More Character Material for the Mage Game

Five Lazy Day Son of Ether projects, aka the Better Tool Project. All using Enchantment 1.

• Moon Boots: Using a polymer compound that reacts to shifting local constants, these boots are designed to adapt to other dimensional environs other than Earth. As such, they provide a +2 to Athletics and Stamina checks involving leg strength while in the Umbra.
• Pemberley Tool Kit: Specially fitted and with particular tools suited to its systems, this tool kit provides +2 to Technology and Craft checks to maintain or repair the Pemberley.
• Reactive Viewfinder System: These goggles are designed with a system that analyzes the user's eyes, allowing it to correct eye flaws and, in addition, allow exceptional focus, zooming, and microscopic capabilities. As such, they provide -1 to Perception difficulties involving visual detection.
• Molecular Tempering: While not precisely an invention per se, this heating and laser-sharpening treatment greatly hones a blade past a mere razor edge for an extended period of time - perhaps a year of occasional use. It also provides an additional +1 to the knife's damage rating.
• Plasma Lamp: Using a miniaturized amount of plasma, this flashlight gives off a sunnier, brighter light than any normal flashlight, with a wider spillbeam that can be adjusted. Furthermore, it lasts for about forty-eight hours before needing a recharge. Under normal circumstances, this can negate darkness penalties within the area of effect entirely.

Pemberly Log IV

This is a ship's log for my Electrodyne Engineer in a Mage game I'm currently playing in. So if you don't understand, don't worry. It's for a limited audience.

Logbook of Captain Zoe Azuma of the Pemberley

Entry Date: September 2nd, 2007

Entry Time: 10:10 GMT

Finally.

It started with the possibility of engaging a dimensional shift (traveling between quantum states), and using the variant constants to enable a jump into and indeterminate quantum state outside of the observational sphere, similar to the proposed usage of zero-point space (aka "hole vacuum"). The difficulty lay in indeterminacy - that is, while we traveled outside of ordinary, observable quantum states, there was a 5.07% chance of undergoing some severe indeterminacy fault that would make the return to an observable state flawed or fail outright.

Though the trip resulted in some damage to the vessel, caused by the indeterminacy and vibrational stresses resulting from a shift between quantum states, the majority of the passengers surviving shaken but not unharmed. One passenger was harmed by a particularly severe form of the Paradox Effect, his perception shifted to an alternate quantum state. It would be several days before his mind would be successfully restored, but he has since recovered from the more severe effects of the condition.

Repairs proceeded apace once having arrived at Tidal Base. Ether-based technology was generally removed. Though efficient in the constants of "Etherspace" and similar neighboring dimensions, it isn't nearly as efficient in the Void. The hull was repaired, the bridge rebuilt, power systems replaced, drive systems replaced, computer system upgraded, matter assembly system added, and more (see attached schematic). The drawback is that I have yet to be able to replace the dimensional shifting mechanism in the new design, and have had to rely on outside means in order to initiate most shifts between quantum levels.

After repairs were completed, we set off from Tidal Base to follow the trail of a friend's father in return for her aid with the quantum shift. From there, we traveled through the space known popularly (if inaccurately) as the "near" Umbra, utilizing a probability-sensitive biological tracker named Douglas. After a week of travel, we came across the scene of a battle. After analyzing some clues there, we decided to head for the colony of Inevitable, a home to death-cultists (known more popularly as Euthanatos) located several days away. After a quick jaunt, we stopped there briefly, but they were able to provide little in the way of clues or supplies.

However, my recent travels have begun to reveal evidence of an extraterrestrial stowaway, brought on originally as a subject of scientific study. I don't believe it to be dangerous to the ship itself or myself, but the crew has become quite aware of the possible danger it may pose. Unfortunately much of the evidence I have is anecdotal, and so it would be improper for me to record it as of yet. Still, the crew is wary, but I hope we might resolve this mystery as soon as is convenient.

The Game of the Subgenius

There are a lot of games that claim to provide "modern" settings. You've got your d20 Modern, your GURPS books, etc. But rarely do these settings even begin to scratch at the truth of the modern world as revealed by J.R. "Bob" Dobbs.

A lot of settings are based on mythology. Take, for example, the supposedly "subsersive" Vampire: the Masquerade, which is really just a Christian morality play hidden behind a lot of Gothic artsy-fartsy claptrap. Dungeons & Dragons rehashes a lot of cookie-cutter paganry, Legend of the Five Rings gives us a lot of psuedo-Shinto / Buddhist etc., etc. But not one, not one game features such spiritual concepts as the Bleeding Head of Arnold Palmer, the Yeti origin myth, or, yes, "Bob" himself! (GURPS Illuminati and Mage: the Ascension get points for at least referencing the Church).

It's high time there was a game that really tells it like it is, and not just a hinky CCG, either. This RPG is designed not only to provide a world of high Subgenius adventure (or inaction, as your want may be), but also provide a means through which psychic waves may be leveled against the Conspiracy of Normals.

In the Subgenius cosmology, things are not measured by their impact on the merely physical plane. Mind, the physical world is still pretty damn important, but believing in a deterministic lever-action universe isn't much good either. So the Subgenius character isn't determined by his Strength or Intelligence - Subgenius, after all, but more esoteric factors. These four factors are: Time, Slack, Sales, and Souls. Slack is the preeminent of these factors, for the Subgenius must have it, and greater amounts greases his journey down the tubes of the Luck Plane. Time control is also an important factor, allowing a Subgenius to make the most of his Slack, get more done, and befuddle the careful scheduling of the Con. Sales represents not so much mere physical wealth, but the ability for Subgenies to get something for nothing - or, at least, a hell of a lot less than they might expect. Finally, Souls is more esoteric, representing to some extent the "quality" of the Subgenius soul, of his ability to attract the attention of the Elder Gods for good or ill, and refine more bizarre and strange abilities indeed.

