Scott Ruggels

There is also Destined, a superhero roleplaying game based on Mythras (aka RuneQuest 6e) published in 2022.

Oh, it's not the system that is complicated, because it's the math, that gets complicated. But once character creation is done, Hero just flows, in combat.

"... the Submarine in Yellow."

Chronicles of Selversgard Pt.17 - In which the PCs continue to apply various adventurer-level skills to very local problems. 
 
8th of Erastus, a ferociously hot and unpleasantly humid day with thunderstorms looming. Even the swarms of insects are subdued by the heat. With the solstice past, the Mayorship has rotated to Skiri Olafsdottir, to the relief of some. One of her first duties was giving the Fishermens Guild’s new huge pinnace a try.
 
After the ogre attack, a moat is proposed as an addition to the town’s defenses - a dry moat outside the palisade. 
 
Arram: That’s not going to be a dry moat for long.
 
Which is one reason the ratfolk are annoyed - when it fills up with water it’ll increase flooding risk in the Warren. And the farmers that work outside the palisade are keenly aware that it doesn’t protect them. When pressed, Silas of the Green admits that a moat will help delimit the town. Arram instead suggests proper watchtowers and a better gate. 
 
Eddison has been selling a lot of drinks to people trying to escape the heat, when a tall and aristocratic elf with an entire entourage of elven servants enters, laden down with luggage.
 
Eddison: Welcome, welcome to the Drowned Carp, how may I be of service?
Tovura Angleterre: Unless I am very much mistaken, my good sir, you are the very person I’m looking for.
Eddison: *checks that his escape route is clear* Ah, how exactly?
Tovura Angleterre: I am seeking to complete the family tree.
 
Eddison is skeptical he can be of much help - the guy is clearly not of Aquatic Elf heritage, and Eddison was raised by Forlorn elves, but rents him three rooms and suggests he retire to the deck if he is having trouble with the heat.
 
Eddison: He seems remarkably well off for somebody related to Forlorn elves. He must be a distant cousin at best.
 
Of course half the town is already gossiping about it. Mikki is one of them, but it’s not like she’ll be doing any exotic dancing in this weather.
 
Mikki: I heard you had an interesting visitor.
Eddison: I’m still trying to figure out his angle.
Arram: Gossip - the only thing that travels faster than light.
 
Gonno, Galiante and the kids are enjoying a meal there - it’s too hot to cook at home. He’s looking after the kids and trying to ignore the hand gestures Mikki and Galiante are making as they converse about their current and previous careers. 
Arram: It’s always nice to get together when we’re not in life threatening danger.
 
The weather finally breaks with a massive crack of thunder and sudden torrential rain, to general acclaim.
 
Arram: We can literally see the humidity falling.
Miya: Once a teacher, always a teacher.
 
About 9PM Tovura staggers in, soaked to the bone. At least he’s smiling, as he wrings out his beret. Arram offers to magically wring him out, but the elf declines, clutches a symbol around his neck, and is instantly dry. Edison identifies the symbol as one of the lesser symbols of Nethys, the god of magic. Gonno, on the other hand, notes that his shirt is a button-up, and clearly looked after - but mis-buttoned. Exactly what Tovura been doing out in the rain for the last few hours? Spending some time at the Yellow House, perhaps?
 
The rain is getting even heavier, but the temperature has dropped to something tolerable. With all of Tovura’s servants downstairs eating, Eddison pops upstairs to check that all the shutters are closed properly. Hopefully the rain isn’t heavy enough to finally collapse the huge antediluvian dam at Skull’s Crossing.
 
Arram: Just as well we didn’t dig that moat.
Miya: Does anybody else hear an apocalyptic rumble?
Eddison: There’s a chance we’d feel the pressure wave coming. Wouldn’t help us survive, of course.
Arram: I don’t know Fly yet.
Miya: Just as an aside, exactly how watertight are those Ysoki tunnels? 
 
The rain and wind is now strong enough to drown out most of the conversation, when Arram hears something else.
 
ARRAM. HOUSE COLLAPSED. TRAPPED IN BASEMENT. WATER RISING.
 
Arram: Oh crap, that’s a Sending.  That’s Sennsa - nobody else in town has that in their spellbook.
 
