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Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

Alien Rope Burn posted:

* Whether or not Long was quit or fired is unclear, since folks at Palladium can never make up their mind on what happened.

They probably roll on one of Kevin's omnipresent d% tables.

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occamsnailfile
Nov 4, 2007



zamtrios so lonely
Grimey Drawer

Halloween Jack posted:

So what's the significance of that part of the myth where the handle's too short?

This is a rough summary in which I can't even be bothered to look up the Wikipedia version, but basically there was a gnome/dwarf pair (depends on the translation) who were really awesome craftsman, and he got into a dare with Loki, always a bad plan. The dwarves set to work and Loki came disguised as a fly and messed with the bellow-pumping dwarf, biting him. The dwarf didn't stop working, and they made (alright I lied, I looked this up) a shining golden-bristled boar. They took a break, had a snack, then started working again to make Odin's ring, mentioned above. Loki showed up as a fly and bit the bellow-dwarf on the forehead. He didn't stop working. Again, break and a snack, and then they started on the third phase of the bet--and Loki showed up as a fly and bit the bellow dwarf on the eyelid so hard that blood ran into his face.

He stopped long enough to wipe his eyes and that was long enough that Mjolnir came out with a shortened handle. Since it's a warhammer it's meant to be wielded with two hands; the short handle is a flaw then, since it can only be held with one. Thor was just so strong and badass that he could hold it. The dwarves won the bet with Loki even with the flawed handle, and they were supposed to take his head--but Loki argued they couldn't do this without touching his neck, which was not part of the bargain. The Norse gods get some cool new items, and Loki lives to prank another day.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I dread the idea that I'll get far enough in Rifts books to cover Coalition War Campaign.

I hope you do. I can't review it because 90% of the reason that book is any good is the art. It's like they just flipped through a stack of Simbieda's dream journals, opened the one titled "Summer of '95: Sixteen Stone and Downward Spiral" and started randomly assigning stats to everything in there.

theironjef fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Apr 28, 2014

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 10 hours!

occamsnailfile posted:

This is a rough summary in which I can't even be bothered to look up the Wikipedia version, but basically there was a gnome/dwarf pair (depends on the translation) who were really awesome craftsman, and he got into a dare with Loki, always a bad plan. The dwarves set to work and Loki came disguised as a fly and messed with the bellow-pumping dwarf, biting him. The dwarf didn't stop working, and they made (alright I lied, I looked this up) a shining golden-bristled boar. They took a break, had a snack, then started working again to make Odin's ring, mentioned above. Loki showed up as a fly and bit the bellow-dwarf on the forehead. He didn't stop working. Again, break and a snack, and then they started on the third phase of the bet--and Loki showed up as a fly and bit the bellow dwarf on the eyelid so hard that blood ran into his face.

He stopped long enough to wipe his eyes and that was long enough that Mjolnir came out with a shortened handle. Since it's a warhammer it's meant to be wielded with two hands; the short handle is a flaw then, since it can only be held with one. Thor was just so strong and badass that he could hold it. The dwarves won the bet with Loki even with the flawed handle, and they were supposed to take his head--but Loki argued they couldn't do this without touching his neck, which was not part of the bargain. The Norse gods get some cool new items, and Loki lives to prank another day.

I know all of this, but explain to me what it means if it's a penis. Thor's penis is short but mighty?

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

occamsnailfile posted:

He stopped long enough to wipe his eyes and that was long enough that Mjolnir came out with a shortened handle. Since it's a warhammer it's meant to be wielded with two hands; the short handle is a flaw then, since it can only be held with one. Thor was just so strong and badass that he could hold it. The dwarves won the bet with Loki even with the flawed handle, and they were supposed to take his head--but Loki argued they couldn't do this without touching his neck, which was not part of the bargain. The Norse gods get some cool new items, and Loki lives to prank another day.

Some versions I heard, while they couldn't take his head, he annoyed them so much that they stitched his mouth shut.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

theironjef posted:

I hope you do. I can't review it because 90% of the reason that book is any good is the art.

Coalition War Campaign is a pretty clear attempt to wipe much of Long's Coalition design work off much of the game. I'm not sure if that's a practical concern (getting somebody to draw some of Long's designs is a tall order) or an emotional reaction to Long's departure. Between that and the Naruni purge (they're two books ahead, for those unfamiliar), it's clearly Siembieda trying to seize the game line with both hands again.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
When I was younger, I felt CWC (in addition to being ridiculous, terrible, etc) was Siembieda trying to out-CJ CJ Carella, whose statblocks were cartoonishly powerful and user-friendly-- none of this Xd6 MD garbage, or arguing over whether MD weapons use the Modern Weapon Rules, everything deals damage in clean XdYx10 bursts.

'Course, Siembieda took multiple ranks in Skill Fucus: loving the Dog for that one. CWC was the last book in the line that I bought.

In retrospect, yeah-- even from the front matter, it's obvious that CWC and the horrible metaplot that followed was Siembieda trying to retcon or reboot the entire line, putting the Coalition back on top with his trademarked lovely mechanics and the revelation of a war machine that had been running for decades without anyone, anywhere catching the faintest whiff of it.

BerkerkLurk
Jul 22, 2001

I could never sleep my way to the top 'cause my alarm clock always wakes me right up

Alien Rope Burn posted:

But there's a later race that gets invented because they had art of some random D-bee by Tim Truman originally used way, way back in the original corebook, but they were never statted, so then they become an official race around forty or fifty books into the game line. Talk about scraping that barrel clean!
The Larmac? Probably one of my favorite pieces of Rifts art and a fun character type, so I was happy to see that.

A point about D-Bee's that the main book made that they started to overlook later in the game was that many D-Bee's are mostly indistinguishable from humans. Just people from a not-too-dissimilar time or dimension, so that's how I took the Quick-Flex Aliens (terrible name, though). They even had a random D-Bee table in the old Rifts core book (of course they had a table) and any differences from a normal human was mostly cosmetic, like you had a minor SDC bonus from scaly skin maybe.

Hulk Smash!
Jul 14, 2004



Strange New Worlds

But first we have to get there


A Navyborg during FTL travel

Space travel in Empire Galactique is either done within the confines of a solar system – using a slower than light ship – or interstellar – with FTL capable ships. FTL ships usually move from space-port to space-port (usually both tech level 6). These space-ports are located at the extreme edge of solar systems. To get to your final destination within the solar system, you would take a shuttle from the port to whatever planet you want to go. A typical interstellar journey takes from a few days to a week and the travel portion at sub-FTL speeds will take a week or more. Passengers often end up spending more time in shuttles to and from space ports than on intergalactic transit.


Various spaceships. From top to bottom: A fighter, a sub-light transport, a cargo ship, a luxury liner and an interstellar spaceship with black-hole drive (nothing ever goes wrong when using a black hole as your FTL drive)


Space-Tourists

Generating Worlds

To create a new world, its fauna and flora, you roll on a bunch of tables (surprise, surprise). First you decide around where the system you are creating will be in relation to the galactic core (no map is provided) and then you go about the process of rolling d6s a whole bunch.

1. The Star

1d6. 1-3 = there’s a Sun, 4-6 it’s a starless system.

2. Planets

1d6. 1-3 there are planets (3d6 worth) 4-6 no planets.

3. The “Main” Planet’s Size

Here we’re focusing only on the one planet that might harbor indigenous life. Roll 2d6-2 x 2000km to get the diameter.

4. Gravity

Divide diameter d6 result by 6 to get gravity in Earth G’s

5. Ocean Area

2d6-2 x 10%. A result of 0 means it’s a desert planet with no water and 100% gets you an ocean world.

6. Atmosphere

Multiply the d6 result of Land Area by d6 result of Diameter and look up the results on a table. For example, 0 means a vacuum while 100 means a toxic/corrosive atmosphere.

7. Life

If the GM decides he wants the planet to have life forms, he rolls 1d6. 1-4 means there is animal life, 5-6 means intelligent life.

quote:

Let’s make a star system.

The Star: We roll 1, there’s a star
The Planets: 2. There are planets. 3d6 gets us 12 planets.
Main Planet size: 2d6x2000km. 11 gets us 22000km diameter.
Gravity: 11/6 = 1.8G
Land Area: 2d6-2. 4 gets us 40% Oceans.
Atmosphere: 4x11 on a table gets us a normal atmosphere. No suit needed.
Life: We’ll say there is. 5 on a d6 means it’s intelligent.

Generating Life Forms

Once you know if the planet will have life on it, you then get to roll a bunch more depending if it’s an animal or intelligent life form.

Animal Life

What does it eat? 1d6. 1=Omnivorous, 2-3=carnivorous 4+= herbivore (remember the number you got on the d6)
Where does it live? 1d6 (+1 if >70% oceans and +2 if 100%). 1-2 = Terrestrial, 3-4 = Marine, 5-6 = Avian
How strong is it? 1d6 + whatever you got on what does it eat. This is the STR stat of the animal.
Natural weapons GM fiat
Armor whatever you got on what does it eat x 2 = armor rating.
Size, weight 1d6 + results of what does it eat cross referenced on a table. Ex. A total of 10 means it’s 10-20m tall and weighs 3 tons. This means that herbivores are all at least 1m in size according to this way of calculating things…
How does it look? 2d6 looked up on a table. Ex. A result of 3 means it’s a plant-life.
How does it react? 2d6 looked up on a table. Ex. A result of 3 means it will only attack when provoked.



quote:

Lets create a life form for our planet.

3 on “what does it eat” gets us a carnivorous animal.
4 on “where does it live” means it’s a marine life form.
5 on “how strong is it” gets us a total of 8 STR
We’ll say it has teeth for weapons
3x2 gets us an armor rating of 6
4 on size means it will be 1.5-2m long and weighs 60-100kg
8 on “how it looks” means it is humanoid in shape (merfolks???)
And 7 on reaction gets us a creature that it will flee at the first sign of intruders.

So there you have it. A human sized, sea dwelling, humanoid shaped life form that eats meat and is non-confrontational.

Intelligent Life

You would generate the stats of any ETs with the usual method but we have to find out a few things first.


An Alien

Tech Level Roll 1d6 Ex. 2 means it’s tech level 2 (Pre-Industrial)
Size, weight 1d6 + results of what does it eat cross referenced on a table. Ex. A total of 10 means it’s 10-20m tall and weighs 3 tons.
How does it look? 2d6 looked up on a table. Ex. A result of 3 means it’s a plant-life.
Population d6 Tech Level result + Size d6 result. Add 10 zeroes to the total to get the population of the planet.
Civilization d6 + tech level. Look up the results of a table. Ex. 7 gets you a merchant society.
Nature Their comportment. d6 + tech level looked up on a table. Ex. 7 gets you Neutral.
Politics d6 + tech level looked up on a table. Ex. 7 gets you a democracy.

quote:

Lets create an alien.

For Tech Level we roll a 4. Meaning Interplanetary level. They may have colonized other worlds of their solar system.
(assuming they are omnivorous) For size we roll a 6. They are 2m tall and weigh 100kg or so.
On looks we got a 10. This is a mineral/geometric looking species
Population we roll a 3 and add tech level 4 for a total of 7 or 70,000,000,000 population
Civilization we roll a 1 and add tech level 4 for a total of 5 or Warrior culture
Nature we roll a 6 and add tech level 4 for a total of 10 or Hostile
Politics we roll a 6 again and add tech level 4 for a total of 10 or Theocracy.


A cone of silence in action


Tech Level 4 Mech

And this is it for Empire Galactique.

