assault

Apparently Australia can advance if they get a draw against Denmark.

I wouldn't bet on that, but in any case: Go the Danes!

That said, the main reason Australian soccer is so rubbish is that the big money supports Rugby League and the Australian Football League (AFL). The result is that soccer fans are stigmatised as (how to phrase it?) "people from non-English speaking backgrounds" and thugs. That's a big plus for soccer in my view.

But still, AFL would be a terrific game for Americans (fast and high scoring), although unlike American football it doesn't stop for ad breaks, which means that it could never get the necessary money behind it.

Also: "I just cured Indel, and he falls down a pit? ***** him. I'm taking my loot and going home!"

3 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

What are the natural predators for undead, lycanthropes, and green slime, respectively?  It's natural for predator-prey populations to ebb and flow in a cyclical manner.

The first two are probably apex predators whose numbers will tend to fall once insufficient prey is available.

A lot depends on what kind of undead - the more sentient types (eg vampires) might be capable of regulating their own numbers. But that depends on them being natural beings in some sense - the more demonic types might actually want to wipe out all living beings and turn the world into some weird hellscape.

Part of the problem is that we are apparently assuming some variety of Gygaxian naturalism, where monsters are part of a somewhat functioning ecosystem.

That tends to rule out the obvious response of Purifying Flame!!!!!! on a large scale. Sodom and Gomorrah have been overrun by vampires? Foom! and other onomatopoeic noises!

6 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Well, I could snark about giving everyone huge shoulderpads and ridiculous guns, but just the Book of Templates series with various suggestions on how to build known published characters gives you the template, then the rest is in the comics.

It's not a "huge shoulderpads and ridiculous guns" book.

Also, it's DC, so the Book of Templates series isn't very useful.

3 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

No, that would require selling to Amazon (Lex Luthor) or Facebook (also Lex Luthor).

Or Twitter (Lex Luthor played by Jesse Eisenberg).

From memory, most of the heroes were more or less retired, only coming out of retirement when the plot made it necessary. Good for the story, not so good for a game.

At the very least, the PCs still need to be hero-ing, although you might be able to start with them retired. That would require a suitable threat.

A serious point - the actual plot of The Golden Age should be avoided. It could be fun to run - but would require unfortunate levels of GM manipulation, if not outright railroading. Something like it could happen eventually, but only if it grew organically from the events of the game, using NPCs the players and PCs cared about.

Furry HERO would be distressingly easy to create.

An option I've considered is to make "Orcs" undead - basically zombies.

The inspiration is the term "Orcneas" from Beowulf, which roughly means "demon corpses" or "monster corpses".

This makes Orcs nasty - your friend who fought next to you yesterday is fighting against you today, while avoiding the "evil race" issue. And sometimes they smile when you kill them... 

I've used a non-canonical version based on the first edition description of UNTIL. It goes like this.
---
Major Martinez came to fame leading the opposition to Doctor Destroyer's takeover of Paraguay. (Destroyer used Terror Inc. as a proxy.)

UNTIL was established in the 1970s as an international agency to monitor nuclear weapons and other super-technology in the aftermath of the SALT agreements. At that point its enforcement function was secondary, and essentially defensive. Martinez was a compromise candidate for leadership, acceptable to both the USA and USSR.

Its functions were expanded after Mechanon took over the USA, showing that no single nation was capable of meeting such threats. UNTIL's technical support and personnel were critical in defeating Mechanon, resulting in it becoming the pre-eminent body in such matters.

UNTIL's presence in the US in the early 80s was a stopgap measure, accepted while the US got Special American Tactics (SAT) up and running. UNTIL's presence was phased out in the US by about 1986. It maintained its international role much longer, despite much of its personnel reverting to national (read: US) control.

---

I omitted PRIMUS from this, but it could be put in easily enough.

On the other side, VIPER originated from US backed anti-Communist "secret" armies, especially from the opium warlords of the Golden Triangle.

So the US unwittingly created both UNTIL and VIPER.

Obviously this timeline, aside from being non-canonical, is firmly rooted in the 70s and 80s, and would be a bit difficult to update to the present day.

My assumption would be that UNTIL is a fig leaf for the US.

Countries with governments that the US doesn't like would rarely be members. Its leadership would be packed with people from close US allies, when they aren't from the US themselves. In effect it would be something like a Super-NATO.

UNTIL forces deployed in the US would be entirely drawn from US personnel, aside from the odd specialist.

That still wouldn't keep it safe from nationalistic demagogues.

It's likely that there would be at least local agencies as well.

11 hours ago, Urlord said:

About 300 years, Count Pol Zangris

 ...

Eventually, the King and Queen

Interesting. So at one point, the small castle of Gallon was the centre of a kingdom large enough to have at least one Count subordinate to it.

It's still powerful enough to have waged a multi-year war.

