DEFCON Clown

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Upon leaving the freezer Pog, the miniture dragon, remarked: "Did I survive the nuclear apocolypse? Am I your new God?"

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel The Elevator Operator The hotel elevator is so old that is has an operator. His name is Greg, I mean Gregory, um Gordon, maybe it was Jordan, or Jordie, was it Jamie? No one in the hotel is sure of what his name is, if the PCs are all together and they ask him they will each hear a different, yet similar sounding name. At least they can all agree that he's a short black man, no he's average hight but he's hispanic, no he's tall and white, are you kidding he's very short and brazilian. No one can ever agree on what the elevator operator's name is or what he looks like. Wait... What do you mean "he"?

Re: WWYCD: Will you forgive me? Gregory Cauldron: Gregory's worst enemies are his family. His mother and father are the worst of his worst enemies, though. Lets assume its not his whole family coming to him with cancer (although that would be odd even for a dimension hopping sorcerer) and just his mother or father. He would first verify that they are telling the truth then he would demand that they allow themselves to be stripped of their magic. If they allowed it then he might forgive them or he might not. One thing is for sure when the end was near he'd be at their bedside until they passed on.

Re: Ancient Cultures You're right about the time frame, War Cry. It is much too short. I need the Undead to make amends with the Ahren soon enough that the Ahren would still be looking to take revenge, and take it without thinking of the concequences or anything else. I think I'll probably have to increase the timespan some and also reduce the level of sophistication that the Undead are at when the make restitution to the Ahren. I like the idea of a sort of Father figure for the Undead race. If I use that idea I won't be able to have him retain any memories from his former life. He'll have to be either a natural genius or a magical prodigy. Hmm the more I think about it the more I like the idea. I actually had thought about requiring some sort of sacrifice from the other Undead when a new one was risen, but I tossed it out since then I'll end up with a civilization of cripples. How I've been picturing "reproduction" for the Undead is like this; when a corpse is awakend into unlife by the priests the new Undead knows nothing, they are fully developed physically but mentally they are infants. The new Undead is then turned over into the care of one or more of the other Undead who will teach the new one all that they will need to know, until they are mature they are basically children. As for emotions I see them as having most if not all of the normal ones, happiness, sadness, loneliness, love, hate, anger, amusment, all of those. I don't think they will feel them in response to the same things a human would. For instance if humans came upon a caravan that's travelers had been slaughtered and left to rot in the sun they might feel anger, fear, disgust. Where as most Undead would see it as a great blessing. Here are either new children or if the bodies are too mangled here is a meal. I do plan to have life and death figure promently into pretty much every aspect of their culture. And now that you have suggested it, I think I'll include cannibalism too. Gives them a touch of Martian. You grok?

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. You know we throw enough praise at Storn that in a fantasy world he'd be a god by now.

