Only if the character has to make an Attack Roll with his Throw -- either to perform it at all, or if he's trying to hit a specific target with the Thrown character/object -- are the "miss" rules going to come into play.
 
If what you're asking is, "Can a character Throw a Grabbed person in an effort to hit another target (such as another character or a specific hex), miss that target, but still inflict Throw damage on the Thrown person?", then the answer is "No." There aren't any provisions in the rules for that; a miss is a miss. The GM could alter that if he likes, but generally the rules don't let a character miss/fail and still obtain some measure of success.

Re: f/u Grab: Throwing & Squeezing after initial Grab
 
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "either" roll. If a character attempts a Grab and misses, he's never going to get to the "Throw" stage of things in the first place, so the Throw rules don't come into play. Only if the character has to make an Attack Roll with his Throw -- either to perform it at all, or if he's trying to hit a specific target with the Thrown character/object -- are the "miss" rules going to come into play.
 
If what you're asking is, "Can a character Throw a Grabbed person in an effort to hit another target (such as another character or a specific hex), miss that target, but still inflict Throw damage on the Thrown person?", then the answer is "No." There aren't any provisions in the rules for that; a miss is a miss. The GM could alter that if he likes, but generally the rules don't let a character miss/fail and still obtain some measure of success.

Re: f/u Grab: Throwing & Squeezing after initial Grab
 
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "either" roll. If a character attempts a Grab and misses, he's never going to get to the "Throw" stage of things in the first place, so the Throw rules don't come into play. Only if the character has to make an Attack Roll with his Throw -- either to perform it at all, or if he's trying to hit a specific target with the Thrown character/object -- are the "miss" rules going to come into play.
 
If what you're asking is, "Can a character Throw a Grabbed person in an effort to hit another target (such as another character or a specific hex), miss that target, but still inflict Throw damage on the Thrown person?", then the answer is "No." There aren't any provisions in the rules for that; a miss is a miss. The GM could alter that if he likes, but generally the rules don't let a character miss/fail and still obtain some measure of success.

Re: f/u Grab: Throwing & Squeezing after initial Grab
 
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "either" roll. If a character attempts a Grab and misses, he's never going to get to the "Throw" stage of things in the first place, so the Throw rules don't come into play. Only if the character has to make an Attack Roll with his Throw -- either to perform it at all, or if he's trying to hit a specific target with the Thrown character/object -- are the "miss" rules going to come into play.
 
If what you're asking is, "Can a character Throw a Grabbed person in an effort to hit another target (such as another character or a specific hex), miss that target, but still inflict Throw damage on the Thrown person?", then the answer is "No." There aren't any provisions in the rules for that; a miss is a miss. The GM could alter that if he likes, but generally the rules don't let a character miss/fail and still obtain some measure of success.

Re: f/u Grab: Throwing & Squeezing after initial Grab
 
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "either" roll. If a character attempts a Grab and misses, he's never going to get to the "Throw" stage of things in the first place, so the Throw rules don't come into play. Only if the character has to make an Attack Roll with his Throw -- either to perform it at all, or if he's trying to hit a specific target with the Thrown character/object -- are the "miss" rules going to come into play.
 
If what you're asking is, "Can a character Throw a Grabbed person in an effort to hit another target (such as another character or a specific hex), miss that target, but still inflict Throw damage on the Thrown person?", then the answer is "No." There aren't any provisions in the rules for that; a miss is a miss. The GM could alter that if he likes, but generally the rules don't let a character miss/fail and still obtain some measure of success.

Re: f/u Grab: Throwing & Squeezing after initial Grab
 
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "either" roll. If a character attempts a Grab and misses, he's never going to get to the "Throw" stage of things in the first place, so the Throw rules don't come into play. Only if the character has to make an Attack Roll with his Throw -- either to perform it at all, or if he's trying to hit a specific target with the Thrown character/object -- are the "miss" rules going to come into play.
 
If what you're asking is, "Can a character Throw a Grabbed person in an effort to hit another target (such as another character or a specific hex), miss that target, but still inflict Throw damage on the Thrown person?", then the answer is "No." There aren't any provisions in the rules for that; a miss is a miss. The GM could alter that if he likes, but generally the rules don't let a character miss/fail and still obtain some measure of success.