Mr. R

Incantations-- Darkness to sound (Silence 15' radius)
                        Choking gas
                         Tackle the mage as he is speaking ( make an ego roll to finish the incantation)
                          Etc
 
Gestures --Choking gas
                   Tackle the mage as he is speaking ( make an ego roll to finish the incantation)
                    Entangles
                    Knock down / Knock back attacks
                   etc

A friend recounted what happened to his character when he came out of the Houses of Healing.  They asked for a donation and he basically refused saying that the gods probably don't exist and he wasn't going to pay for them.  Well at the top of the stairs he trips over a silk scarf, rolls down the stairs, hitting every single carving and statue on the way, dislocating his shoulder, breaking a couple of ribs and the fingers of one hand.  Now he gives generously.  Still thinks gods don't exist, but goddesses:  Yeah they are totally real!

A friend recounted what happened to his character when he came out of the Houses of Healing.  They asked for a donation and he basically refused saying that the gods probably don't exist and he wasn't going to pay for them.  Well at the top of the stairs he trips over a silk scarf, rolls down the stairs, hitting every single carving and statue on the way, dislocating his shoulder, breaking a couple of ribs and the fingers of one hand.  Now he gives generously.  Still thinks gods don't exist, but goddesses:  Yeah they are totally real!

A friend recounted what happened to his character when he came out of the Houses of Healing.  They asked for a donation and he basically refused saying that the gods probably don't exist and he wasn't going to pay for them.  Well at the top of the stairs he trips over a silk scarf, rolls down the stairs, hitting every single carving and statue on the way, dislocating his shoulder, breaking a couple of ribs and the fingers of one hand.  Now he gives generously.  Still thinks gods don't exist, but goddesses:  Yeah they are totally real!

A friend recounted what happened to his character when he came out of the Houses of Healing.  They asked for a donation and he basically refused saying that the gods probably don't exist and he wasn't going to pay for them.  Well at the top of the stairs he trips over a silk scarf, rolls down the stairs, hitting every single carving and statue on the way, dislocating his shoulder, breaking a couple of ribs and the fingers of one hand.  Now he gives generously.  Still thinks gods don't exist, but goddesses:  Yeah they are totally real!

A friend recounted what happened to his character when he came out of the Houses of Healing.  They asked for a donation and he basically refused saying that the gods probably don't exist and he wasn't going to pay for them.  Well at the top of the stairs he trips over a silk scarf, rolls down the stairs, hitting every single carving and statue on the way, dislocating his shoulder, breaking a couple of ribs and the fingers of one hand.  Now he gives generously.  Still thinks gods don't exist, but goddesses:  Yeah they are totally real!

Not what I said... 
To repeat
"This allows me to slip in some 21st century values believably into a medieval ISH setting."  so no, it's not 'just like they are in the time I live' Any game master picks and chooses what is and isn't in their game world. Saying the sexes will be treated more equally is no more "forced" than deciding it will have only four races to pick from as playable characters, or that magic in the setting will work from the same source.  Each pick of what is or isn't in a gameworld; it's peoples, it's cultures, is a good prompt to 'How did it get there?' I've found it allows a rather natural means to speculate upon and fill out backstory and history for each culture.  I don't sit down with the players and go "This is what I wanted and that's why", they're bright folks, and they know everyone has their style and preferences and that I try to take theirs into account.  
 
If they show an interest in a part of the setting, and their characters are either locals or have the right knowledge skills, What I do is say "One hundred years ago today, the Patriarchs of the  city of Vircombe declared the already beleaguered women of their city to be property of their husbands, and those unwed to be auctioned off as brides to the highest local bidder to fill the treasury. The women prayed to the goddess Tymyrsa for rescue, and the Patriarchs were blinded by her holy power. Their rule was cut short, and the women, knowing their prayers were heard, rose up and demanded to be full citizens. Your party has arrived on the anniversary of that event, and that explains why so many are wearing red blindfolds (of course, of such thin material they can still see through it) to honor that day."
 
If that feels forced to you, well, so be it, but the players liked it and it was a fun world crafting moment for me.