Re: Ancient Cultures There was a Great War some four-five hundred years ago, the war was fought between all the kingdoms and all the peoples of land. There was no victor when the war was over. No one had one the day. The people had lost their will to fight so the war just stopped. It had lasted more then a hundred years and everyone had to rebuild. They first appeared three months after the war ended. A great throng of them appeared on the horizon. They swarmed over the city of Thutmose, devouring every animal, every person, the city was left abandon, and to this day remains uninhabited. They left Thutmose and moved on towards the next closest city. At Heliopolis the throng was turned back by the soldiers and wizards of the Ahren. They destroyed many of the throng before the rest escaped. It was years before any of the creatures of the throng were seen again. A small caravan approached Heliopolis one day, more then ten years later. The travelers were taken to the priests at their request. The travelers were of the throng that had killed the people of Thutmose and attacked Heliopolis. They had come to make peace with the Ahren. They brought many valuable gifts with them to appease the anger of the Ahren. Among the gifts they brought were: gold, azurite, rubies, stone of obsidian, pearls larger then a man's fist, books of magic, and slaves of many races. When the priests took the travelers before the pharaoh and the travelers had presented their gifts the pharaoh's anger was removed and he declared a feast be prepared. Then the pharaoh was told the story of the travelers and their kind. They had awoken in the middle of a battlefield. They had awoken without memory, without language, without explanation. They were intelligent but had no way to communicate. At first they were afraid and would not leave the battlefield, the broken swords, crushed shields, mangled corpses, and broken chariots were familiar to them, comforting. Outside of this, their valley, they were frightened of the strangeness of the land. Even they changing of the skies frightened them. They stayed with each other and began to try and communicate. Many days after they had awoken, after they had begun to feel braver and after they had begun to communicate with each other, they felt something new and strange. It was hunger. The hunger eventually led them to devour the corpses around them. Soon not a morsel of meat remained on any of the bodies of the dead that littered the ground. When the hunger came again they were forced to leave their valley to find food. They ate anyone and anything they came across. Then they discovered the strangest and most frightening thing they had yet, more frightening the lightning in the sky, more frightening then when the moon had disappeared and then returned, more frightening then this ground that was not solid, that shifted in the wind, and burned under the sun. It was a city. Not that they knew what a city was, they didn't even know that what they had found was a city. By this time they were braver then they had been in the beginning. So they approached the city, to find out what it was. When they got close they say things, people moving about and making noises at each other. They were not hungry then and so did not want to eat these people. They wanted to meet them and learn from them that obviously knew so much. But when they approached the city they were attacked. This frightened them but they also felt something new. Anger. Filled with this anger they killed everyone and everything in the city. It took many days and when they were finished the hunger was upon them once again. So they consumed all the people and all the animals that they had killed. They tried to learn from the city but they could not, so they left. They discovered a road and followed it. It was a long journey and when they found another city the hunger was once again with them. Remembering how easy it was to take the last city, and remembering how plentiful the food had been they attacked this new city. The soldiers of the city defeated them and by those that made lightning and fire. They fled. The fled to the first city, where they hid for days until soldiers from the second city appeared on the horizon. Then they fled all the way back to the place where they had begun. They remained there for years. In that time they made great strides forward. They built a city of their own, they developed their own language and invented a written form, they made weapons, and they began raising livestock for food so they would not have to venture forth and be attacked again. Eventually they were able to read the writing on the objects they had taken from the city they had first found. Some of the writtings told stories, some told of the gods, and others told of the people who had built the city. The people who had built the city where called the Ahren and they had a mighty empire with many soldiers and many wizards. They knew that they must appease these Ahren or they would find them and destroy them in revenge. So a caravan was sent forth to make peace with the Ahren. That is the origins of the Undead. The only way they can reproduce (and they just discovered this) is to get the body of someone recently dead (and intact) and have their priests perform a ritual to raise the dead body into undead life. I could make up some reason why they can only eat meat but the real reason I have them only able to eat meat is so that I have a somewhat plausible reason to have them, occassionaly, attack cities and eat the inhabitants.

Re: Ancient Cultures Thanks everyone for their suggestions! This is one of the reasons I love the HEROboards so much, post a request for help and you get a ton of good ideas from nearly everyone. I have to say some of the ideas you all have suggested I've pretty much decided to use I like them that much. The idea of having the elves being based on the Aztecs makess me cackle with evil glee, and I love the idea of the Jurag being based on the Incas, I also like the idea to base the Calebin on the Chinese.

Re: Ancient Cultures Besides Wikipedia do any of you know a good site for reading up on the various ancient cultures?

Re: Ancient Cultures Which would you suggest for each race?