We pile out of the Drowned Carp and wade through the storm to the half-ruined brothel. Gonno directs a few people to shore up the most dangerous parts of the wreckage, and dashes off to fetch proper timber from his stores. Arram and Eddison add some Glue and Web spells to further secure it. Mikki, tending to the wounded, says that Sennsa and Bertie, one of the boys of the house, were down in the basement fetching wine when it all came down. Eddison’s picked up enough engineering skill over the decades to realise that the collapsed section is the only thing still propping up the rest of the building. It would appear the combination of wind and rain did a number on some of the piles supporting the building - piles that it turns out are rotten through.
 
Tovura and his servants arrive - they apparently grabbed every shovel and pickaxe from the town stores. Miya bolts off to the Ysoki tunnels to fetch their help with rat-wrangling and digging - rats can explore the wreckage and remove small debris.
 
GM: A fox returns to the Yellow House followed by a literal horde of rats, some of which are Ysoki. 
 
Eddison keeps an eye on Tovura’s reaction - he doesn’t seem to LIKE rats, but he welcomes the help. Gonno’s rival carpenter is also at work, shoring up the building - Gonno gets directions on which section to do next. This is no time for rivalry. We find Bertie first - he’s trapped, but not seriously injured. Shivering though, which is hardly surprising given he was wearing a loincloth.
 
Tovura: My dear boy! *hurries the lad off to shelter*
 
Miya, still in fox form, dives into the basement as soon as we can access it, and gets her fox-senses immediately overwhelmed by the smell of spilt wine. She finds Sennsa - impaled by fallen timber, pinned to the ground, and in imminent danger of drowning. Miya yells for help, and Arram tries to wriggle down the tunnel - but it’s too tight for a full-sized human. Tovura offers a flask - Oil of Grease.
 
Eddison: Mikki! Mikki!
Mikki: What?
Eddison: We need to Grease you up!
Mikki: Normally I’d be all for that but I’m not sure it’s an appropriate time!
 
Arram Greases himself up, and has two Unseen Servants pull on his hands as Eddison pushes on his feet, and pops into the basement like a cork from a bottle. The greased sorcerer arrives when Miya has already chipped half the beam away with an Adamantine weapon. 
 
Miya: Oh hi. Little help?
Arram: Sure - Bull’s Strength.
 
Arram: Sorry, this is going to suck *heaves the weight off Sennsa and the impaling timber out of her body*
Sennsa: *screams and faints*
 
Magic stops the bleeding but there’s still the issue that some of her intestines are on the outside.
 
Eddison: One problem at a time!
 
Getting the stabilised madam out of the ruin out through the tunnel is a whole new problem - if Miya still wanted to conceal the fact that she’s a Kitsune, it’s going to be a bit difficult after this night’s work. Her fox form gets a lot of use, even before the water level is up to waist height. Reduce Person is required, too. At least the brothel had plenty of oil - lavender-scented, no less.
 
Eddison: Well Arram you’re going to get greased up again - unfortunately it’s going to be the old-fashioned way.
 
Roger at the Blue Dragon hands out free beer to the exhausted rescue workers. Most of the Yellow House’s staff can recover their belongings and work gear from the ruins the next day - unfortunately the wine collection is a complete loss.  We’ll have to inspect most of the other buildings in town to check them wood-rot too. But the biggest question is ‘do we rebuild the Yellow House’ -  there are plenty of people who never liked it. Tovura walks in, wearing another completely different outfit. 
 
Eddison: My god, he really is a peacock. 
 
Tovura: I have news from your Mother Maybell, I believe is her name. She tells me she is injured but will make a full recovery.
Eddison: Got all her guts back on the inside, then?
Tovura: I do have a few more questions about your parentage, Eddison, but I believe I saw most of what I needed to learn last night.
Eddison: Hmmm??? You’re going to have to be blunt, I am very tired.
 
Tovura is part of a very large and very widespread family - elven nobility no less, as well as being a follower of Nethys. He wasn’t even aware he had any Aquatic elf relatives. The fact that Eddison was raised by two generations of the Forlorn is not so surprising - there are quite a few generationally depressed elves on the family tree. But his search has been related to his symbol of Nethys - apparently there has been an Augury that something very bad is going to happen to Kyonin, the homeland of elves on Golarion.
 