One of the best “Cleric” I played in a Fantasy Hero game had almost no powers of his deity that were under his direct control.  About the only thing he had control over was his ability to bless an item (that was a transformation of any item to holy).  He had lots of Divine Favor that was bought as luck with religious restrictions.  We were using the variant luck where you roll your luck at the beginning of the session and can change that many rolls.  I think I got the divine favor up to 8d6 at the end of the campaign.   His luck was high enough that he could affect the rolls of others so he made the rest of the party a lot more effective.   
 
He had some decent fighting ability and a lot of social skills.  From the other characters standpoint it was almost impossible to tell when he was using his powers.  From the standpoint of the players it was a lot more obvious. It was a blast to play the character.  
 

I am considering using a model I saw in an OLD Adventurers Club edition where the cleric player gets a VPP with a End Battery (representing how much he will help)  The VPP is limited by powers that match the deities portfolio (no weather control for God of War) and that he has no control over what he gets.  When the End Battery runs out it means the deity is done helping them for the day.  (Maybe also an Activation roll for how much pull the cleric has with the deity?)

In my games there are priests, shamans, and warrior priests.  Each of those types of 'clerics' is associated with specific god.  There are two gods that the are most associated war and battles, so they have the warrior priests.  The shamans are associated with a few different gods and also with a couple of 'spirit worship'.  The other gods mostly have priests or in one case there are no priests but rather mages tend to be associated with that this one off god (knowledge and hidden things).
 
I think the important thing is to make sure any gods you have are unique enough to have spheres of influence and that their priests reflect those spheres of influence.

The best novel(s) I have ever read concerning a paladin was The Deed of Paksenarrion.  It really portrayed the old D&D Paladin concept that most players never came close to.

You are right sorry.  I need to deflate my ego a bit...  PPPPFFFFFFFFFFFF.....  there.  Much more humble!
 
 
But I would have asked a similar question eventually!

I am working on doing a Field Guide build on Drive Thru RPG, which would include like 20 pages free, but you can check out this thread for a ton of drops of ideas and things I came up with as I was writing it

Another source of material is PS 238.  It also is a school for supers but at the grades 1 to 3.  So it might be a bit young, but you can still mine it for ideas.
 
 
Link
 
https://ps238.nodwick.com/

I used to go with the idea of the agents being a credible threat where five or so agents could take out one super (this was 125-150 pt agent vs a 250-300 pt super).  
 
Now I would make villanous agents fairly weak (100 pts ) compared to a 250- 300 pt super, but the hero agency operatives (Until) being at 150 pt minimum.  But the hero agents would be much less populous and the villanous agents would have NUMEROUS operatives.  This goes back to the waves of opposition idea in the older comics and the hero agents being competent but much fewer in number!
 
So originally I would be #2, but today more #s 3-4

Its not the stagnant tech that bothers me so much, but the stagnant borders and societies.
 
IF after the fall of a major empire, all the member countries go back to their old borders, that is believable.  But after a drought, famine, invasion, occupation and civil war?   OKnot so much.
 
Going back to the China example, when it fractured into multiple states, those states were NOT the same borders as the last fracturing.  There was no "Well this was the border of the state in the last warring period, so we will stop here!"  NOPE! NOPE! NOPE!
 
If there is a history of 6000 years, there will be major shifting of borders and the disappearance of some states!
 
Even 2000 years will have major changes to borders/ countries!
 
 

Its not the stagnant tech that bothers me so much, but the stagnant borders and societies.
 
IF after the fall of a major empire, all the member countries go back to their old borders, that is believable.  But after a drought, famine, invasion, occupation and civil war?   OKnot so much.
 
Going back to the China example, when it fractured into multiple states, those states were NOT the same borders as the last fracturing.  There was no "Well this was the border of the state in the last warring period, so we will stop here!"  NOPE! NOPE! NOPE!
 
If there is a history of 6000 years, there will be major shifting of borders and the disappearance of some states!
 
Even 2000 years will have major changes to borders/ countries!
 