The chance of success at tasks and challenges is not determined by mere difficulty, but rather, the ability and willingness of the Conspiracy of Normals to hinder the Subgenius. After all, it is often the way of "Bob" to "fail upwards", and so success is not so clear-cut to the Subgenius as it is to normals. It may be exceedingly hard to do a little thing for a Subgenius to, say, plaster the face of "Bob" on the national news, but it may be exceedingly easy to get somebody to work themselves to death for the good of the god-company.

In theory there would be multiple mechanics through which a Subgenius may approach a challenge - for example, Slack may involve rolling dice and trying to match numbers, Sales might involve wheeling and dealing for success, Time might just allow one to take enough effort to blunder something through, and you might be able to sell a bit of your Soul for easy success and terrible payment in the future.

Yesss... in the FUTURE!

More M&M Musings

Pumpkin granola reviews: better than I expected.

Anyway, M&M hero-building.

The Honor Guard is currently the world's preeminent super-team, having publicly saved cities and even stopped a world-wide invasion. Their members include:

• Aegis, armed with his legendary shield and a supernatural force of personality. Extremely skilled, if not necessarily superhuman combatant.
• Agent Secret, a mysterious, well-equipped female spy. Uses technology that would make Q blanch, and seems to have a extremely broad base of knowledge.
• The Futurist, who uses technology and knowledge brought from the future to provide technology and wealth. Often uses robotic "drones" as scouts and weapons.
• Djinni, a massive man with puzzling powers. Strong and resilient, he also has the ability to change into and create mists.
• Faerie Queene, a young woman with the ability to "awaken" the faerie spirits associated with places and things, and is often surrounded by swarms of diminutive fey creatures.
• Susano is a Japanese woman who channels an ancient god of storms and oceans, and wields a massive war club enhanced by her divine capabilities.

And that's more. Next time, villains! And maybe a few (anti-)heroes.

M&M Musings

I've been thinking about running a superhero game again. I always think that I haven't run one - it's just the ones I have run have been a little lackluster - I really had no idea what I was doing when I ran Wild Cards in high school, and my Authority game was amusing enough but I feel like it was hampered a bit by my own fanboydom.

But this will be my first M&M game, at least, and I'm blessed enough to do it in the age of second edition. Presently the concept is a teen supers game (a la Hero High) in a setting where it's illegal to use powers before age 18. Naturally, the PCs are exceptions to this rule. This is generally inspired by a variety of "on the run" teen team comics, like Gen13 and Runaways, though it takes its own liberties with the genre. I'm also inspired by comics like Invincible, Young Avengers, Dynamo 5, and, of course, the original X-Men.

But, in my mind, to get the comics feel, you need a decent "shared universe". You obviously can't rebuild something like DC or Marvel from scratch, but you can take what they've done as a framework that makes something both familiar and new, like many alternative superhero comics like Invincible do anyway. Freedom City does this already to a great extent, and though I may mine it for NPCs, I'd rather build one much more my own. I really haven't done a game using my own setting, and so this is a fun opportunity for me to attack the idea. So let's get to it with a random collection of ideas:

The Visitor was an alien superbeing that visited this Earth during the 1930s, and remained until the 1960s. He fought criminals, saved people from disasters, battled the fascists, and cooperated with the US government in helping create the first human super-soldiers. While not vastly powerful, he made a potent impact in the world more psychologically and technologically than physically. After leaving, his son, The Native Son, continued on until the 1990s, when he was slain. The Native Son, however, has left a legacy in the form of several other heroes that carry on the tradition, though none as prominently as their forbears.

The 1001 Knights were a vigilante organization that started in the 1940s, funded by a mysterious millionaire who had sworn to strike fear into the very heart of crime after the loss of family. Extremely well-trained, armed with cutting-edge technology, and with a seemingly limitless budget, the Knights represent a strictly illegal but widely feared organization. While the actual number of Knights is unknown, it's generally agreed it falls well short of the proclaimed number, as only several dozen costumed figures have actually proclaimed the mantle of the Knight.

The Menagerie is a criminal organization that has existed since the 1960s, almost as an answer to the Knights. It specializes in the creation and organization of animal-themed villains, though the core leaders of the group rarely commit crimes behind illegal superhuman design and activation, though they could be convicted for aiding and abetting, conspiracy, and other technicalities of their work. Though they originally just relied on gadgets and prosthetics to equip criminals, nowadays they can do everything from genetic splicing to totemic infusion. Some heroes have also resulted from their efforts, turncoats and escaped test subjects and the like.

Paradoxia is what happens to time and dimensional paradoxes, a series of realms both bizarre and familiar. People and things have vanished here - often of importance or connected to superhuman events. It is believed a mysterious group known as the Journeymen occasionally spirit a person here, and members have appeared proclaiming to protect the fabric of the universe. They have generally ensured time and dimensionally-displaced people do not remain long, though they have taken natives as well - though generally the forgotten and lost. Some realms in Paradoxia are also populated with those from other dimensions, either taken in a similar fashion or "rescued" from destroyed worlds.

The Numina are where gods reside. Though gods can affect our world, they can rarely have grand effects without taking on an avatar - a human host. To them, past wars that nearly destroyed the world make them hesitant to interfere, and this is enforced by quite nearly every pantheon head. There are ways for them to "cheat", though, and villainous gods often seem to find ways to flaunt their defiance by appearing on Earth in other ways. In their own realm, their machinations and wars are vast and cosmic, and pantheons exist much like rival clans, though there is much more intermingling these centuries than in millennia past.

I have some ideas on the premier super-team to put down here - now I just need to remember them...