That's pretty much the kind of thing I'm looking for.

This is a thought experiment.

Assume you are in a game.

Gallon/Galon (the spelling isn't standardized) is a small castle in a mediaeval style setting.

It consists of a keep, a surrounding wall, a modest gatehouse and some outbuildings (inside the wall).

Who is your character, what are they doing there and what do they want?

Your options are pretty much whatever you want, although you should stay within mediaeval-ish fantasy parameters.

Try to remain compatible with previous posters.

You can of course ask for clarifications, but things are pretty open.

The beef is being produced by means of an unauthorized/illegal growth hormone.

A Miami based VIPER nest is hijacking it in the hope of enhancing the physical characteristics of its agents.

Complication: the growth hormone is being produced by ARGENT - or by a front company controlled by another VIPER nest!

So, does Christougher get to nominate the next one?

48 minutes ago, Mr. R said:

Kerq problem with the government is not the old aristocracy.  It is that the craft guilds are the aristocracy now.  And they certainly want to keep their power.  In the 400 years since they took over,

In terms of human lifetimes, 400 years is forever.

If the old aristocracy is relevant in any way these days, it's possibly through them maintaining some control over rural land ownership. It's just as likely that they have intermarried into the guilds and ceased to exist as a separate group. That implies that non-guild member spouses are a thing of course.

Religion is another place where non-guild aristocrats could possibly maintain a presence.

While not "Evil", the pilgrims believe in/want/are going to pray for something horrifying.

48 minutes ago, Bazza said:

Assault is being dramatic, is has gone to an exclusive streaming service that has a presence in Australia.  

Which means that it can't be watched unless you subscribe - which means that it can't be watched.

(Australian ABC)

ABC's five-decade partnership with Doctor Who ends after BBC confirms Disney+ deal from 2023

Translation: Doctor Who cancelled in Australia.

Thinking about age: the most obvious common aspect of the modern "young" countries is that they are colonies built on the ruins of older cultures. Much older cultures.

This has implications in a fantasy world.

Imagine a society based on Iron Age Britain. What remnants of the Bronze Age, Stone Age and earlier (pre-human) societies could be there?

45 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

The Canadian North, or the Prairies, don't translate well to standards of scale in many parts of the world, let alone to pre-industrial societies.

Anything above small villages would be unlikely. Hunting/herding would be a potential economic base.

Rivers would be communication/transport routes. You wouldn't be crossing them so much as travelling along them. (E.g. the Mackenzie River in this case.)

There could be exceptions. A gold rush town could exist, although much of its population might be seasonal.

And of course there is fantasy weirdness, which allows all kinds of things.

18 hours ago, Mr. R said:

Seriously the way y/they wrote it originally, there are NO coastal towns/settlements/cities ANYWHERE on the outside coast of the continent.

I'd consider sticking a bunch of villages on the coast. "Too small to show up on the map". They can add up to a sizeable population.

They still wouldn't justify/support a stupidly big city, but a small one/large town could make sense.

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

You would have to explain the premise to us non academics.  

That's why the first two words in my post was a link to the same thing name_tamer linked to.

Taking it literally, there is a teapot orbiting in space between Earth and Mars. This is kind of awesome, in my silly opinion.

Russell's Teapot is an analogy formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell.

Being silly, of course, it could be real in a fantasy world (with the serial numbers filed off, naturally).

This raises some questions:
Who put a teapot into space, and why?
How could you (find and) recover it?
Why would you want to do that?

Just considering the recovery - it would take some serious magic to do so. One possibility might be to use some kind of being that can travel through space to do that - perhaps a nightgaunt or some denizen of the Outer Darkness. A vehicle that could travel "out there" could also work, but such things are difficult in most fantasy worlds, even weird/silly ones. There are other options - no doubt people will come up with some.

The obvious point is that there would have to be a very good reason to do so. Since serious magic is involved, the benefit would need to be at least as serious.

So what could the teapot be?

It could be a Djinn "bottle", or a similar prison for some other being. The being in question would have to be more powerful than the nightgaunt or whatever was used to recover it if do so was to be worthwhile.

Alternatively, or as well, the teapot could be decorated with images/information of a kind that it would be worth concealing in such a radical manner.

And of course, it could be used to make tea. Maybe not ordinary tea - perhaps an elixir of life or immortality, or something equally awesome/dangerous.

Or maybe just tea. Perhaps the Best Tea in the World. But that could be dangerous too...

Anyway, there is today's silliness. I'm sure other people can come up with other ideas related to it.

The nomads and the river people are kin. They have a division of labour, with the nomads being the shepherds and cattle herders, and the river people being the farmers.

Depending on the climate, the nomads might graze their flocks along the river at certain times of year (coincidentally manuring the fields).

On 10/16/2022 at 6:41 AM, Lawnmower Boy said:

Now do NEO-OTYUGH. 

 
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