 

I took a look on Wikipedia at Chinese History and WOW!
 
If you think China has been in its present borders all this time, think again.  Add all the time when the country fragmented into warring states ( at one point it was about 10 different states) and you rapidly get the idea that China's history is like boom or bust.  Periods of great stability and prosperity, then civil wars with huge losses of life and displacement.

Assuming you mean fantasy
 
Type of setting ie high magic or low magic
If you allow other races- which ones and what are their relationships EX Palladium has elf dwarf hatred
Any class (or archetype) restrictions EX dwarf means NO magic
Any key skills (if you have a skill system) that are needed 

I took a look on Wikipedia at Chinese History and WOW!
 
If you think China has been in its present borders all this time, think again.  Add all the time when the country fragmented into warring states ( at one point it was about 10 different states) and you rapidly get the idea that China's history is like boom or bust.  Periods of great stability and prosperity, then civil wars with huge losses of life and displacement.

I took a look on Wikipedia at Chinese History and WOW!
 
If you think China has been in its present borders all this time, think again.  Add all the time when the country fragmented into warring states ( at one point it was about 10 different states) and you rapidly get the idea that China's history is like boom or bust.  Periods of great stability and prosperity, then civil wars with huge losses of life and displacement.

My "Magozoic" D&D setting has many pantheons, and only one. Theologians know there are 10 transcendent Godheads, called Archons, each associated with one of the celestial planes. However, mortals cannot interact directly with Archons -- only with avatars of the Archons, shaped by mortal imagination, whom mortals call gods. Gods seem to have distinct forms and personalities, can be born, die and reborn, get in fights, and generally behave like people with big magic powers. None of this affects the Archon, any more than a battle between two hand-puppets affects the puppeteer. A god can be forgotten for ages, but can be re-created if the ancient myths are rediscovered and the rites performed again. (One of the PCs just became the first cleric of such a long-forgotten god.)
 
This permits an unlimited number of pantheons, which are all true and all false. Humans tend to have pantheons modeled on human royal families, because that's such a common human system of authority.
* The Yidmiri pantheon (modeled rather obviously on the Greco-Roman pantheon) has a multiple generations, and many of the gods are children (legitimate or otherwise) of the ruling sky-and-storm god.
* The Marolici pantehon (modeled on Norse) has two families, with some intermarriage, and a few oddballs of obscure origin.
* The Drohashgi pantheon (modeled on Egyptian) has a primordial creator sun-god with several generations of descendants.
 
But there are exceptions. The broad Macrine plain is a land of city-states who have spent millennia conquering each other. Each city had its own pantheon: the gods were nearly identical, but the names and relationships differed. When one city rose to dominate the rest, it declared its own gods the "real" versions and the gods of the conquered peoples were versions of them. After many millennia of this, the Macrine people stopped giving their gods names and just refer to them by the roles: the Thunderer, the Emperor and Empress, the Hierophant, the Overseer, the Priestess, the Charioteer, the Star-Maiden, the Fool, and so on.
 
Nonhumans have different models of authroity and, consequently, different pantheons.
* The region's dwarves seem to have a divine family -- but the other gods aren't the children of the dominant creator-god; they were made in the creator's forge. Dwarves take the artisan, rather than sexual reproduction, as their model of creative power.
* The region's elves have a pantheon of deified heroes whose deeds made them living expressions of the Archons: for instance, the great general Ferrai became one of their war gods, while the mage Eboriax became their God of Magic by codifying the eight schools of wizardry. Most of their gods are deified elves because, well, obviously no one is more perfect than an elf (Admit it. In your heart you know it's true.) But not all.
* The gods of the gnomes are also deified mortals, but they are gnomes who ascended to divinity through various comical or unlikely means; they are modeled on the Chinese Eight Immortals.
And so on.
 