Majuju
Dec 30, 2006

I had a beer with Stephen Miller once and now I like him.

Hulk Smash! posted:

And this is it for Empire Galactique.

Hey! I wanted to say thanks for taking the time to go through this, it's cool to see more Traveller-like games and how they handle stuff, and the artwork is stellar across the board.

Hulk Smash!
Jul 14, 2004

Majuju posted:

Hey! I wanted to say thanks for taking the time to go through this, it's cool to see more Traveller-like games and how they handle stuff, and the artwork is stellar across the board.

It was kind of fun revisiting a game a 1st bought over a decade ago and never played. I don't know that the system sells me on playing it now but I could certainly see using some of the artwork as inspiration for other space elf games.

Selachian
Oct 9, 2012

Hulk Smash! posted:

1. The Star

1d6. 1-3 = there’s a Sun, 4-6 it’s a starless system.

2. Planets

1d6. 1-3 there are planets (3d6 worth) 4-6 no planets.

... so, like a quarter of the time, you get a "system" where there are no stars and no planet? Would that just be a bunch of asteroids/iceballs floating around or what?

Hulk Smash!
Jul 14, 2004

Selachian posted:

... so, like a quarter of the time, you get a "system" where there are no stars and no planet? Would that just be a bunch of asteroids/iceballs floating around or what?

Yup. Although, to be fair, the book does mention that if you want to have a system with a star/planets, make one. This is really mostly for the times where the players go off plan and you need something quick or don't care about the specifics.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

BerkerkLurk posted:

The Larmac? Probably one of my favorite pieces of Rifts art and a fun character type, so I was happy to see that.

I don't dislike them or anything (I used one as an NPC in the last game of such I ran), but I admit trying to tell the difference between a Larmac and a Grackle-Tooth gets a little tricky when you look at art after that.

Yes, they all look the same to me, I was the real speciesist all along. :(

Kaja Rainbow
Oct 17, 2012

~Adorable horror~

Rulebook Heavily posted:

e: Like newsflash, here's how the Norse depicted a penis:



This is Freyr. gently caress phallic symbolism, just slap a dong on him if that's what you want to say.

Yeah, lots of the ancients weren't exactly subtle with their phallic representations. If anything, they were generally fairly literal with it. They weren't very shy or screamish about that stuff. Stuff like a river of menstrual blood pops up in Norse mythology, and there're loads of stuff we would consider gross in myths in general.

occamsnailfile
Nov 4, 2007



zamtrios so lonely
Grimey Drawer

Hulk Smash! posted:




And this is it for Empire Galactique.

I dig the art in this book, I mean 'cut rate Moebius' is a fairly accurate descriptor, but you can do a lot worse than imitating Moebius.

occamsnailfile
Nov 4, 2007



zamtrios so lonely
Grimey Drawer
Rifts Conversion Book 2: Pantheons of the Megaverse: Part 25: "According to myth he could see 300 miles and hear the grass grow"


Morse Norsey stuff. We start today with Magni, son of Thor and supposedly strongest of all the Norse gods. Saved his father from a collapsed giant when he was still a child. If he ever meets Herakles, there’d be a really big and totally not homoerotic wrestling match. He wanders around looking for adventures and once teamed up with Krishna to defeat a supernatural intelligence. Sometimes this book reads like a series OHTMU entries that try to list every stupid team-up ever. He is more gentle than most of the other Norses depicted, being less insecure in himself what with bench pressing battleships and all.


this artist sometimes seems to phone it in a bit

24K MDC, 10th level warrior, has special super-strength that lets him have the carrying/lifting capacity of someone twice his actual strength, which is a supernatural 79. I really cannot remember what that translates to, except that you don’t get MDC strength bonuses to damage, just SDC.

Next up is Heimdall and since he isn’t played by Idris Elba in this version I’m not going to post his picture. Heimdall guards Bifrost, the Royal Rainbow of Asgard, actually a special permanent Rift to several different worlds. People who rift into Asgard always appear on Bifrost, which is a unique defense of that dimension. Heimdall basically doesn’t do anything but guard the bridge, and so hates Loki for repeatedly breaking curfew.


talking about the rainbow is more interesting than talking about Heimdall, honestly.

Numbers-wise he has 25K MDC and extremely sharp senses that reduce prowl checks. He automatically senses magic and supernatural evil but still has psi-stalker powers (apparently he likes them for some reason), and enchanted chainmail with 1,000 MDC. His sword is a pretty cool but pretty typical godly runesword, one of the many artifacts this book painstakingly stats out, often with the addendum that ‘only the owner can use this particular power’ so piss off, loot-happy PCs. This one doesn’t actually say that, so here’s the guy to rob.


Loki

God of deceit, trickster and lovable badboy of the pantheon. Loki seems sometimes to hate the gods, and sometimes acts to help them--it isn’t always clear what his motives are, but he did finally piss everyone off so much that they chained him to a rock under Midgard with a venomous serpent dripping into his eyes. The book suggests that having him still imprisoned isn’t any fun, but he was supposed to stay there until Ragnarok. Enh. Loki is pure mischief though, and not to be trusted. Even when he does help, it often involves some kind of betrayal, or putting up with a lot of mocking just at the edge of acceptability. He has no priests and few worshippers, which means that in Rifts terms he should never be able to reach his full MDC potential.


i know you wanted Tom Hiddleston, but this is what you are getting.

Theoretical MDC 63K, current 12.6. He doesn’t have a lot of notable combat stats, nor any uber-lie mesmerism skill or what have you, but he wheels and deals in all kinds of places. He is listed as owning a Splugorth Enslaver (see pg 130 of Atlantis) and a fully-statted ‘Sword of Atlantis’ which is also featured in Atlantis IIRC, and it says he got it for tricking Thor into the captivity of a Splugorth lord without his hammer and belt but an Atlantean sorceress lent him some other items and he rampaged his way out. The sword is less impressive than the repeated idea that the Splugorth are a thing even gods fear, which stat-wise, they should be.


Balder the noble

Some of you may remember this guy as the one who hates Christmas. The mistletoe thing and all that. According to Rifts, he did die, and his soul was taken by Hel. Odin foresaw danger to the pantheon however and issued Hel an “ultimatum” for Balder’s life and he’s back now, fighting the good fight.

54K MDC, shining example of good-heartedness, 15th level warrior, 10th line walker and mind melter for some reason. He has an ‘Earth Blade’ which is kind of lovely as rune weapons go but can still expel demons at least, though I am not sure if the rules say how long they have to stay expelled for--given that most ‘demons’ can dimensional teleport, they might be right back in.


Hel, goddess of death


i am sure this is a t-shirt somewhere on etsy

Hel is the bringer of dishonorable death and is in general not a very nice person. Unlike some of the other death-gods in this book, this is fairly true to the myths as I remember them. Except for the part where in Rifts, she is fascinated by the Mechanoids. She has even gone so far as to contact the Splugorth to make her a new bio-wizard non-bipedal body (that looks like a Murex Metzla, don’t bother looking it up) and will transfer her soul into it, then approach them and open a Rift to start Ragnarok. Seriously, the Mechanoids are the end of everything according to Rifts: Norse. :suicide: The book suggests a plot hook of PCs running across her minions hunting some of the extremely rare ingredients she needs. This whole thing will never be mentioned again even in passing.

81K MDC, doesn’t get worship so the ‘weakened’ MDC number of 16.2K may be permanent, hates everyone and has a special ‘death touch’ that inflicts damage directly to Hit Points or does a bit more MDC, reduces attacks and bonii by half--which, she can do this once per round and it lasts 1D6 rounds, it will not be long before she has crippled everyone nearby. Also she’s an 18th level line walker. Didn’t want to go the full 20 this time? Also if characters who fail a save vs a special higher horror factor are “filled with a sense of despair and hopelessness” which has no listed game effect.

That’s all we get for the Aesir. In some ways the Norse myths are most straightforward, at least as they have reached us, but this is still super-simplified.

occamsnailfile
Nov 4, 2007



zamtrios so lonely
Grimey Drawer
Rifts Conversion Book 2: Pantheons of the Megaverse: Part 26: "The Vanir gods: They’re all about nature, and stuff."

This is the other half of the pantheon, whose division is sometimes unclear such as with sentences like “the union of the two pantheons made both sides stronger and a Vanir goddess.” Editing! It’s not just for pros anymore.

Njord god of the seas
A leader of the Vanir before the Aesir takeover, still resentful. Friend to whales and dolphins but more a super-sailor (hey sailor) than Aquaman. Married to Skadi, goddess of skiing (you laugh but look up Simo Hayha) for a while, ended badly. Stayed on Earth “even when gods and magic became a thing of the past.” Kay. He built a big shipping empire and a rival company built a big ship and said it was unsinkable. That ship? Yeah it was the Titanic why do you ask. :allears:

23K MDC, 14th air/water warlock. Invulnerable to cold and can summon storms and fog at 20th level. Sometimes they list these abilities under “Natural Abilities” and sometimes they give them special headings under the same. Your guess which. Oh, but this guy really dislikes environmentalists, just to break with the sea-god mold.

Freyr, god of sun and rain


ring ring….bananaphoning it in

Protector god of crops, also a warrior god with a sword, Frey was all over the place. He was just too pacifistic for other Norsies and only Balder was cool with him completely. He is also the only Norse guy to work with other pantheons, the rest are just...you don’t know them man, they’re loners, you don’t get it. Freyr thinks the Norse may be in trouble if they don’t ally with other Pantheons of Light. Odin scoffs because his visions don’t show allies and he could never be wrong.

42K MDC, totally all paladinly and fair but only 12th level warrior and sorcerer. He can fire lasers or “heat beams of concentrated sunlight” that do slightly more (still poo poo) damage. Also he usually has some (non-Robotech, don’t get your hopes up) Valkyries or spirits of Light following him around because he is such a nice guy.

(Now is the time for all your penis jokes, this is the penis god even if Rifts didn't go on about it)


Freya goddess of love and beauty

Freyr’s twin sister, tried being chief Valkyrie but it didn’t jive with her hip hedonism man. And of course, all goddesses of love are sluts, and she is no exception--she’s been around the block a few times, but unlike all the others she isn’t possessive and spiteful about it. So it’s only half slut-shaming. But see, this gets worse: she had an affair with Zeus and Hera tricked her into drinking a potion from Eros that made her hate men and all her memories of her affairs have driven her to deep despair, she fled Asgard five years ago without a word because she’s so disgusted with herself and Hera stole Brisingamen (Freya’s necklace) too and this may cause a WAR you guys, how dare she not be ashamed and hurtful with her sexuality. :rolleyes:

MDC 28.5K which is way more than they’ve assigned to a lot of the other love-goddesses. I guess that Valkyrie training paid off since nobody would ever worship a love goddess in real life. Also she is very very heterosexual, she likes men, until Eros made her not like men, this is a crisis and she will attack any male that comes near her. It’ll wear off in ten years though, not to worry. Brisingamen has stats too and will make things within 10 miles of Freya “more fertile” if she wills it. Also it adds to saves. That is as much as could fit on the page before doing stats for a tree.

Yggdrasil the world tree

This isn’t really a god and doesn’t really go with the Vanir but okay, sure, mega-Millennium tree it is. It even breaks down MDC by location if you felt you needed to try and destroy it! Fortunately with 500K main body you will probably die of exposure before it does. And I mean you, the player, will starve to death rolling dice. Also it may be the ancestor of all those other stupid trees and it has rifts along its trunk that let it cross dimensions.

