Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Character Statting - Teryna - 10 Games

Teryna is a character I've played in a couple of different places. She is a human ranger originally, though I've played around with statting her as other classes. She has a rather unusual origin, being a reincarnated familiar. She was born a fox and raised in the environment of a retired adventuring wizard's tower. She maintains a rather friendly and optimistic outlook and attitude and has a sort of bestial innocence with regard to killing for food or defense.

I'm going to be designing her as a basic 1st level character in most cases, though a bit higher level in one or two versions. Unlike some of my other older characters, I still have her originally rolled stats on hand so I'll be using those instead of an array in 5e.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Character Statting - Kya'Rei L'Di'Shinabon - 12 Games

A character of mine from a 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons PBEM game.
Kya'Rei was a drow cleric/ranger for the goddess Elerrina

She was the party cleric and negotiator. While the drow of that world were not so instantly hated as they are on other worlds, they were still primarily evil. Kya'Rei was part of a group of mostly solitary wanderers following their old goddess, Elerrina, the sister to the hateful goddess who most drow now worship (forget the name). Kya'Rei is the first priestess to answer the goddess's call since she returned as the Maimed Goddess. Before her, Elerrina's divine casters were limited to a scattering of Rangers.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Dunadan and Numenoreans in 5e Dungeons and Dragons

Note: For this essay, I'm using the gender-neutral use of "Man" as a reference to the race as a whole. This goes along with the way Tolkien used the term and goes back to pre-Norman conquest Old English when mann simply meant human while wif and wer were the gender indicatives (female and male respectively)

The Dunadan of Tolkien's Middle Earth are one of the remnants of what are known as the Edain or High Men. They are remarkable for being much longer-lived than other races of Man and having gifts of foresight or the like. They are remarked as being taller and healthier than many other men and marked by a seeming of great intelligence and insight. Some of this is certainly due to the long traditions of maintaining lore and knowledge down through the generations but there is also a significant difference between the majority of the race of Man and the Numenoreans and Dunadan.Comments by Tolkien have indicated that Elf and Man would be considered the same species if examined by science. The difference between the two people is a spiritual one. 

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Yet Another Bigotry in Middle Earth Post

One thing that occurs fairly regularly is a piece showing how a certain piece of fiction or another is racist or sexist or something else offensive and should thus be cast aside. Most of this recent spate of accusations depend upon reinterpreting some pieces of symbology from a perspective of modern context rather than using the more ancient attitudes. This is not to say that pieces of fiction which are deliberately racist don’t exist. They most certainly do. If you have to work hard to find the symbols and metaphors that prove your assertion that a work is racist, then it is most likely you are seeing what you want to see. For the purposes of this essay, I’m going to focus on Lord of the Rings. It has often been suggested that Lord of the Rings is racist and sexist. These interpretations are largely fueled by modern eyes and context and make little sense within the context of Tolkien’s life.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Chimera Sirens Behind the Fiction - Session One Notes and Rolls

Stoneskin – Stone-Skinned teleporter + animated statue minions


Conditions: Angry, Hopeless, Guilty

Moves: Create animated minions, Strike with stony force, Terraport away from danger, threaten enemies

Chimera Sirens - Session One - Consequences and Discoveries

Statues formed out of the walls and ground surrounded a man with resilient stony skin as he stood in the entrance of the bank eyeing the situation outside. He grumbled to himself as he tried to decide on his approach to the situation. The Eiyu-Tai were across the province dealing with some lunatic trying to make the volcano erupt so he’d taken the opportunity to rob a bank when it was just going to be the police on hand. Then these…people showed up.

Monday, December 7, 2015

Chimera Sirens: How the team got together

“Wait a minute, is that Kiki-Koko up there?”

The speaker was a young woman with mostly short hair dyed blonde hair and bright pink eyebrows, the only portions breaking the crewcut were the long bangs that draped down over one of her eyes. She was still a girl really, probably not even twenty years old. She was currently dressed in artfully torn jeans with a rather jarringly bright top that may have been made of latex, though she had a T-shirt over that.