Gonno’s player: I wouldn’t trust an Augury, what with prophecy broken after the death of the god Aroden - if it wasn’t a prophecy that came via Nethys. He cheats - he looks into parallel universes where everything happened a few minutes earlier. 
 
Eddison: I am no adventurer.
Tovura: I know. You’re a barkeep.
Eddison: … ExCUSe mE? BarKEep?? BARKEEP? I am no tavern-owner, I am a CHEF!
Tovura: My apologies - you're a chef.
 
Tovura retires to rest, after getting a very tentative offer of future help if Eddison can’t possibly avoid it. He’ll have to send a lot of letters to people first. 
 
Eddison: We’re elves, we don’t make decisions quickly.
 
Eddison is more concerned that Mikki has apparently been snorting the Mwangian Marching Powder to keep herself going all night. 
 
The next Council meeting has to take place at the Fishermans Guildhall above the Fisherman’s Arms, because the roof of the town hall is leaking like a sieve. The only item of business is The Situation. Some of the council think the disaster is a good reason to replace the Yellow House with a more aesthetically pleasing building - a converted warehouse may have been all Sennsa could afford, originally, but it was still a bit of an embarrassment. They even propose an interest-free loan to help them rebuild.
 
Miya: Very community minded.
GM: The Council is actually fairly flush with cash. It just has a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of spending money.
 
They also support the idea of planting a small orchard of fruit trees on the site - it’s been waste ground for too long, even before other businesses started avoiding proximity to the brothel. The Council eventually agree to poll the townsfolk as to which kinds of fruit tree would be preferred - it saves them the trouble of arguing the benefits of apples vs. damsons, for example. They also think somebody should be appointed Building Inspector, so we don’t get a repeat. Probably Gelbert.
 
Gelbert: I’m pretty good at engineering myself - Dad taught me everything I know. 
Arram: Will you need any help? Gonno has worked with wood longer than most of the people here have been alive.
Skiri Olafdottir: Gonno, would you be able to help with the timber inspection?
Gonno: *blinks surprised, looks thoughtful, smiles and shrugs*
Gelbert: I think that’s a yes.
Miya: Gonno is a man of many talents and few words.
 
Hopefully they can get the town hall reroofed promptly, as well.
 
Skiri Olafsdottir: I would rather have our next meeting in a place that doesn’t smell of salmon.
Arram: Well, I have that meeting room at Tolland Manor that i'm not using for anything else - Wait, aren’t you the representative from the Fisherman’s Guild?
Skiri: I make the boats, not catch the fish.
 
Gonno does find a building that’s in danger of collapsing and needs immediate rebuilding. His own. Embarrassing. Although, it is one of the oldest buildings in town, and adding the second story has exacerbated some problems.
 
Eddison attracts some complaints for providing accommodation for some of the prostitutes, although his reaction takes the wind out of the bluenoses’ sails.
 
Eddison: Yes, and?
 
And over the next few months we discover that Miya is pregnant again - she’ll definitely have to retire from adventuring now. It’s also surprising just how fecund Selversgard’s interspecies relationships are proving to be. Between the kitsune and her sawmill-owner human husband, and the oread and his tiefling wife, the town is certainly giving the middle finger to genetic incompatibility.
 
Gonno ooC: "how is babby formed? How girl get pragnent?"
Miya: Apparently marry someone who is good with their logs. Or be Gonno.
Eddison: Yeah, he knows how to get his rocks off.
 

Onto the fourth book of the Hell's Rebels adventure path : While the Great and Good of Kintargo were about to be the stars of the Ruby Massacre, the bulk of Thrune’s forces were launching raids on the rest of the city. The entire city is on lockdown - every district with the exception of Old Kintargo has a heavy boot on its neck. Fortunately one of our safehouses is close enough for us to reach from the Opera House. And if the rebellion can hold Old Kintargo and keep money coming in, we can hold it indefinitely. 
 
Of course Thrune has put out his own version of events - he denies he was ever at the Opera House. And there might be some questions circulating regarding our version of Nox, if the real Nox was hauled out onto the stage on the night of the Masquerade. That, however, is easily dealt with.
 