I'm creating a fantasy world from scratch. Besides Elves, Dwarves, and Humans, all the races are my own creation. I've decided to base each race's culture and society off an ancient culture. Here are the discriptions of the races I need help picking a culture for: Elves: ???? Standard elves, although there is tremendous variation in appearence. So there are no drow elves, or forrest elves, or sea elves, just elves. Cabral: ???? The Cabral are a type of beastmen. Human looking from the shoulder's down they have the heads of goats. Slann: ???? Think Frogloks in appearance. Their favorite places to live are swamps, they have very few settlements outside of the swamps and away from the coast. Jurag: ???? Short and made of stone. They are descended from rock golems that became free. Goblins: ???? Small, green, and mechanicaly inclined. None of the races are by default evil. The Goblins live primarily in elborate tunnels or self made caves, although more and more are living in above ground cities. Calebin: ???? A race of humaniods that are naturally predisposed to sorcery. They make much of family and family connections are very important. Undead: ???? Think intelligent zombies. They can only digest meat, normally not a problem since they have extensive herds of livestock. When there is a plague or famine and the livestock diwndle they sometimes attack other kingdoms and take either their livestock for food or eat the citizen's of the conquered kingdom. The civilizations that are already taken are: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Medieval England, Ancient Japan, Celtic, Ancient Hawaii. Any suggestions would be helpful and if you need or want more information about the races please ask.

Re: Rocket-propelled Chainsaw LOL!!! "Take that Treebeard! You're moving fast now aren't you? Huh? Huh?"

Re: Skybreaker Its a method of IDing magical items. If somebody has an impractical looking weapon watch them use it. If they don't hurt themselves then you know its magic.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... WHAT?!! You don't know who Zoe, Jayne, and Mal are? Tell me you are kidding! Tell me you've seen Firefly and Serentiy, tell me that you curse the Fox network for depriving us of Joss Whedon's masterpiece of science fiction! If you aren't joiking I'm going to have to ask you to move away from the computer, go buy the complete series of Firefly, watching then buy the Serentiy movie and then watch it. And until you do don't yu show your avatar around these parts! This place is for true geeks!

Re: I am looking for magical items.

Re: [High Fantasy HERO] Updated Magecraft Magic System First off this is a very cool Magic system, Killer Shrike, I like it a lot and I'm going to try it out as soon as I can. In the restrictions for Magecraft you have: "No Spell may have Conscious Control" I think you meant "No Spell may have No Conscious Control"

In the firearm tables in the Dark Champions book one gun listed is the FN-P90, in the notes for the P90 there is this entry "Tum" I looked in the notes at the end of the firearm tables but was unable to locate what that notation means. Am I correct in assuming that "Tum" means the weapon fires Tumbling amunition by defalt?

Re: Order of the Stick I just stumbled across this webcomic yesterday. I devoured the archieve and now I want more. It reminds me of 8bit Theater a little, especially with how similar 8bit's Black Mage is with Order Of The Stick's Belkar. Another great fantasy webcomic (once you get into the story which takes like 10 strips or so) is Dominic Deegan Oracle For Hire. Read it now. http://www.dominic-deegan.com/

Re: The Professions of Arms Because you have to be smart to defeat and kill an opponent who, like yourself, has been trained to fight and kill for years. And as to Body being used as the CHAR base for a skill that just doesn't seem right to me. Although I do like that any skill based off of Body (Most of which would probably be Combat skills) would get worse and worse the more you are hurt, sort of an automatic penalty.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. I love the man right after the women in the group shot. That picture is my favorite and it works perfectly for a character of mine! Rep for you Storn!

Re: The Professions of Arms I still say it should be based on INT just because its a performance to those who are watching doesn't make it any less real or dangerous for those in the "show".

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Well its an OIF unless the opponent has tentacles...

Re: Woot! Well I don't need a city as much as I need new enemies for my current game. I have the city I use mapped out pretty well in addition to havin detailed lists of important people, places, and events.

Re: Woot! Predators is the next book I want then Hudson City. I am incredibly happy with Dark Champions, its great.

Re: How would you use Takofanes? What if he decided DEMON would be good to take over while he's waiting for his new body to mature.