Onward, we get to what the power-seekers in your group were looking for: How they can do what Odin did and get magic from Yggdrasil. Answer: You probably can’t. You have to be stuck to the tree with a magic weapon for nine days and nights without food and water and then you make a save vs. coma/death which is the normally-useless PE stat plus level, but you get two out of tree? three. If you can manage that, you get some cool magic powers and mega-literacy. Also, probably an insanity.


The Midgard Serpent

Giant snake that gnaws at the root of the World Tree, attacks anyone else who takes a stab at it because territorial. Part of the Ragnarok legend that does not include Mechanoids. See Day After Ragnarok writeup for better origin/death story. 120K MDC and really hard to kill, very big, and does 4D6x20 MDC with each of seven bites per round plus poison for those few pitied fools not immune to it. Hateful super-dragon, do not provoke.


it took me a number of minutes greater than one to figure out what was happening here

The Norse Giants! Several of the Conversion book giants use these names already and we are instructed to consider those the lesser versions of these, the true giants. Oh, and they’re optional RCCs. Munchkins take note.

A typical Norse Giant will lean towards anarchist or evil and a less-evil giant will likely be tormented as a freak. They get pretty good attribute rolls including super-strength, and 2d6x100 MDC plus 10 per level. Yeah, they start out as tanks and only improve. One in ten thousand has god-level MDC (3D6x1000) and they serve as warrior lords of the others. There’s nothing that specifically says you can’t play as a warrior lord but I think most GMs would exercise their option against that one.

They regenerate at non-combat speeds and are resistant to cold or heat depending on breed. They get a standard roll for random psionics. They are mostly warriors of various sorts, otherwise are witches, warlocks, necromancers or line walkers.

Also they get three extra abilities that are rolled or GM-chosen:
  • +1d6000 MDC
  • Nightvision 1000 Ft
  • Turn Invisible at will
  • Impervious to heat and fire
  • Fangs & poison bite (3d6 “damage” per round for 1d6 rounds)
  • Change size at will from 6 to 40 ft.
  • Pair of tentacles, +1 attacks, +1 parry
  • +10 PS attribute
  • Thick lumpy skin, add 1d4x100 MDC
  • Extra Arms +2 attacks, +2 parry
  • Additional Eye, hawk-like vision and see invisible
  • Prehensile Tail, +1 attack
  • +2 init, +2 to roll, +4 vs horror factor
  • Add 1D4x10 to Speed attribute
  • Metamorphosis into small animal at will
  • Retractable claws 2D6 to all hand to hand
  • Increased Healing, 1D4 x 100 per minute
  • Cast 1D4x10 fire ball “once per round at will”
  • Lightning once per round at will, but only 6D6
  • Third monstrous eye and ugly head: Psionic with all sensitive and six super powers of choice.

Also you get to roll once for insanity.

Take awesome base stats, a few good rolls on the mutation table, and an OCC on top of that, and you have an adult-dragon level powerhouse of a character right out of the gate. I am amazed this hasn’t been a twink favorite for years. I suppose that a lot of folks probably skipped over them. I’m pretty sure I did as a teen. Seriously, they avoided tagging several other less preposterous things with RCC, why they had to go for this one I don’t know.


Hrungnir A leader and champion of the Norse giants.

Now, in general, the giants in Norse myth are portrayed as even more savage and awful than the Norsemen. They’re sneaky, not to be trusted, have bad manners, etc. Hrungnir was one such enemy of the Aesir and this is where that whetstone thing with Thor comes in--the giant threw his whetstone and Thor threw Mjolnir and they collided; the whetstone exploded and lodged a piece in Thor’s skull, Mjolnir flew true and killed Hrungnir. Or so they thought. He’s been hidden and is biding his time for revenge. :ohdear: He’s tuff, evil but honorable in his own way (??) and has a clay golem and some giant buddies to back him up The clay giant also gets a write-up but it’s not really very interesting. Basically the ley line eruption woke up its shattered pieces and it is also tuff.




Fenrir the Great Wolf

One of the sons of Loki’s ‘mare period’, the wolf was deadly dangerous and immune to all magics. They managed to tie it up with a very special magic ribbon that cost Tyr his hand to trick the beast. This is basically your neighbor’s untrained mixed-breed on a thin chain that lunges for the fence every time you walk by, that he just laughs off with “aww he won’t hurtcha!” when you suggest perhaps a reinforcement of all the trenches dug at the edges of the lawn. 60K MDC, bites six times a round for 4D6x10 MD. Hel is considering letting him loose, but only if Asgard begins to suspect her really stupid plans.


Asgardian Dwarves Optional Player Character

Great artificers and weaponsmiths, made stuff for the gods including Freya’s hair 2.0. The book suggests these may be the ancestors of all dwarven species or just got to be specialer dwarves somehow. They still practice rune magic which means Palladium dwarves would fear and hate them but it’s a PC race that gets rune magic. These dwarves are long-lived but unlike many ancient mythological beings, they’re not terrified of technology and have started working on that. There is an optional dwarf rune smith OCC which actually explicitly states that it’s not super-useful as a PC class since rune magic takes months or years and the sacrifice of a powerful living essence to create the item. Of course it says that, and then says the character starts with one lesser and one greater rune weapon, so, up to you how useful that is. Splugorth know they exist and hate them for knowing rune magic, fortunately they’re not obviously different from other dwarves or even humans.


i mean really, weird bearded guy in rifts, nobody’ll notice


Asgardian High Elves

Similar to ‘traditional elves’ but these have the status and power of ‘demigods’. Hurray, we sure needed a more special kind of elf. Mostly they get exceptional stat rolls and some small racial bonuses to other things, plus an OCC of their choice, usually magic. :toot:


Valkyrie RCC

You knew this was coming. “Choosers of the Slain,” Valkyries hovered invisibly over battlefields to guide the worthy to Valhalla. Etc. Here they are independent creatures of magic who ultimately serve Odin but may wander far and wide, particularly to learn of this ‘technology’ which is a sudden interest. They get pretty good stat rolls, 2D6x10 +30 MDC, natural flight and invisibility and slow regeneration. Their skill selection is kind of crap but you can make do. They get enchanted 100MDC chain mail and a 4D6 MD sword and start with 1D6 x 1000 credits worth of gold and jewels. So, not extremely unbalanced (neither are the elves really, they’re just super-boring)


Berserker, another optional class.

I feel like they’re giving more space to playing supporting Asgardian roles than they did to the Asgardians. Anyway these warriors are not crazed epileptics or suffering from a rage disorder or other historical explanations, they’re gifted by Odin with supernatural ferocity when fighting an injustice (as defined by Norse codes of course) and so people shun them for being intractable freaks. When berserking, their body becomes mega-damage at 2D4x10 plus 20 per level, they add 6 to PS which is supernatural, and they regenerate a small amount. They get some combat bonuses but cannot cast spells and cannot stop fighting without making a very difficult percentile roll. Also, once they run out of enemies, they start on friends, livestock, trees, whatever’s handy until the rage passes. They get poo poo for skills since rage-flipping tables at uni tends to limit one’s educational options. Kind of a poo poo class given the ‘uncontrolled rage’ thing--it grants some bonuses but you’d be much better off picking a more bonus-y, less friend-stabby class.


Warriors of Valhalla

Here’s one, these guys already died once or...were just inducted with a ceremony or something? Either way, they proved themselves and if they were naturally MDC they get a big bump to that, poor little SDClings get a 150MDC suit of magic mail and no mention of an MDC weapon. I think they sort of cut this block short, bits of it seem to be missing, but you can basically be one of Odin’s secret police without the rage-o-hol problems of the berserker and you can pile this on top of something else busted.

Enough real gods and minions! Let’s get to the fakers!

Rulebook Heavily
Sep 18, 2010

by FactsAreUseless

occamsnailfile posted:

Freya goddess of love and beauty

Freyr’s twin sister, tried being chief Valkyrie but it didn’t jive with her hip hedonism man. And of course, all goddesses of love are sluts, and she is no exception--she’s been around the block a few times, but unlike all the others she isn’t possessive and spiteful about it. So it’s only half slut-shaming. But see, this gets worse: she had an affair with Zeus and Hera tricked her into drinking a potion from Eros that made her hate men and all her memories of her affairs have driven her to deep despair, she fled Asgard five years ago without a word because she’s so disgusted with herself and Hera stole Brisingamen (Freya’s necklace) too and this may cause a WAR you guys, how dare she not be ashamed and hurtful with her sexuality. :rolleyes:

MDC 28.5K which is way more than they’ve assigned to a lot of the other love-goddesses. I guess that Valkyrie training paid off since nobody would ever worship a love goddess in real life. Also she is very very heterosexual, she likes men, until Eros made her not like men, this is a crisis and she will attack any male that comes near her. It’ll wear off in ten years though, not to worry. Brisingamen has stats too and will make things within 10 miles of Freya “more fertile” if she wills it. Also it adds to saves. That is as much as could fit on the page before doing stats for a tree.

No one ever talks about her cat chariot, her battle-boar, her hall which is a capsized warship which can house infinity people, the fact that she gets half of all the Einherjar that come to Asgard to serve as her personal guard and may be the "golden-haired maiden" warleader of the Vanir who is eventually defeated by Odin to form the covenant of Asgard.

Instead they all talk about that one single story where she's a human concubine to a king in Asia named Odin, lord of "Asialand", and the whole thing is written by priests somewhere between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to prove how Christian king Olaf Tryggvason was compared to those Norse pagans who worshipped mere men. And the earlier sources are completely ignored in favor of the one singular one with sex in it.

Trust RIFTS to find a way to twist the dagger harder. :v:

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
It should be noted that demigods and godlings can be a Warrior of Valhalla specifically by name, which gives them a huge bump to their M.D.C. (doubling to quadrupling it) and a number of middling combat bonuses. In exchange, you have to work for Odin. Given you're likely to take poo poo from your pantheon in any case, you might as well get something out of it.

Wapole Languray
Jul 4, 2012

Spellnapped! Part Zwei; We Meet the Rest of our Players, and Learn about Ladies, Dwarfs, Kings, Faeries, and Smart Career Choices for The Young Gentle(wo)man

Marianne


Countess Marianne Theresa Desiree is a flower of French nobility. She is beautiful to a fault, has an adorable French accent, a love for elegant frilly dresses, and has killed at least thirty men in duels across New Europa. Forced to flee France after a Parisian noble’s son tried to rape her and she responded by gutting the little poo poo, she has been to every corner of New Europa and places beyond. She is assigned to be Tom’s bodyguard and guide, and eventually becomes a proper love-interest, in an on-again off-again way. Hard to commit when most of your boyfriends are dead. Because you killed them.

Lady, Adventuress, Demimondaine

Now we must discuss Women in the world of Castle Falkenstein. Which is a bit of a sticking point, yes? I mean, the fact is the Real Victorian Era was pretty drat lovely about women’s rights. So, what about Castle Falkenstein? Pretty much Feminism has happened, and is winning. Women are, in almost every way, equal to men. They can own property, run businesses, and participate in any career they please. The reason for this is twofold: One, is that women are much more likely to be born with a talent for Magick, and they are often stronger than their male counterparts; and Two, act misogynistic to a Fae woman and you’ll be wondering why your leg is bending that way.

This does not mean that women are exactly like men though. There are parts of New Europan society where women excel far beyond their male counterparts. The most visible is that all the greatest celebrities are women. Oh sure there are famous male opera singers and actors, but it is the women who are the real stars of the show. Ladies also are dubbed the leaders of New Europan Society, with a capital S. They say what is in, what is out, and who is who. If that sounds rather insulting, understand this: Everything in New Europa is done at balls, soirees, salons and dinner parties. Every connection you make, every friend and ally you find, you most likely will meet at a Society Event. Get on the wrong Ladies side, and she’ll make sure you never talk to anyone more important than the local bartender again.