Rebellion Rumourmongers: Really. The ‘real’ Nox. After Thrune had a small army of disguised fiends in the audience. AND a body double because he’s too much of a coward to show up in person. And we’re supposed to believe that was the ‘real’ Nox.
 
It’s hardly the best time to be bringing a child into the world, but Civilla’s friend Shimza is expecting. 
 
Ayva: Congratulations! Who’s the father?
Civilla: That would be me.
All: …
Ayva: I have questions.
Civilla: So do I - such as ‘What is a second generation Changeling going to be like?’
 
Thrune has released three new Proclamations onto the city. And a dragon. 
 
Ayva: I’m sorry, let’s focus on that one, shall we, because I couldn’t give a flying f*** about the proclamations.
 
Rivozair is a blue dragon who has menaced the Chelish city of Kintargo off and on for decades. She is most famous for losing the last battle against the city's Silver Ravens before House Thrune reclaimed the city in 4640 AR. in fact everybody was pretty sure she was dead.
 
Civilla suggests we find out whatever the dragon wants most, and bribe her loyalty away from Thrune. It’s a known problem when you try and use a weapon that’s also superintelligent. Unfortunately Thrune has also thought of that and had Rivozair devil-bound. That confirms the rumour that a blue dragon with a pentagram carved into its chest was seen on the roof of the Opera House.
 
Rajira: So we just have to remove her flight capabilities and kill her.
Ayva: I don’t think I have a net big enough.
 
Proclamation the Eleventh—Bleakbridge Closure:
“With the uprise in rebel activity, it pains my heart to issue the closure of Bleakbridge to all but official traffic, yet such steps are necessary to ensure your protection! The Silver Ravens must not be allowed free access across the Yolubilis, and until you aid in their defeat, Bleakbridge shall remain closed and under guard.” 

Proclamation the Twelfth—Public Religion: 
“Public worship of any deity other than Lord Asmodeus, Savior of Cheliax, Master of Humanity, is hereby forbidden. All works of art and artifice bearing the likenesses or symbols of the lesser faiths must be turned over to the dottari. Worship of Zon-Kuthon, Abadar, and Shelyn may continue only within the walls of their respective temples. Noncompliance shall be met with the strictest of correctional steps.” 

Proclamation the Thirteenth—Outlawing of the Silver Ravens: 
“The destructive and ruinous anarchists known as the Silver Ravens are hereby proscribed, and until their leaders surrender or are captured, all Silver Raven sympathizers must disavow support of this extremist group, lest they be faced with fines, imprisonment, and excruciation!”
 
Of course the Wanted Posters are mostly blank, since he has no idea who has actually been causing him all these problems - for that matter we’re the Ghosts of Kintargo not the Silver Ravens - and even if they try to ID us from our costumes at the Masquerade they’re not going to get anywhere since most of the costumes were magical creations anyway. At least we have options. Such as ensuring any blackshirts or Dottari that come into Old Kintargo don’t get out alive. Retaking the Bleakbridge would also prove a point, although Thrune does have air superiority in the form of that bloody dragon. 
 
Ayva’s player: At least we didn’t kill the main bad guy in the first week - we’ve done that before.
Civilla’s player: True.
Terzo’s player: At least Barzillai Thrune is a competent villain.
Civilla’s player: That’s a low bar. It’s such a low bar that it’s a tripping hazard in Hell. 
 
Every day Thrune sends out his troops and minions to terrorise the citizenry. If we’re going to defang him we’d better retake the rest of the city as quickly as possible, before he can organise additional reprisals. There’s only so many people in Kintargo and we can’t afford to lose many. 
 
Molly Mayapple, one of our contacts on Vyre Island, arrived in Kintargo on the night of the Masquerade, and was on her way to find us when one of Thrune’s Erinyes identified her as someone sufficiently Good to be a target. It’s fortunate for the 81-year-old halfling that she’s absolutely lethal with her hand crossbow. 
 