Prophets are important in this system, because they shape mortal belief and so change the nature of the gods. This may result in radical re-interpretation. For instance, the cult of Jeduthon Soteira turned a randy and temperamental sun-god into a figure of mystic enlightenment. Many people worship Jeduthon Soteira who don't give a rat's ass about the rest of the Yidmiri pantheon. Another prophet re-interpreted the Drohashi sun-god Sorath (son of the primordial god Suzeratos; "active" ruler of Heaven to his passive authority) as the true and supreme god whom all must worship; and invented, basically, Jihadism.
 
Conversely, there's also a lot of syncretism, as believers in Macrine gods assimilate gods from other pantheons to Macrine deities: as the Marolici storm-and-war god Talse and the Drohashi storm-and-war god Barakel are assimilated to the Thunderer.
 
All this is in support of a campaign whose premise is one of mortals being responsible for the world they live in. There is no supernatural Big Bad, whether Satan, Sauron or Cthulhu, to blame troubles on. And if mortals get it wrong, there is no Daddy in the Sky to save them. Or even to tell them what the right course is.
 
This is of course not suitable for every campaign. (And I threw out most of the bog-standard D&D cosmology.)
Dean Shomshak

Miss Murder
 
Despite her name, Miss Murder has never killed anyone.  Instead she gets her name from her power to turn into her body weight in 45 mentally linked crows.  She's not much of a fighter, her criminal career having focussed on using her alternate forms to act as lookouts, spies and jewelry thieves.  When she was with the team her participation tended to involve advance scouting, and covering the team's retreats as a cloud of crows that screened the others as they made their escapes.  She moved on to an independent career as surveillance for high for anyone who was willing to pay her rates.  Her costume in human form is goth fashion-inspired and makes prominent use of crow feathers. 

Talents are what you are looking for.  Most of the ones in the base rule book are fairly basic, but there are some important ones there.  Combat Luck, Combat Sense, Danger Sense, Deadly Blow and Weapon Master are good place to start.  The Fantasy Hero book has a few more that are worth looking into.  The Hero System Martial Arts book has a whole chapter on martial arts abilities that would be useful. Many of them will work even if you are not using an Asian martial art.  
 
You can also allow your players to write up their own talents.  Just be sure to go over any of them to make sure they are not overpowered.  
 
For the most part restricting things to any specific character type is unnecessary.  For the most part the cost of the abilities will do this for you.  The character who tries to do too much ends up not doing anything well.    
 

This is from an old COH conversions I did a while back.  
 
This is in Hero format!
 
Background/History: Penelope Ogilvie is your quintessential English young lady. She went to public school, got good grades and looked ready to head into the family business. Which was not very legal. Problem was she hated the life. Her family had become wealthy enough that they could go legitimate. But they were enamoured of the life-style. Then came the Event, when (insert villain) tried to bring an eternal night to the nearby city as a stepping stone to more power. Unfortunately he over extended himself and when the device stopped working he was defeated. But it had an effect on Penelope. Latent powers of darkness and the mind awakened in her. Now she had the power to step away from her family and use her powers to help people that take from them. Only her brother, now a member of (insert evil villain agency) disagreed, and hunts her to try and bring her back into the fold. He doesn’t realize it is a lost cause. Obsidian likes he new life.

Personality/Motivation: Penelope is a curious young lady who wants to make up for all her family’s crimes. That her powers allow her to sneak around effectively, and she has a skill set for getting into places and areas, and she makes for an effective starting investigator. She realizes she needs more skills and is working on trying to find someone to train her!

Quote: If I’m careful, they’ll never notice me.

Powers/Tactics: Obsidian’s powers are a combination of mental powers and darkness. She has a dark shield that gives her protection and allows her to levitate. It also can be extended to darken an area with extra shadows to make it harder to see her (think a dark fog effect). Her other abilities are mental attack that have a visible dark manifestation. Her favourite is the Presence of the Night as it can scare opponents away if she does it right. But she’s not afraid of lashing out with what she thinks will work best.

Campaign Use: A young hero with ties to a criminal life she is trying to leave behind. I am sure you can think of something.

Appearance: Pale peaches and cream complexion and blonde hair, she is 165 cm and 68 KG. Her costume consists of a pair of leggings (dark grey) and a loose top (same) with a dark hood under which she hides her hair.