And of course, you cannot forget the Demimondaine. In our world, a Demimondaine was a sort of proto-Feminist, a precursor to the Flapper of the early 1900s. In Castle Falkenstein though, they are a mix of Diva, Celebrity and Courtesan. Demimondaine’s are the most fashionable, most desirable, and most popular women on the continent. They set all the trends, are lavished upon by men of every type and description, and fill the newspapers with their exploits and scandals. Mind, mess with a Demimondaine and she will gladly bury you. A good demimondaine has connections everywhere, with men, and sometimes women, at all levels of power. They can easily grease the gears of the world, or throw you into the teeth.

Colonel Tarlenheim


Colonel Rudolph von Tarlenheim is the Garrison Commander of Castle Falkenstein, and the definitive Old Soldier. Formerly both Commander in Chief of the Bayernese Guard and the Head of His Majesty’s Secret Service, until Ludwig II “died” in a yachting accident, and was replaced by an as yet unnamed Regent who was running Bayern into the ground. Tarlenheim was rather displeased with this, and objected to the Regent’s actions, in particular the allowance of Prussian “advisors” into Bayern. As a reward Tarlenheim was fired and given command of Alt Schloss Fakenstein (Old Castle Falcon Rock) a ruined fortress used as a border post where disgraced soldiers were stationed to keep them out of the way.

He stayed there for several years guarding a rotting pile of rocks and watching Bayern go to pot, his only friend being Morrolan the Sorcerer. Then one day Auberon showed up with King Ludwig himself, magickally built Falkenstein in a single night on the ruins of the old castle, and made Tarlenheim the new garrison commander of the new Falkenstein.

Soldier, Sailor, Tinkerer...Wizard?

This is a short section on the sort of careers one might pursue in New Europa, and works to give your players an idea of what sort of people you can play or meet in the setting of Castle Falkenstein. I’m also skipping it, as it’s literally just a list of jobs you can have, and honestly this is better explained everywhere else in the book, so I’m not going to be repeating myself over and over again.

Rhyme: Dwarf Mad Scientist


Rhyme is the resident handyman and castle Mad Scientist. As a day job he keeps the castle in “repair”, which is rather difficult as it is highly magickal. When the foundation is non-euclidian, a handyman has his work cut out for him! But, Rhyme’s real passion is SCIENCE! He has an entire basement level dedicated to a massive lab and has invented such wonders as a turbine powered roasting spit, a mechanical swan-boat, and a mirror based lighting system for the windowless second floor library. He also has no sense of personal property, and sees everything in Falkenstein as free for him to fix, improve, or overhaul as he sees fit.

About Dwarfs

Dwarfs in Castle Falkenstein are, like most mythical things, much more tied to folklore than Tolkienian tradition. They do not wear furs or chainmail or leather, in fact they like a nice pair of workman’s coveralls when they’re on the job and a nice three-piece suit when they’re not. If a dwarf is carrying a hammer it’s to flatten nails or detail metal, and axes are right out for anything that isn’t chopping wood. Dwarfs prefer sabers and pistols, same as anyone else, though an angry dwarf with a sizable wrench isn’t to be underestimated. They also aren’t that short, ranging between 4 foot and 5’ 5’’. They do look shorter than they are mainly because all dwarves are built like brick houses, being almost as wide as they are tall. Heck, they don’t even all have beards! Some rather enjoy goatees and moustaches as an alternative to the traditional big bushy beards.

Dwarfs do live underground, though they aren’t miners. They leave that to Kobolds and other mine-spirits, for Dwarfs are craftsmen. They make things, and not ordinary things either. Every object made by a dwarf is a unique work of art and ingenuity, and you can tell a dwarf, or dwarfhold, just by looking at a devices styling and build.

Oh, and one last little Tolkeinism to dispel: There are no female Dwarfs. Why? Well, Dwarfs are technically (It’s explained later) Faeries. As such, when a Dwarf wants to start a family he marries a nice Seelie Fae girl of some sort such as a Dryad or Sidhe. The boys are always Dwarfs and the girls are whatever sort of Fae the mother is. Dwarf/Fae couples rarely stay together though, with the Dwarf raising the Sons and the Fae mother raising the daughters, with the whole family visiting if they are close and getting together in big family reunions several times a year.

Now, we must cover a few things that are uniquely Falkenstein. Firstly, Dwarfs are only technically Faeries. They lack both the traditional powers of the Fae, as well as their weaknesses. Why? It’ll be explained later, this is just a quick intro so that people don’t wonder what the heck is up with those Dwarfs as they read the book. They also only live, at least in any great numbers, in continental New Europa, particularly the Alps and Scandinavia.

One very odd thing about Dwarfs are their feet. Dwarf feet look birdlike, similar to a duck or chicken, and they are chronically embarrassed about them. A Dwarf is never to be seen without his shoes, and making fun of a Dwarfs feet is the gravest of insults. I have NO idea where this idea comes from, I’m assuming some obscure bit of folk-mythology that isn’t on the internet, but if someone can tell me where this idea is from I’d appreciate it.

The Mad King: Ludwig the Second


In New Europa, Prince Ludwig, heir to the throne of Bayern myseriously vanished in a shipwreck in the Aegean Sea, never to be found. This led to his insane brother Otto (He thinks he’s a dog) to take the throne, under the Regency of the Chancellor Count Hohenloe, who proceeded to basically sell Bayern out to the Prussians.

Then one day years later, Auberon shows up with Ludwig over one shoulder and a plan to put him back on the throne! Now, this works quite well, though the book never properly tells you how they did it because honestly it’s not that important for players! It’s enough to say there is much derring-do and clever schemes and such that led to Mad King Otto getting the boot and Ludwig getting the crown.

What does matter is the fact that both Morrolan and Tom Olam don’t think that he’s the real Ludwig. Or, at least not the Ludwig that went missing all those years ago. See, Auberon claims that he was kidnapped by the Unseelie Court (More on them in a bit), and was hidden in the Faerie Veil (More on that later as well, but “Faerie Land” is good enough for now) but this doesn't add up. The Ludwig Auberon brought back is about 5 years older than he should be, acts far more… stable than Ludwig should act, and in particular knows thing she shouldn't. He knows what telephone’s are (Not yet invented), talks of Neuschwanstein (Which he hasn't built), and mentioned works of Richard Wagner that aren't yet written! (The real Ludwig II was a huge supporter and patron of Richard Wagner)

So, Tom and Morrolan are pretty sure that the “real” Ludwig is long dead, and this is a Ludwig from another world. Which is considered to be rather disconcerting. Not because of Ludwig, who is a fine and upstanding king in every aspect, but because Auberon is involved. And the Fae make everything complicated, no matter how well meaning they are.

Cousin Sisi: Empress Elizabeth of Austria
This is a short bit, but I like it. There’s mention of Elizabeth being Ludwig’s best friend and closest relation, as well as a bonified Adventuress. Appearently she has

quote:

... tied herself to the mast of her yacht during a storm, gone on expeditions to India, and studied eastern mysticism-strange behavior indeed for an Empress, but not all that unusual in this extended family of dreamer-philosopher kings.

The Iron Chancellor: Otto von Bismarck

In the real world Otto von Bismarck was a Prussian statesman who unified the various Germanic kingdoms of Europe into the German Empire, stabilized Europe politically, and was generally an uncompromising but not evil man. Heck, he’s the one who invented the idea of a welfare state! Mind, this was to make sure the poor didn’t overthrow the government in a communist revolution, but still. What I’m getting at is that he was not a proto-Hitler, but was a fairly complex man who did things both good and bad.

Now, Castle Falkenstein Otto von Bismarck is basically the same guy, if he was also a Bond villain. Otto von Bismarck is Falkenstein’s general Big Bad, the main top dog villain that, alongside say Professor Moriarty and the Steam Lords, will be at the root of many of the Evil Doings the players will foil. Well, sorta. See, to really tell you about Bismarck, I have to tell you about the real Big Bad. The True Villain. The guy who may just be behind pretty much every villainous plot in New Europa, and if he isn’t he wants to be.

The Adversary: Lord of the Unseelie Court


The Fairie Host is made up of two general factions: The Seelie and Unseelie Courts. The Seelie court, ruled by Lord Auberon, are generally fond of humanity and wish to live alongside us in relative harmony. The Unseelie, led by a being only known as The Adversary, do not. They want nothing more than to sweep across the world, killing or enslaving every human they find. And, if it wasn't for the Compact, they’d do it too. The Compact is a peace-treaty of sorts, which Auberon tricked the Adversary into signing. The Compact makes war between Faerie and Humans… not illegal exactly, but impossible. Auberon cannot march forth to slaughter the Unseelie, but the Unseelie cannot do the same, or march against Humanity, on pain of death. Not as a legal consequence, but a literal one: For a Faerie to break a promise is instant death.

This means the Adversary instead seeks to make Humanity enslave and destroy itself, using a series of puppet rulers to do his conquering for him, and his current favorite is The Iron Chancellor himself.

Otto von Bismarck: Zwei Harder

Okay, so, now that you know about the Adversary, I can finish talking about Bismarck. Bismarck is, as I said, basically the same fellow he was historically. Big, blustery, very little temper, and the ability to run roughshod over any political opponent by sheer force of will. Add to that a lifetime of experience in statesmanship, a keen military mind, a massive spy network, and the aid of an extra-dimensional Demigod and his army of monsters, Bismarck is rightly feared by every power in Europe, as he’s very unlikely to settle for just conquering the German kingdoms.

There are two notable things about Bismarck, and by extension Prussia, that stand out. Firstly, he has Tanks. Well, they call them Landwehr Fortresses, but they’re basically big clunky steam-tanks, courtesy of the Adversary. Second, he’s literally a Bond villain, complete with a weird disfigurement, in the form of a clockwork left arm loaded with gadgets and weapons.

Woof, that’s a lot of text. This update took ages to write up because the book isn't in any sort of… chronological order, so I skipped around a bit to make it more readable in post-form. Fortunately, the next few should go much quicker. So be back next time for…

To Rule the World! The Nations of Castle Falkenstein

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
Weird dwarf feet is apparently a Norse thing, working with a theme of disfigurement, greed and general unpleasantness.

Come to think of it, the lack of dwarf ladies probably reflects an unwholesome fixation on Rhine maidens and the like, too.

Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 17:50 on May 1, 2014

occamsnailfile
Nov 4, 2007



zamtrios so lonely
Grimey Drawer
I was really glad that Falkenstein removed a lot of the :biotruths: from their version of Victoriana, it brings out the worst in a lot of gamers and doesn't make a lot of sense when magic is such an equalizer. It also just stops those weird arguments about 'realism' when elfs and dragons are involved.

Also Ludwig II being mad because he's a changeling is a great idea.




Rifts Conversion Book 2: Pantheons of the Megaverse: Part 27: "Their leader is a former Splugorth lord who was defeated by a rival."

The False Norse Gods

I feel like Carella or somebody was kinda half-bored with this whole section. I mean the Norse gods are geek-beloved so they got some space but the art is weak and the Mechanoids? Seriously? Now we get on to the fakers. This bunch was lead by a Splugorth Lord who lost out to a rival and fled along with a few loyal/execution-fearing servants. They cropped up as refugees on some random world (maybe erf!) and pretended to be gods.