The ‘rebel sympathizers’ that get doghoused the next day are less fortunate, although we managed to get a warning to half of them before the Dottari kicked their doors in. And the day after that the barricades around Old Kintargo get stormed. The militia get kicked back, but there are still casualties. Worse, the blue dragon torches a building full of suspected sympathizers. On the other hand, we completely thwart one of Thrune’s attempted reprisals. He responds by keeping more blackshirts out on the streets, not that it matters to us because half his blackshirts are secretly on our side.
 
And that respite gives us time to get Shensen de-petrified. She’s certainly a welcome face at the next meeting of the Ghosts of Kintargo. She’s brought along a friend - Chuko 'Sharp Beak and Hooks' a tengu who runs a weapon shop for adventurers. The Rose of Kintargo, actual professional rebel and cultist of Milani, was supposed to be at the meeting, but never arrived. Worrying. Also worrying is the news Molly Mayapple brought us - Thrune has hired the Skinsaw Cult, murderously insane one and all, to keep people off the streets. 
 
There’s also some surprise reveals that wouldn’t be out of place in one of Kintargo’s more histrionic operas - three of the real Silver Ravens are still alive. Jackdaw is a prisoner of Thrune. The other two are Shensen and Jilia Bainilus.
 
Terzo: THe F***?!?!?!
 
But now that the rebellion has gone overt, we suddenly have a whole bunch of new problems requiring our immediate attention. This includes Shensen’s urgent request that we secure the Opera House. Because there’s a ritual the Silver Ravens invented - a Song of Silver that infuses potent magical effects into both the city and the Silver Ravens themselves. The sheet music and material ritual components for the spell are contained within the opera house, within a vault that even Barzillai could not penetrate. However, to stop the House of Thrune from gaining control over the spell when Kintargo finally fell to Chelaxian forces, all members bar Jackdaw had the lyrics of the song, a key component of the spell, magically wiped from their minds before going underground. The other Silver Ravens assumed Jackdaw had died in 4640AR, but Jilia and Shensen's discovery of Jackdaw's survival gave them short-lived hope - which Barzillai crushed with vampirism and petrification, respectively.
 
And, of course, we should find out what happened to Hetamon Haace, the Rose of Kintargo. Some tactical advice from a devotee of the Goddess of Rebellion wouldn’t go astray right now.
 
At least we know there’s a back entrance to the Kintargo Records Hall where his inquisitors toil to rewrite Kintargo’s history, and where many important public records have presumably been hidden - we might finally figure out why Thrune has gone to this incredible amount of effort to control what is honestly a not very important city on the edge of the Chellish empire.
 
And of course there’s the Skinsaw Cult. And rescuing Jackdaw from beneath Kintargo Keep. And the Bleakbridge Blockade. At least we have an ‘in’ there - Chuko’s younger brother Ravzee and Ravzee’s gang, the River Talons have been hired by the soldiers there as enforcers. They should be much easier to turn to our side than Rivozair the Blue Dragon.
 
Speaking of whom, we have a potential way to deny Thrune air superiority - have Civilla summon an Air Elemental or a Couatl to keep the dragon constantly engaged in dogfights over the city - the more time Rivozair wastes on that, the fewer buildings (and their occupants) are going to be burned to the ground. We can probably afford to summon either, although Couatls tend to be cheaper since they’re Good-aligned and less likely to charge a ‘help help help save us from this dragon’ premium.
 
Terzo: And since we have actual Silver Ravens here, we can ask them how they beat her last time. 
Civilla: Probably because they had all the Silver Ravens. It’s not that difficult to defeat a dragon, if you can get enough destructive potential in one spot.
 

Oh, it's not the system that is complicated, because it's the math, that gets complicated. But once character creation is done, Hero just flows, in combat.

Oh, it's not the system that is complicated, because it's the math, that gets complicated. But once character creation is done, Hero just flows, in combat.

https://scitechdaily.com/spacewalk-snafu-astronauts-lose-tool-bag-in-orbital-oopsy/
 
 
Space Plane to be delivered to NASA. 
https://www.engadget.com/a-commercial-spaceplane-capable-of-orbital-flight-is-ready-for-nasa-testing-185542776.html

'And no need to kaiju much the "Moose", there are more than one story of male moose "killing" tractor trailer's and at least one where a diesel train was destroyed during the rut.