“You’re the one concerned with fads, not me. How would I know?”

The girl she was speaking to looked quite a bit older on first glance. A second look made one realize that the impression was largely due to her more conservative style of dress. She looked rather more like a responsible office worker or civil service employee. Some things stood out about her however. Among other things was the fact that her pale skin had a decidedly more grey tone than the usual pink, tan or brown most humans had. Her ears were unusually shaped as well, but what stood out the most was her green hair.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

The Chimera Sirens

Superhero fiction created by die roll.

Thank you for tolerating my lack of editing on these. I'm doing them for fun and am thus being a bit lackadaisical.

Using the Masks RPG, I come up with the basic situations and use the die rolls to determine the direction of the story before filling in the details.

The characters were created by a mix of random rolls and selection of ideas.


Chimera Sirens: The Transformed - Bronze Chimera

Bronze Chimera - Umeko Hayashi - Age 23
Umeko Hayashi/Bronze Chimera - 5'7" 218 lbs.
The Transformed
Asian, Bronze Skin and Steel Hair, No Costume, Cold Eyes
 
She has two powers: Technopathy and Impenetrable Skin

Labels - Creation

Freak +3
Danger +1
Savior +0
Superior +0
Mundane -1

Chimera Sirens: The Janus - Pearl Chimera

Pearl Chimera - Ayako Wakahisa - Age 22
Pearl Chimera 5'2" 107 lbs
The Janus
Woman, Asian, Shabby Clothing, Distracting Costume, Oni Mask

Powers: Energy Absorption and Impossible Mobility

Labels - Creation

Freak -1
Danger +1
Savior +0
Superior +0
Mundane +3

Chimera Sirens: The Protege - Jade Chimera

Minako Kita, 5'5" 104 lbs
Jade Chimera - Minako Kita - Age 18
The Protege
Woman, Indistinctly Asian, Conservative Clothes, Armored Costume

Mentor's Power: Magical Training
Personal Power: Twilight World Evolution
(Enhanced Hearing, Nightvision, Magically Inert)
Shared Power: Air Control

Labels - Creation

Freak +1
Danger -1
Savior +0
Superior +2
Mundane +1

Chimera Sirens: The Legacy - Amber Chimera

Amber Chimera 5'4" 101 lbs
Amber Chimera - Kyou Higa - Age 17
The Legacy
Woman, Okinawan, Raver Clothes, Traditional Costume

Divine Visions, Magical Training, Aquatic Adaptation, Multi-Dimensionality, God-Like Beauty

Labels - Creation

Freak +0
Danger -1
Savior +2
Superior +1
Mundane +1

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Some Superhero Tropes

There are several elements of superhero fiction and settings that I appreciate and some that I do not. In some cases, I dislike the underlying message that a particular element delivers and in other cases I simply don’t find the trope makes much sense. These are not entirely consistent likes and dislikes either. A trope I dislike in one instance is one that I feel is entirely appropriate in another instance. However, I’m going to go ahead and discuss some of these below and when I have issues with them and when I don’t.

Night's Black Agents Char Gen - GUMSHOE

This is a general summary of character creation in the GUMSHOE vampire spy thriller game NBA printed by Pelgrane Press.

The premise of the characters in this game are:

"For a few years now, your character has been part of Europe’s shadowy underground of criminals, mercenaries, and deniable paramilitaries. Before that, you were on the rolls somewhere: MI5, DGSE, Stasi, perhaps even the CIA or Mossad. Someone recruited you out of the sunlight, and taught you to survive in the shadows."

Usually in the first operation, the players uncover proof of the existence of vampires and also come to the attention of the vampire conspiracy.

Daggerheart Analysis

  Daggerheart - What I've Seen So Far Template-Based Character Builds This will be familiar to players of D&D, Pathfinder 2e...

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