Wothan the Slayer is lead Splugorth who is now reduced to mostly hiding in a pocket dimension while his loyalists carry out missions. He has enemies all over the place--Asgardians gonna be pissed at the pale imitation, other Splugorth have no time for losers, etc. He has pretty typical Splugorth stats, including 60MDC main body, and had to spend probably whole minutes recovering from the wounds he took losing his old kingdom.

The most interesting thing about him is that he actively hates other Splugorth now--it’s been stated that they’ll scheme against each other but here we have one who actually lost and got kicked out of the fold and wants his own back. Otherwise he’s just a super-powerful menace who can dimensional-teleport back to hiding when wounded and is a real dick. He does kinda care about those who’ve stayed loyal to him even at his current low though.



Thorg the Mighty

Thorg is a Kydian powerlord and these apparently normally live less than a century. Wothan didn’t have the resources to make another, and so he preserved Thorg carefully until he is more powerful even than a Conservator (buy Rifts Atlantis)

If his magic clock were stopped, Thorg would collapse into dust in seconds. Believing that Wothan holds the stopwatch, Thorg obeys. Thorg is just his name and he lets people make their own assumptions. He’s 900 MDC tough and he’s even developed something more of a personality over time, compared with the average Kydian. He’s even apparently convinced several of the dunces of Camelot that he might be the son of Thor and maybe they should ordain him. :bang: He has a surgically implanted red hair and beard which is just one of the funniest images I have encountered in a while.


somehow i expect this to be a variety show with canned laughter

He’s equipped with a rune weapon hammer that does 1D4x10 and casts some useful thor-imitating spells. He also has some various Splugorth items worth a fucktillion credits.


Loki (aka Loki-G)

I just gotta say with a name like Loki-G his rhymes better be fresh. In fact he’s a Goqua (I barely even remember what these are) who first came to earth in 972 at the height of the Viking invasions and saw Odin & Crew getting involved in human stuff. Now, during this time they mentioned the Celtic pantheon interfering, which is fair, but even by 972 there was a fair amount of Christian-y stuff happening. Jehovah not think this big enough to notice? Who knows. Anyway he tricked some people into thinking he was Loki for a while, and then the real Loki broke out and there were issues but he wasn’t murdered since neither was in peak state. Later on Loki-G met Wothan and they formed a new label. Goqua are kind of giant grub-demons in their natural state, but he can shapeshift, like most of them, and does so freely. He’s pretty buff and can bite for 2D4x10 seven times a round plus a lot of magic--honestly he’s tougher than a lot of the lessest gods. He’s got a heap of treasure lying around, in particular rare Atlantis stuff that the book normally threatens to hunt you down for owning, you filthy human.

These guys have some other Atlantean and/or general mercenary bodyguards and backups but that’s pretty much it for them. The best they can do for you is start a war between Asgard and Splugorth, that would help grind down some overpowered annoyances.


The New Asgardians!


sadly not this

These guys are not even a superhero team transported from Heroes Unlimited, they’re just servants of another Vampire Intelligence that wants to take over everything. They’re in Europe though! Just to be special and leave Mexico to be overcrowded with boredom alone.

The leader of this little band is Woden the Hangman and has appeared in northern Russia. This is eons before actual Rifts Russia books would be out, so this is more than we’ve heard about the region so far. They’ve been leaving bloodless victims and somehow convinced people they’re connected to “the hangman legends.” Apparently they’re mostly limited to Russia and Romania as “scandinavia has too much water for vampires.” Rivers: Man’s greatest defense. He has his master vampire out proselytizing that his divine troops will defend people and well, those people are already threatened by a lot of other problems so some of them have gone along. ‘Woden’ hired a gang of interdimensional mercs lead by a Sowki with a magic hammer to keep people in line, and receives tributes of blood to power itself and its vampire minions thusly.

Woden

Woden is a typical Vampire Intelligence and not very interesting. There isn’t a lot to say about him that hasn’t been said about VIs in general and even in this book. He’s mean, megalomaniac, conniving, and feeds on the blood of sentient creatures. He doesn’t even have a picture.


did i mention the artist was phoning it in? he’s phoning it in.


Balder’s Ghost

This is Woden’s master vampire. Real name: Fransz Devlin. He’s all evil but handsome and stuff and helped suggest the whole ‘Woden’ legend for imitation. Since he himself was a handsome Devlin, he pretended to be the ghost of Balder--being able to turn to mist and otherwise spook out helped with this illusion. He convinced people he could give them immortality and created some secondary vampires as a result, and has plans to continue this pyramid scheme in the usual way. They act like Norse and brutalize those who refuse to convert but treat surrenders with some respect and feed with moderation. Franzs resents that Woden hired that Sowki and that he isn’t the only important one anymore.

He’s a master vampire, reasonably tough but with those insane vamp weaknesses. He has a lot of minions, so getting to him would be hard, but this group is considerably less established that some of the vampire kingdoms in Central America.


Thor the Warrior


yes, we get it, Sowki are shapeshifters.

Real name: A’lattrreen. I don’t think I will ever not be twelve enough to not laugh at that name. “Thor” can shapeshift himself into a Norsey humanoid form and uses that further the Norse illusion these vampires are taking up. As a Sowki, he’s automatically evil and ambitious and will readily backstab Woden if the other came to be at a disadvantage but is otherwise fairly content to just let the money roll in off the backs of enslaved peasants. It states specifically that his transformed version of Thor is based on a pre-Rifts comic book...so he’s blonde and trademarked. He has a techno-wizard hammer that does 6D6 damage and returns through sophisticated remote control--that’s actually kind of a cool item, too bad no PC could ever build it. Sowki aren’t super tough, they’re just hard to detect, harder than Skrulls even.

There are apparently 47 other members of this nefarious crew including a succubus ‘Freya’, three juicers, some renegade Kittani with stolen power armors. One Dragon Slayer Warrior (which is from VK but I don’t even remember), apparently some kind of giant. Five Dabuggh (ugh ugh) and three Naga. Two line walkers, one Mind Bleeder (see Africa), one Temporal Wizard (England), Four borgs, four of those boring bird assholes from Atlantis, 12 Wolfen (why do they keep using these?) and some NGR deserters which gives us an excuse to re-use some Kevin Long art and also one Neuron Beast. Because.


not kidding about re-used kevin long art

And that’s it for the Norse gods, fakers and hangers-on. I feel like the Mechanoids thing is weak, I mean they started that sourcebook with dire predictions of direness and all but it was still weak and involving these figures with them makes it weird. Especially with Hel trying to body-jump to get around the Mechanoids’ absolute unflinching hatred of bipeds. The imitators are kind of weak too--not just in power, though they come closer to reasonable powers to defeat, in some ways--but their concept is just ‘pretend to be gods, act like assholes’ across the board. The Norse gods are generally presented as being larger than life, exuberant, colorful and this section wasn’t really any of these. Most of them were just bland, other than Freya and Hel which were a serious mistreatment and just kind of baffling, respectively.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
I've always got a giggle out of the idea of NGR troopers going AWOL and signing up with evil Norse pretender-gods.

Fossilized Rappy
Dec 26, 2012

Part 7: It Ends Here
Alright, let's finish this, once and for all...until the expansion sourcebooks. It's time for the Cerulean Seas Campaign Guide's bestiary chapter, sections P to W, because gently caress the XYZ trio apparently.


Piranhas, Giant (CR 3 Medium Animal) and School (CR 3 Diminutive Animal Swarm)
Most animal entries in Cerulean Seas tend to be written in a matter-of-fact manner that doesn't give the same sort of legendary air to them that the actual supernatural beings in the title get - the piranha is an exception to this. We get the hyperbolic toothy terror piranha here, who "all inhabitants of the Cerulean Seas knew of, and feared", and a damage yield that most animals could only dream of. A piranha swarm deals 2d6 damage normally, and doubles that total if their target is nauseated (wha?) or helpless. Why is the piranha treated so differently from any other animal in the Cerulean Seas Campaign Guide? :iiam:

Giant piranhas do a more sedate 1d8 damage, but hunt in large packs. They also have ridiculous eating habits:

Cerulean Seas posted:

While it is an extremely dangerous fish, it is also completely untamable, and worse… insatiable. Unlike a shark which will take its fill and leave, a giant piranha will eat until it regurgitates, and then it will eat again. A school of these monsters can be particularly lethal.
Oh, and they were apparently sahuagin war beast experiments that failed, just like the remora imps and the carchardians. Man, how did the sahuagin ever terrorize the seas if they sucked so hard at actually making minions?




Placoderms, Dunkleosteus (CR 9 Huge Animal) and Titanichthys (CR 7 Huge Animal)
Back in the Silurian and Devonian periods of Earth's prehistory, the placoderm fish were the new hotness. Not only were they experimenting with this new-fangled "jaw" technology, their heads and bodies were armor plated to boot. While they technically ranged all the way from just under a feet in length to "holy poo poo this is a big fish" in size, the pair presented in the Cerulean Seas Campaign Guide are of course two of the largest. You may recall Dunkelosteus from way back when I first started posting in FATAL and Friends with Broncosaurus Rex: it's popular as a large prehistoric predatory fish, and it's hard to blame anyone for picking out the 30 foot long tank-fish with bolt cutters for teeth. Titanichthys is nearly as large as Dunkelosteus, but far less famous simply because it was a filter feeder and nobody picks them first in bestiary soccer. The book gives Titanicthys the role of either big game fish or "whoops, your size Small character was swimming in a school of bait fish, it's vacuuming you now".



Sea Cats, Dire Merlion (CR 3 Large Animal), Guardcat (CR 1/3 Small Animal), Merlion (CR 1 Medium Animal), and Riding Cat (CR 1 Medium Animal)
If you thought just one type of sea cat in Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder was superfluous enough, I can only imagine how you must be feeling right now. These creatures are regular lions but underwater (and yet classified as the dire version nonetheless), a house cat but underwater, a somewhat smaller than usual underwater lion that is a solitary ambush predator in kelp forests, and a somewhat smaller than usual underwater tiger that Small races like to ride around on.