Pregens with minimalist character sheets are the way to go.  THese are pretty good, though the text is a little bit small. These are good for convention sheets.

Yep.  I have always interpretted it along the lines of pausing, kooking for that one perfect opening....
 
Oops; he stepped back!
 
That kind of thing.

I’ve also decided that I’ll allow a set maneuver in HtH combat.  A character is sacrificing a full phase in hopes of gaining a +1 to hit in the next phase.  If the enemy moves out of melee combat before the next phase that’s just the gamble the character takes. 

Ike Perlmutter was fired about that time as well, and I think he was a very strong positive influence that often clashed with what Feige wanted.

It kinda did. I’ve watched most of Phase 4, most because I’ve found it consistently underwhelming. Most of it has been enjoyable, sure, but afterwards, it’s like, I don’t really have an inclination to rewatch it; unlike Phase 1-3. 

I'm not fond of making characteristics matter less and less

This one of Mr Arthur's could be more coherent, but it's an introduction to one of the less familiar SF tropes: That humans are not the first intelligences to live on Earth. (Best known from Lovecraft, but other writers have used it too.) Could we now detect the presence of such a past civilization? Or conversely, would traces of our civilization be detectable millions of years from now?
 
As Arthur explains, the title comes from a paper by two actual scientists. I've appended a link to that paper: It's not too technical for someone with basic science literacy.
 
 
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-astrobiology/article/silurian-hypothesis-would-it-be-possible-to-detect-an-industrial-civilization-in-the-geological-record/77818514AA6907750B8F4339F7C70EC6
 
Dean Shomshak

Did this ages ago.  All the suits were OIF, all the suits were around 275.  The limitation on the suit is that only could change the multiform when in the Garage.  The basic chassis was similar and in most cases gave me the same speed and dex, with one being faster, and two being slower and more tankie. Some weapons were modular but had the same garage limitations.  The suits were built for various environments, from Vacuum and hig radiation, to deep ocean, and places in between. One suit was a sensor suite with only small arms.  It worked fine, and lots of fun was had. But then I was always the powered armored suit guy in our gaming group.  

Speaking of The Sphere in Las Vegas:
https://petapixel.com/2023/10/20/darren-aronofsky-says-it-takes-12-people-to-use-the-18k-sphere-camera/
 
 
 
 

I almost always end up coming back to Champions.  I have run other games, Castles and Crusades, Amazing Adventures, BASH and many others but I eventually end up going back to my first love. 
 
It wasn't my first RPG, Holmes D&D was that, or my first Superhero RPG, Villains and Vigilantes was that but I still end up getting Champions because it is the only crunchy game that I comfortable with.  Running the game just feels like putting on a pair of comfortable shoes.

In the Traveller games, I tend to portray many Vargr as religious, but their worship is many scattered faiths, based on how charismatic their preacher has been. Solomani Himans carry their faiths with them, predominantly Catholicism, Buddhism, and Judaism. But there are a lot of sects and cults that were early colonists during the Empire of Man, and a lot of those shifted over the past millennium. 
 
My aborted new future solar punk gold rush game, it was mostly snooty Atheism, with a few spiritualists that got infected by seeing Earth from space. 

That's a pretty smart cat.  Exalted is not a lightweight RPG system.

Star Trek in the 1920s
 
 

The thing is, history, academia, philosophy, theology all discuss nature vs nurture but in the end it really is both in almost all cases.  Some people are more inclined to horrors, and they are directed toward that by how they are raised or their environment.  
 
It cannot ONLY be nature, because that doesn't explain how evil people can twist and turn others to their side and to follow their wickedness.
 
It cannot ONLY be nurture or where the heck did the first bad guy come from to create the environment that makes people go bad?
 
Ultimately though, I only bring that up as a thought exercise, because in a game I don't care.  None of that applies.  The only purpose in a game is entertainment and story.  It doesn't matter where the bad came from, unless the entertaining scenario is about that.
 
Bad guys are bad because I need them to be bad for this story and everyone has fun with it.  Getting into how the orcs are mean because they were mistreated by hobbits 3000 years ago and have struggled for their homeland blah blah, no.  That's neither fun nor an interesting story.  Stick with the GAME aspects of the game, remember what we're doing here.