Marvel Super Heroes – Darkwolf

   One of the more amusing aspects of the original Marvel Super Heroes game was that pretty much everything about your character was determined at random. Random attributes, random powers, random species… In fact, there was a substantial chance that your character would wind up as a member of a previously-unknown alien species – which [...]

The Well-Dressed Hero

   With the exception of James Bond and (to some extent) Stargate SG1, most of the metahumans, star travelers, secret agents, and other high-tech heroes that you see running around in comics, movies, and television series, seem to make a habit of battling terrible foes, visiting strange planets, and strolling into unknown (but generally awful) [...]

Epic Spell Conversions, Part VIII. Epic Repulsion, Glorious Sanctum, Mass Frog, Sphere of Transformation, Mummy Dust, Peripety and Soul Dominion.

   To continue with Alzrius’s request, here are most of the remaining epic spells converted to Eclipse high-level spells.    Epic Repulsion    The conversion for Epic Repulsion depends on how you read the spell; if attacking an affected creature, or intentionally moving to within five feet of an affected creature ends the spell entirely, [...]

Role Playing Disadvantages – With Teeth

   First up today, it’s another question from Alzrius – whom I must thank for helpfully providing topics, since my answers so often turn into small articles like this one.    You mention (in an article on race design, HERE) that “playing up the social prejudice a bit can easily make up for a modest [...]

Federation-Apocalypse Session 128 – Gates of Legend

   Back in the Neanderthal manifold, Kevin had a theory.    The Neanderthals had gone extinct in Core while they were still tribal. They’d never known what the natural laws of Core were like, and their basic assumptions about how the world worked would only take them into the depths of their Manifold. The scientists [...]

RPG Design – Designing Subraces and the Mothu

   Next up, we have a new Eclipse race by Joshua Troeger - the Mothu – and a general discussion on designing races.    The Mothu, like the Spirit-Touched, fall into the “Human Subrace” category in Eclipse – races created by taking humans and spending part of the rest of the 31 CP available to a [...]

Recordings from the Holocron of Kira Keldav – Session 27

   I had taken up a patrol around the Hohenheim Research Facility while we waited for our assassin to come in. Xiang and Jacob were doing their own security tasks like I was and Ben was playing scientist with the research team – and hopefully NOT creating another superweapon. Alys was in her own ship [...]

Eclipse d20 – Visions of the Ancient One

   Olavia Marcanti Level Zero Visionary Ancient One    Olavia had a small occult gift; she had occasional visions, sensing dangers, coming events, and hidden facts.    She consulted Anselem Hite – in his capacity as a Professor of Occult and Psychic studies – about it. He found it quite interesting – and she found him [...]

Eclipse d20 – Professing the Alternatives

   Yesterdays sample character, Professor Arcane, has his abilities divided into a number of smaller subpackages – Respected Academic (20 CP), Psychic Mastery (20 CP), Ritual Enchantments (8 CP), and Shamanic Lore (19 CP).    That’s because – in Eclipse – it’s easy to create character variations by simply swapping out packages of abilities. Ergo, [...]

Eclipse d20 – Professor Arcane

   Professor Arcane Level Two Anime-Themed Human Occultist    Located in the foothills of the highlands near Torridon, Kinlochewe is notable for its regular reports of monsters, hauntings, and other strange events. Such reports are so frequent and persistent that Kargoth University, nearby, has endowed a Chair of Occult and Psychic studies. That position is [...]

Eclipse d20 – Killers, Diplomats, and Technomagi

   First up for today, it’s a trio of sample characters for Eclipse d20 – one human assassin, one half-orc warrior-diplomat, and one dwarven technomage. Why these? Simply because these were set up for other people according to their requests, and therefore are simpler and more direct designs; after better than thirty years of play, [...]

Federation-Apocalypse Session 127 – Of Mice, Men, and Opossums.

   Peter Leland sighed. It had been entertaining for a bit – it wasn’t as if mass destruction really had any real effect on Battling Business World – but after watching Zero destroy Manhattan every day for the last three weeks, it was getting pretty old. Even the variations on numerical apocalypse were no longer [...]

Recordings from the Holocron of Kira Keldav – Session 26

   Aboard the Lingsrymu (the Sith Super Star Destroyer), Ben, Lazlo, Alys, Shipwreck, and Khadim were becoming increasingly nervous – although 10-CH didn’t care… It wasn’t that they were being relentlessly hunted or some such. It was the sheer indifference. The Varen Sith simply didn’t seem to CARE that they were aboard! There were casual [...]

Epic Spell Conversions, Part VII. Create Living Vault, Crown Of Vermin, Superb Dispelling, Time Duplicate, Blurred Instant, Thief Of Time, Verdigris, and Verdigris Tsunami.

   To continue with Alzrius’s request, here are a few more epic spells converted to Eclipse high-level spells – including three of the most awkward ones on the list; Create Living Vault, Crown Of Vermin, and Time Duplicate.    Create Living Vault    Create Living Vault is pretty absurd. Yes, some of the statistics for [...]

Epic Spell Conversions, Part VI. Summon Behemoth, Lord of Nightmares, Acid Drizzle, Rain of Fire or Elemental Rain, Epic Spell Reflection, and Eternal Freedom.

   To continue with Alzrius’s request, here are a few more epic spells converted to Eclipse high-level spells. This particular series should be concluding in one or two more segments – although I may continue with a few of the high-level spells that, for one reason or another, did not make it into Eclipse.    [...]

Epic Spell Conversions, Part V. Origin of Species Achaierai, Nailed to the Sky, Pestilence, Mist of Contagion, Safe Time, Raise Island, and Master of the Earth

   To continue with Alzrius’s request, here are a few more epic spells converted to Eclipse high-level spells – starting off with one he mentioned in particular…    Origin of Species: Achaierai    This spell creates an Achaierai and has a permanent duration. Presumably, the newly-created creatures offspring are not subject to being dispelled – [...]

Montsalvat and the Stone of Destiny

   Evil is easy, attractive, and seductive. Its rewards are ease and wealth, power and pleasure. From petty greed and willful blindness on through the grandiose evil of epic villains, the worlds are filled with it.    Good is demanding and difficult, and – all too often – its rewards lie only in the realm [...]

Raaksasha-Grashishnu the Dreamhunter

   In the foothills, a city stands on the bluffs above a river that snakes onwards through the plains. Above it the forested hills supply wood, spices, dyes, and other products of the wilds. Of course, without the opposition of an order of an ancient druids they might have been denuded long ago. Fortunately, there [...]

Dreamspawn and Dreamhunters

   In their own realms, most Dreamspawn are lesser creatures. For them, the material universe is a place of refuge from greater, and more dangerous, entities. To anchor themselves within that sanctuary, they bond with an imaginative partner who can provide them with a manifestation – a psychic shell for their utterly alien essence to [...]

Federation-Apocalypse Session 126b – The Champions of Faith and Family

   Meanwhile, Gelman was off to consult one of the more actively researching Rabbis. Much as he’d like to consult a Rabbi from Battling Business World, he suspected that only a Core Rabbi would have the kind of background information he needed – and until Zero was pacified (if he ever was), Battling Business World [...]