Seals, Common Seal (CR 1/3 Small Animal), Dire Seal (CR 5 Large Animal), Elephant Seal (CR 2 Large Animal), Sea Lion (CR 1 Medium Animal), and Walrus (CR 7 Large Animal)
I'm fairly sure this should be "pinnipeds", but whatever. Also a walrus has 10 HD but an elephant seal has 3, in spite of elephant seals being massive slabs of flesh. Why? Again, :iiam:




Sea Titans, Abyssal Titan (CR 11 Huge Humanoid), Ice Titan (CR 9 Large Humanoid), Maelstrom Titan (CR 13 Huge Humanoid), Marsh Titan (CR 7 Large Humanoid), Steam Titan (CR 10 Large Humanoid), and Tidal Titan (CR 8 Large Humanoid)
These oversized merfolk fulfill the role of the classic D&D/Pathfinder land giants of the various alignment stripes.
  • Abyssal titans (True Neutral) have the lower bodies of giant squids and are seldom seen, to the point that they are more legend than fact for all but the few people who have a brief encounter with them. Abyssals are also the largest sea titans, which is kind of weird given that another sea titan is literally part whale. Having a squid butt allows them to jet around and spew forth an ink cloud, and utilize those tentacles in combat, but that isn’t enough – no, they also have the ability to cast ink and murk as spell-like abilities when their natural ink is recharging and wield huge shortspears in their humanoid hands. They are probably the most divorced from the stone giants they are meant to be the aquatic equivalents of.
  • Ice titans (Neutral Evil) have the lower bodies of walruses and are known being greedy, lazy, and hateful. They came to the Cerulean Seas from the far north by stowing away on the great berg-city of Lochgelly and were promptly kicked out as soon as the selkies found them. Unsurprisingly, they happen to have the Cold subtype and an ice breath weapon to match their role as the frost giants of the ocean.
  • Maelstrom titans (Neutral Good) are baleen whale merfolk who once roamed the seas in massive numbers, but are now few and far between. It’s kind of weird that they are size Huge given that they have whale parts and are meant to be the oceanic equivalent of the Gargantuan size storm giants of old. They have the same weather- and electricity-related spell-like abilities as the storm giants and are proficient in all simple and martial weapons.
  • The marsh titan (Chaotic Evil) is the aquatic equivalent of the hill giant – dumb, angry, and completely geared toward melee powerhousing without any supernatural abilities. And boy, does the flavor text read them the riot act for it, stating that "their malice is reflected in their ugliness, faces twisted with hatred and rage."
    As their lower halves belong to crocodiles, they get the ability to do a death roll when they grapple, tripping the foe while dealing 2d8 damage.
  • The steam titans (Lawful Evil) are the fire giant equivalents of the ocean, but much more interesting to look at because their lower bodies are giant spider crabs, some of the raddest dudes in the deep. While they hate everybody and live in heavily regimented military societies, evil races can apparently pay off steam titans to be their personal mercenaries and bodyguards. A steam titan, of course, can produce a steam breath weapon. Shocking, I know.
  • Lastly, we have the tidal titan (Neutral Evil), guys with shark tails. They are the only sea titan that doesn’t really have a land giant analogue, though that doesn’t really matter as you can basically sum them up as “marsh titans only not stupid”. Their human level intellect doesn’t do them much good when they are nomadic predators who could probably hunt whatever they want but prefer humanoids as they “delight” in eating them for whatever reason.




Sharg (CR 2 Medium Monstrous Humanoid)
The Chaotic Evil sharg are literally the only examples of the sahuagin not loving up one of their war beast experiments and having said experiments blow back in their face. These guys are actually loyal to their masters, vast in number, ferocious in battle, and generally not another one to add to the failure pile. They have a Barbarian rage once per day, their bites deal bleedout, and they get a free 15 foot move action after a successful charge attack that allows them to quickly move across the battlefield. While shargs are “seemingly incapable of rebellion”, the carchardians act like rear end in a top hat big brothers and think they can win over the shargs if they beat them up in combat enough times.



Sharks, Edestus (CR 7 Huge Animal) and Goblin Shark (CR 4 Large Animal)
An extinct and extant real world shark pair, these two oddballs provide a rather different shark encounter than your bulls, tigers, or great whites, definitely. The goblin shark is a deep sea predator known for being really loving weird looking, with an extendo-mouth and cranial “horn”. And Edestus? Imagine a great white shark with a chainsaw blade jammed up in each jaw. Not only is it pretty dangerous to be bitten by that kind of equipment, it also makes this prehistoric shark look fairly freaky.



Slurg (CR 5 Medium Aberration)
For once, you’ve got an abominable eldritch creature that isn’t immediately evil. These slug-people are True Neutral and truly confounding, they seem content to do their own thing while attended to by an entourage of thralls. Are these beings willingly made thralls? Are they test subjects for extradimensional research? Are they simply classic evil overlord mind slave tactics? Nobody knows. The slurgs aren’t telling anyone, either, which doesn’t help to stall the oceanic rumor mill.

In addition to having the classic mental spell-like ability trio (detect thoughts, charm, and suggestion), slurgs have an aura of "mental static" that forces Concentration saves to cast spells and a particularly potent slime that forces a Fortitude save to avoid suffering a -2 penalty to all Will saves for an hour afterward. They also have a downright strange special quality – three times per day, their eyestalks can produce a light that forces a Will save. If you fail the Will save, you are nauseated for 2d6+2 round, but are also compelled to move toward the slurg every round you stay nauseated.



Squid, School (CR 2 Tiny Animal Swarm) and Swamp Kraken (CR 9 Gargantuan Animal)
Forget the school, they’re only meant as a distraction in combat against something else with their ink clouds. Instead, let’s talk about the swamp kraken, because it’s a loving swamp kraken. While not a true kraken in the D&D sense of “smart squid overlord monster), these offshoots of the giant squid are capable of moving on land at a decent pace, have pseudo-lungs, and create a fog bank instead of an ink cloud. That is just so ridiculous it wheels immediately into the territory of awesome. I want swamp krakens to become a popular thing.



Stingrays, Dire Stingray (CR 2 Large Animal) and School (CR 2 Diminutive Animal Swarm)
Meh. It’s neat that they give out the factoid that young stingrays sometimes school together, I guess.




Triton, Shazalarian (Class level-dependent Humanoid)
Shazalarian tritons are different from regular tritons in most things other than appearance and a reverence of sea life. They are also literally birthed fully formed from the magic of the Elemental Plane of Water. Why? Nobody knows, but it's really weird, given that these guys are Humanoid with the class levels while the regular tritons are the ones with the Outsider creature type and natural HD. Perhaps the answers lie with whoever decided to have a playable no-HD Humanoid race stuffed in the bestiary section rather than the playable races section.

Whatever the reason for all the strange things about Shazalarian tritons, their stats are set in stone...and kind of dull stone, at that. They have a +2 to Strength and Wisdom but a -2 to Intelligence, can speak with all sea creatures, and have gills rather than lungs. The only somewhat interesting thing is that they can cast summon nature's ally I once per day. Doesn't sound too interesting? Well, it wouldn't on its own, but it is actually a dynamic racial trait, in that it levels up to its next spell up every other class level the Shazalarian triton gains. More races need dynamic racial abilities, they're a neat idea.



Trueform (CR +1 to +3 Template)
Have you ever wanted a quick and easy template for making awakened animals? Well, here you go. The type changes to Magical Beast, they get a +10 to Intelligence, +2 to Wisdom, and +4 to Charisma, they can use tools (that are applicable of course, there is no magical sprouting of limbs or anything), they can take class levels, and they can summon two of their base creature per day. While the carchardians (Lawful Neutral trueform sharks) and ixarcs (Lawful Good trueform manta rays) were both given discussion earlier in the book, the other examples of using the template don't really have any flavor text, just alignment and name. For the purposes of completionism, though, I'll note that the others are the delphin (Chaotic Good trueform dolphin), squibbon (Chaotic Neutral trueform octopus), and greater carchardian (Lawful Neutral trueform dire shark).



Turtles, Giant Leatherback (CR 4 Large Animal) and Marine Snapping Turtle (CR 6 Large Animal)
One's literally Archelon, the other is a terrifying adaptation of a freshwater predator. The marine snapping turtle isn't content to be as big as a cow and have a powerful bite (2d8+13 with a critical hit ratio of 19-20), it also has a swim speed greater than most playable races in spite of the flavor text assuring us they are “not too fast”.




Whale, Dire Whale (CR 13 Colossal Animal) and Sperm Whale (CR 7 Huge Animal)
Look at that image. Look at that loving image. That is a truly dire animal. Its stats back it up as well, with a massive 42 Strength score, 19 HD, and a 4d8 damage bite backed up by the aforementioned Strength score. Oh, and it has a 100 foot swim speed. Try outracing that.

The sperm whale? Eh. There’s already sperm whale stats in regular Pathfinder that have the correct size category rather than being shrunken down for no apparent reason, so I’m not actually sure why these stats are even here.



Simple Templates
The final thing we see before appendices that basically act as indexes is this, a small section on simple CR +0 templates tucked away like an unwanted child. Three of these are for converting land creatures into sea creatures to add them into the setting: Semi-Aquatic (creature still has lungs but can hold its breath for a fairly long time and is a better swimmer), Aquatic (creature is now fully amphibious), and Merped/Merfolk (creature is now fully amphibious and has a fish butt). The other template, Deep Sea Creature, takes an already amphibious or aquatic creature and shoves it into the abyssal plain, giving it an insane depth tolerance of 5,500 feet and darkvision at the cost of having pressure sensitivity for water 300 feet or shallower.




The last image the book gives before the Open Game License page. Enjoy :shepicide:
Closing Thoughts on the Cerulean Seas Campaign Guide
While I still stand by this being a good campaign setting for Pathfinder, it’s not quite as shining as I recalled. Funny how selective memory works like that.

On the plus side, I genuinely like the water pressure system’s simple but effective adding of potential environmental damage if you go too far out of your element, a fair bit of the playable races are interesting, the classes other than Mariner and Siren are good, the spells and equipment aren't too bad for the most part, and the bestiary takes some interesting pulls out of the annals of both present and past wildlife from our world.

Of course, where there’s a plus side, there’s also the minus side. The big one people already touched on was the one-two punch of drag and buoyancy. They are meant to be the underwater equivalent of encumbrance, but are they really? No, not really. It manages to add the sort of math you'd more expect from a poorly optimized GURPS book than a d20 game and requires a fair bit more legwork than you would need for just regular encumbrance. The religion system of "one religion for each alignment" is kind of iffy as well, at least in my opinion, and some of the bestiary entries just have really weird choices (especially if they are a more well-known animal group). Then there's the whole art situation with female humanoids... But still, some bad and a fair bit of good is better than a lot of bad and little to no good.



Next Time...
The first sourcebook for Cerulean Seas in both voting order and publishing order is Indigo Ice, so I'm fairly sure we'll be doing that next unless I feel like having a random one-shot of some other roleplaying game as an interlude or something.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Rifts Conversion Book 2: Pantheons of the Megaverse: Part 28: "Note: Sometimes the temperature around him goes up or down by as much as 12 degrees Fahrenheit (6.7 Centigrade)."

The Persian Pantheon

Of all the pantheons forced into the the "gods of light and darkness" concept, the Persian pantheon probably fits it the best with its innate dualism. This is because though it’s labelled “Persian”, most of this section has more to do with Zoroastrianism than the older Persian gods, and that essentially gave us dualism as we know it. The issue, though, is that a lot of the “gods” listed here are actually virtues or at times abstract concepts, rather than the sort of anthropomorphized soap opera stars of the Greek pantheons.

We're reminded that "The fictional gods presented in this section are not meant to represent any real religion, beliefs, or people." :rolleyes: Except, of course, the real religion this is all “inspired” by, I suppose.

The Persian gods think the Greek gods are a bunch of cocks, and the Greeks think the Persians are smug shits. The Babylonians and Persians have warred in the past, but are putting that aside to fight evil together. Ahura Mazda wants to destroy the Splugorth, but hasn't pulled the trigger yet. They hate vampires and the Mechanoids, and don't think much of humans.

Zurvan
God of Time



God of the Rubik’s cube.

Zurvan is a four-dimensional being who may or may not be an Old One. In any case, he may be the most powerfulest god in alll the universes. He once tried to do make a child, but accidentally created both Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, and considers both of them failures. He's said to be very alien and doesn't really participate in godly squabbles, but some say he guards all of time, since he's killed "time raiders" (temporal raiders?) and the like. His alignment is "Unknown" as "He is not bound by morals as we understand them." Oh, and “Zurvan's intentions are impossible to guess or even understand.” Good luck running him, GMs! Yeesh.

80K MDC supernatural intelligence, all attacks do half damage (why not just give him 160K MDC instead?), can ignore illusions, poison, disease, can vanish and walk about invisibly and intangibly, can see "all spectrums of light, heat, radiation, magnetism and magic energy", regens, can teleport or time warp around. "Skills are meaningless for this entity. Assume that he can perform any activity he desires at 90% proficiency." That's right, he's not only an excellent radio operator, he can surf and dance! He automatically wins initiative and can never be surprised, has all ESP powers, all temporal magic, all normal magic, and "several temporal magic spells that are not known or even possible for 3-D creatures."

In summary: :fap:

Zurvan is part of a Zoroastrian offshoot where Zurvan is worshipped as the true creator god, as opposed those that see Ahura Mazda as the central creator. Generally, this has been a "heretical" belief. Then it has offshoots within that, for people that didn't agree on the various aspects of Zurvanism (which is a word). Oh, and Zurvanism died out about a millennia ago, but I guess according to this, they were right all along!

Ahura Mazda


Anti-aircraft meditation.

Mr. Mazda is a god of goodness, in fact, he considers most other Gods of Light to just be candles compared to his shining sun of goodness. He's always fightin' evil, not that we'll see any effect of that in the setting. He's getting more and more worried about events on Earth, as well as the fact that Ahriman might bust some other evil gods out and cause more destruction. It's noted that unlike other gods of light, he really is a no-poo poo good guy.

77K / 15K MDC, can "see up to 20 miles" (too bad the horizon blocks sight after about 2-3 miles?), teleport, speak any language, impervious to fire, cold, poison, disease, possession, can glow to repel vampires and animated dead, or shoot lasers of goodness that does crazy damage (1d4 x 100 MDC) that affects only evil and murderous characters (wait, wouldn't the latter be any PC?). He can also use the beam to detect liars. He has all psionic powers, knows all normal spells and spells of legend, and can summon Spirits of Light, and can even summon an army of "1d4 x 100". He has a magic psychic sword that does double damage to evil creatures, a "Sword of Truth" that does 1d6 x 10 to demons and 1d6 x 100 to gods and alien intelligences, and an armored robe that can teleport people (like Cloak & Dagger, only minus Dagger).

In truth, Ahura Mazda wasn't as important to the old Persian faith - he's mostly the chief god of Zoroastrianism, where he was revealed as the "uncreated god" to Zoroaster and taught him the primary principles of the new faith.

Next: The Justice League of Ahura (Mazda).

ThisIsNoZaku
Apr 22, 2013

Pew Pew Pew!
I love how the ability to do ANYTHING is represented by a concrete skill number, and it means every 1 in 10 times it doesn't work!

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

a "Sword of Truth" that does 1d6 x 10 to demons and 1d6 x 100 to gods and alien intelligences
It also gives +3 to flying kicks against toddlers.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

ThisIsNoZaku posted:

I love how the ability to do ANYTHING is represented by a concrete skill number, and it means every 1 in 10 times it doesn't work!

Yeah, I didn't think about that, but every one out of ten times the (probably) most powerful god in all of reality tries to do a thing, he flubs it - and that's assuming he doesn't have penalties!

Cardiovorax posted:

It also gives +3 to flying kicks against toddlers.

The "Sword of Truth" does nothing against lies, however.

At least it isn't Sword For Truth, I suppose.

Commoners
Apr 25, 2007

Sometimes you reach a stalemate. Sometimes you get magic horses.
I wonder why they decided to make the dire whale a whale head with shark teeth and shark fins. Even the tail is vertical instead of horizontal. Just a small detail, but that art awesome but it's a MY IMMERSSIIONNNNN thing with the whale secretly being a shark.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Commoners posted:

I wonder why they decided to make the dire whale a whale head with shark teeth and shark fins. Even the tail is vertical instead of horizontal. Just a small detail, but that art awesome but it's a MY IMMERSSIIONNNNN thing with the whale secretly being a shark.

It just has an ultra-rotatey spine as one of it's dire features. No worries. The head is rotated about 140 degrees from the pectoral fins and then another 90 from there to the dorsal.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

77K / 15K MDC, can "see up to 20 miles" (too bad the horizon blocks sight after about 2-3 miles?

This is literally just a limitation. This guy can't see most of the sky. If he's standing on a hotel balcony near the beach he can see about 70% of the ocean view we could see and then I guess it just terminates? Heck, none of us can really see any distance, since what we're really seeing is just light arriving from a near limitless distance away. If he can't see things that are producing photons more than 20 miles from him, he lives in a bubble of near total darkness, only seeing the reflections of light that are bouncing off local things, and has never seen the stars. That's a horrifying fate.

theironjef fucked around with this message at 18:05 on May 3, 2014

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
It looks like they changed the art at the last minute, like the Dire Whale was supposed to be on its side and that "dorsal fin" was actually one of the pectoral fins, but then someone at the office told the artist "No, that's confusing" so they just drew a new head on and added an extra fin on the side.

And then drew in some little tiny whales to cover where the head used to be for scale. :3:

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Str 42 is actually massively underwhelming for a creature of that size. That means it can lift 100 tons. If it puts one of those whales in its maw (around 120 tons for a blue whale, lowballing it), its speed drops to 5 ft and it comes to a full stop. If it eats both of the whales in the picture, it takes on more weight than it can carry and most likely sinks.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Str 42 is actually massively underwhelming for a creature of that size. That means it can lift 100 tons. If it puts one of those whales in its maw (around 120 tons for a blue whale, lowballing it), its speed drops to 5 ft and it comes to a full stop. If it eats both of the whales in the picture, it takes on more weight than it can carry and most likely sinks.

He'd be fine, those are humpbacks, they top out around 40 tons. Plus you can't just apply deadlift weight to a whale, you have to factor in bouyancy and displacement. He should probably be way stronger though.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

theironjef posted:

Plus you can't just apply deadlift weight to a whale, you have to factor in bouyancy and displacement.

This is true, but I'm not sure if there are rules for that.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

This is true, but I'm not sure if there are rules for that.

I am now starting my work on Cerulean Seas 2.0 which includes bouyancy offset values for strength calculations and has a sidebar on when things you eat stop being encumbrance and start counting as just more you*.

*no I'm not that sounds awful.

Fossilized Rappy
Dec 26, 2012

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Str 42 is actually massively underwhelming for a creature of that size. That means it can lift 100 tons. If it puts one of those whales in its maw (around 120 tons for a blue whale, lowballing it), its speed drops to 5 ft and it comes to a full stop. If it eats both of the whales in the picture, it takes on more weight than it can carry and most likely sinks.
I was strictly comparing it to first party "this thing is ridiculously loving large whale" Pathfinder monsters like the astral leviathan (Str 35), bakekujira (Str 42), and thalassic behemoth (Str 47) for the comparison.

When you actually logic it out, yeah, it's pretty bad. Oh, RPG numbers... :allears:

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Rifts Conversion Book 2: Pantheons of the Megaverse: Part 29: "He is almost too straight to be real and behaves like some of the superheroes in the 1940s and 1950s comic books: always doing the right thing, at all costs."

Asha - Truth


paladin.txt

Asha is one of the many offspring of Ahura Mazda and... and... well, we have no idea. But Asha is basically a god or order and truth, and goes around slaying decievers and demons, which is ironic because he gets decieved fairly often, like when Thor got tricked into fighting him! So Asha thinks Thor's evil. For a god of truth, he's not very good at percieving the truth. There's a rumor he was one of the heroes that gathered to fight the Four Horsemen (in Rifts World Book 4: Africa), but since he wasn't in that book and had no impact, I'm presuming it's just a rumor. He's basically supposed to be like a golden age superhero and morally upright except when he murders the gently caress out of people for lying.

Unlike a lot of the gods we've seen so far, the kids of Ahura Mazda are pretty frail by goldly standards - Asha has 12K / 2.6K MDC, for example. Their other attributes are just as solid, because this book mostly just judges power level by hit points.

Speaking of powers, Asha can invisible, Asha can fly, Asha can teleport, Asha can resist mind control, Asha can see through illusions, Asha can see through shapeshifters, Asha can cast low-level spells, Asha has all sensitive and physical psionic powers, Asha has angelic minions, Asha has a golden sword.

As for mythology, this version of Asha is created from whole cloth for the most part. Zoroastrian and Persian mythology generally refers to Asha as a principle and an aspect of the creator. It has a personification, but isn't quite anthropomorphized per se.

Vodu Manah - Good Mind


Complete with Tiara Diadem of Knowledge.

This fella's supposed to be the first son of Ahura Mazda, and is in charge of all the proselytizing and faith-imposing. He's the thinkin' man of the pantheon, except for the fact that the evil gods have used furries as their minions and so Vodu distrusts all furries, even mutant animals. Even when he can read their brains and see that they're alright he doesn't trust them, which could cause issues with the Hindu or Indian pantheons. Seriously, Vodu, what the gently caress? Otherwise he's a peaceful strategic kind of guy.

10K/2K, regens, talks any language, teleports any place, can sense people's alignment, shoot eyeb beams that make people peaceful, basic magic and ESP, angel minions, and has a magic scepter that has some defensive spells and a magic headband that lets him use any skill at 98% and cast any spell at 20th level, even though 20th level doesn't really exist in Rifts.

In mythology, the Vodu Manah we see here is more of a Zoroastrian concept, but sometimes he's embodied as an angel of cattle. Too bad, he could have had minotaur minions. Miniontaurs?

Armaiti - Devotion


The picture of prudishness.

The second authority after Vodu, Armaiti enforces loyalty of the gods and presents an example to the faithful. She's a Marriage First kind of god, and has rebuffed a lot of gods as a result, like Zeus and Krishna, and Eros hosed with her by making Ptah fall in love with her. She's supposed to be motherly, tho. A bikini mom, then.

MDC is 10K/2K, can show a evildoer a vision of all of the evil they've one, regen, teleport, eyebeam somebody to peace, basic magic, ESP, and all the really badass psychic powers, which she uses in fights.

In Zoroastrian myth, she's the angel of devotion. Christian missionaries tried to undermine worship of her in India, on account of that obvious symbolism.

Sharevar - Order/Control


Belt-horns?

A warrior god, also a god of kings, also a god of metal, and a god of order, and a god of stone, basically a lot of gods. Oh and he's attuned to magic, and feels a resonance with Earth, which he's been visiting to find out how to protect it. He's a strong, silent sort of deity.

10/2k, regen, teleport, can shoot molten metal at people, take that, Frosty the snowman, crafts stuff, all earth and stone magic, no psionics, has earth elemental mooks, 2k MDC armor, a speak that does extra damage to supernatural intelligences, which is to say 500, which still means it's going to take a lot of stabbing, and a magic shield.

I couldn’t find any mythical references to Sharevar outside of Dungeons & Dragons, but he seems to be based on Vairya, the Zoroastrian angel of dominion and rule. Not going to try and add anything clever to that, let's see the next god.

Haurvatat - Wholeness


”... projects an aura of naivete like an innocent young girl."

A goddess of water, she tries to promote purity and hates on vampires and succubi, because sex and blood is dirty, dirty, dirty. If she finds out about all the vampires on Earth, she's going to want to "cleanse" it, but it isn't clear if they mean in a Buffy way or a Noah way. Apparently she seems innocent, but can sense any evil intention. However, she can't really sense if good intentions have gone wrong.

9K/2K, strong water magic and bad regular magic, can sense people's intentions, ESP and water elementals and yeah, she's kind of on the bottom rung as far as gods go. As it is, a single vampire intelligence could probably punk her.

Once again, her myth is that of the Zoroastrian embodiment of wholeness. In reality, though, she's a guy with a feminine-sounding name (which confused some modern scholars). Oh, and at the end of the world she'll destroy the "demons of hunger and thirst", which works out with her plotline above, too bad she's a bit short on capability.

Ameretat - Immortality


Turn Undead addiction is a serious issue.

A cheery god, she's a healing hippie hates the undead sort of ancient god. She's aligned with Haurvatat in cleansing out the undead. She's got one note and plays it very well.

10K/2K, impervious to vampire powers, teleport, healing touches, can automatically wish a vampire or zombie into dust, shoot a cleansing blast against all PPEovores (like alien intelligences and psi-stalkers), can ressurrect the dead, has fair magic, healing psyshics powers, plus throwing around mind water or mind shields.

Mythwise, she's the embodiment of immortality and yeah, not much of a personality beyond that. This isn't exactly the soap operas of the Greek mythos.

Next: A Divine Miscellany.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Rifts Conversion Book 2: Pantheons of the Megaverse: Part 30: "This god has ten forms: He can appear as a blast of wind, a bull, a horse, a camel, a giant boar, a young man, a raven, a ram, a buck, or most importantly, a powerful man armed with a golden sword."

Other Persian Gods

These are fence-sitters.

Yerethraghna
God of Victory



”I need armor that protects my abs, but doesn’t hide them.”

This is a god of war that likes war and hates not-war, and is loosely aligned with the gods of light, but starts too many fights over who has the biggest pecs to really be trusted. Also he has ten forms, including a camel and a blast of wind. He's more the facepuncher than any sort of strategist. Also, he smells like death, like some kind of horrible battle nerd.

MDC 32K (6K on Earth), is an 18th Level Man at Arms which is not a class or level supported by the system (almost all the gods have these total Calvinball classes and levels), can teleport, punch pretty hard, and has all the basic psionics. He also has a golden sword that can shoot fire or lightning or force, if that's important. I think in Rifts that means it's Tuesday.

His name, Verethragna, translates to "smiting of resistance", which is pretty hardass. Also he can transform into a horny camel. Myths! He becomes associated with Zoroastrianism and its angels, but most likely predates it.

Vayu
God of the Winds



Batty sidekick not detailed in this book.

Formerly a Vedic god, he left after Brahma took over and holds a grudge. Mostly, though, he's a god of weather and wind. Though he's usually a very strong god loosely aligned with light, but can get moody and careless and just kill mortals... because, whatever. He's gruff and don't make no poo poo from noone.

66/13K, invisible, regen, teleport, summon air elementals, shoot wind, turn into an airy form, uses air magic, ESP, has a psychic shield and sword, and the evil eye. He also has a chatty spear that comes back to him, and a sword that shoots lightning and animates the dead, a frankensword.

This is a blending of Vayu-Vata, the Zoroastrian figure, and Vayu, the Hindu god.. In mythology he also controls "vital breath" and life as part of his domain. Also has a coach led by 1,000 white and purple horses, which I think is the deific equivalent of pimped ride.

Anahita
Goddess of the Waters



Are there any oil rigs left in Rifts?

A goddess of purity and water, if this sounds familiar... anyway, she's a severe environmentalist and sometimes blames humanity for pollution. She's also "a charismatic, intelligent, vivacious and strong woman", so there's that, and hates wafflers.

MDC 43/9K, super-swims, teleports, summons water elementals, invisibles, can purify a person of poisons and bad spells, is a middling spellcaster but a top-notch water warlock, and has no mind powers.

She was an Indo-Iranian goddess of rivers, and got mixed up with Ishtar sometimes, but was preserved by followers who took her with them into Zoroastrianism. She wasn't asked, but wh'ev.

Atar
God of Fire



And fire itself leaps off the turnbuckle...

A semi-elemental god, Atar hates demons and darkness, but isn't that enamored of people. He's actually the brother of Agni, as it turns out, and they were both created by some unnamed super-elemental. He's loosely with the Gods of Light (again?!), but he's jealous of Asha's fire-ness and may be tricked by Ahirman to work against him. Oh, and he doesn't know about energy weapons, but he'd really like them. Just FYI.

38K/8K, immune to fire and energy attacks, and only takes half damage from physical attacks, so he only takes full damage from magic and psionic attacks. Yeesh. He can teleport, shoot fire, cast fire magic, cast a little regular magic, has all the physical psychic powers, and he can make a special psionic fire sword. Yeesh, again. Oh, and he can summon 1d4 greater fire elementals.

As a myth, he represents holy fire, and was a pre-Zoroastrian god that once again got brought into the fold. As a Zoroastrian god, he was more interesting as a god of the hearth and "master of the house", as well as healing remedies and other good things that come from fire. More interesting than the enbiggened fire elemental we see above, I think.

Haoma
The Plant God



Goin’ nowhere fast.

The god of the ephedrine plant (er, they probably mean the ephedra plant), which is for some reason described as a hallucinogenic (not really, more of a stimulant, but it can cause psychosis, especially with overdoses). In any case he's a friend of Ahura Mazda, which makes me wonder why all these middle-road gods aren't listed under the Gods of Light. Though he's met Dyonisus (sp?) and Soma, but they're not chill enough for him. Oh, and he punishes tyrants, murderers, poisoners, and polluters. The environment is important, folks! Otherwise, he's pretty chill.

68/13, he is a "15th level dryad (see Rifts England)", which is a nice typo, regens, teleports, heals, can turn into a tree (but not a toilet), can sense movement via vibrations, increase the fertility of plants, do druid herbal "magic" (I wouldn't dignify it with that label myself), some minor regular magic, all ESP psychic stuff, some healing psychic stuff, and hydrokinesis.

"Haoma" is not only the name of the god, but also a plant. But like Soma, the exact plant was questionable for awhile. Ephedra seems the most likely answer, but there has been some attempt to establisth that Haoma is some hallucinogen, which probably resulted in the confusion above. Oh, and Zoroaster was apparently conceived while his parents were hopped up on the stuff. Religion!

Mithras


Dead ringer for Jesus in art and bad scholarship.

The son of Ahura Mazda, he's apparently a god of the sun, warriors, and sacrifice, and tried to make peace amongst the Persian gods. Ahirman pulled a Snively Whiplash and betrayed the pact, and Mithras blamed both sides for... some reason? There's no mention of the Gods of Light doing anything bad, so presumably Mithras is just a sanctimonious rear end in a top hat, and has taken a neutral role. He's also bummed out that all the people who worshipped him died out despite him trying to teach them, and trying to learn more before trying to be a big G god again. He also things technology is good for humanity, because the gods deserve laser blasts. Maybe he isn't so bad, then.

75K/15K, invisibles, teleports, resistance to energy, can radiate daylight, cast any normal spell, has all physical psionics and some mind powers. Etc.

Mithra is a huge god in mythology, having variants amongst the Iranians, Greeks, Romans, Hindus, and even Buddhists. The version here is a wafer-thin mishmash of the above, but was orginally about cattle, harvests, water, and all that sort of stuff ancient people needed to survive. Oh, and Mithraic worship was a heavy rival to early Christianity, but not the progenitor as sold by confusing youtube videos.

Next: The Banality of Evil.

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GimpInBlack
Sep 27, 2012

That's right, kids, take lots of drugs, leave the universe behind, and pilot Enlightenment Voltron out into the cosmos to meet Alien Jesus.
So I've been playing a fair bit of The Banner Saga lately, and the giant, horned Viking-ness of it all has got me thinking about :



Trollbabe is Ron Edwards' game of... err... trollbabes wandering around, having cool adventures, and making new friends and enemies. The first edition was published in 2002, with a revised version in English in 2009 that--okay, look, I know the title's kind of goofy and the premise hits some people about as well as the phrase "Apocalypse World has sex moves," but goofy title and Ron Edwards' sometimes difficult prose aside, there's a really neat little game here.

Right. Sorry. Where was I? Ah, yes, the revised version in 2009. Funnily enough the revision was, I believe, prompted by the translators of the Italian edition of the game, who asked so many questions about the rules and added so many clarifications and examples that Edwards put the answers into the English version too. For reference, the original Trollbabe was about 47 pages long, the revised pdf is 110 pages. We'll be looking at the revised version here. (The Italian version also has some gorgeous illustrations I'll be peppering through this review.)



So just what the hell is a Trollbabe?


This is.

Well, they're big, for starters. 6'6" on the short end, and solidly built and--

Ron Edwards posted:

a trollbabe is a big woman, no little aerobicized butts allowed.

Goddammit Ron you are not helping my case here. Anyways, trollbabes are big, and moreover they're strong--even the weakest is a match for the strongest human out there. We're told they have mostly-human features and lack the "characteristic trollish body hair and posture." They do have horns, though--big curly sheepy horns, or little pointy goaty horns, or broad heavy cow-y horns, whatever. Not antlers, though. Antlers aren't horns. Trollbabes have horns.

It doesn't really matter where trollbabes come from; sure, maybe they're troll/human hybrids, but maybe they're not. Maybe they're just born into one or the other races sometimes, or they're the product of magic, or hell, don't even bother explaining where they come from. All that matters is that they stand outside both societies but are bound to each of them, and that the PC trollbabes are the only ones in the world.

As for that world, it's presented in similarly broad strokes. Geographically, it's Norse-pastiche: lots of deep-cut fjords, low mountains covered with pine trees, frozen rivers and harsh winters. There's magic and monsters, but it only exists as an external reflection of real-life, personal conflict. The villagers aren't stalked by a hungry draugr because an evil overlord summoned the hungry dead from their graves to rule the world, but because the dead warrior's best friend left him to die on the battlefield and lied about what happened to conceal his cowardice.

The humans in this world are likewise Norse-alikes (albeit with a flavoring of Celtic, Baltic, or Icelandic influences): Mostly Iron Age farmers, fishermen, and herders, they tend to live in small fortified communities or lonely homesteads.


TROOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!


Trolls, on the other hand, are massive, shaggy, horned beings that walk on their toes, work powerful natural magic, and occasionally eat people. They tend to live in bleak, gloomy places far from human habitation, but we all know how well that tends to work out.

Aside from Norse mythology, the Icelandic Sagas, and related fantasy literature, Trollbabe is heavily indebted to the underground comix scene of the 1970s. In particular, the aesthetic of Vaughn Bode seems to have had a big impact. Link NSFW for lots of cartoon nudity, but unlike a lot of fantasy art from the same period, there's a sort of... I dunno, innocence to a lot of it? The art in Trollbabe definitely reflects this, being all black-and-white line art.

And that's all we get as far as a setting, barring a few small maps that could be used to kickstart the story. Even those maps just have a few placenames written on them--it's on us as players to fill in the blanks. Trollbabe is very much a showcase for Ron Edwards' "Story Now" design philosophy, and the influence it has on later games like Dogs in the Vineyard is apparent here. (In fact, Vincent Baker is credited as an interior artist on this book, though I'm not sure which pieces are his.)

We round out the chapter with a discussion of scale. Scale is the level on which the story operates, both in terms of the dramatic stakes and in terms of what kind of things a trollbabe character can do. Games always start at the personal scale, so the stakes of the story will be the well-being of one or two people and the trollbabes' actions can only directly affect one or two people at a time. After each story, a player (any player) can step the scale up by one level, escalating the larger story of the game. After a few sessions, the PCs might be fighting for the fate of an entire kingdom, fighting an army single-handedly, or casting spells that bring nourishing rain to a whole valley. The stakes never go back down, though, so increase with care; you might find yourself outgrowing the things you care about.

Next Time: We'll learn how a single number is all we need to make a trollbabe and talk about the (minimal) adventure prep a game of Trollbabe needs.

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