[RPGs] Warriors & Warlocks character: Khal Konos

So lately I'm really excited about a recent Mutants & Masterminds supplement called "Warriors & Warlocks". It's a fairly brilliant guide to repurposing M&M for fantasy campaigns, specifically in the style of those old sword and sorcery comics you don't really see anymore. While, for the most part, you could already do all this with M&M (I've always said it's a generic system masquerading as a superhero game), Warriors & Warlocks offers lots of great suggestions and a few actual rules tweaks.

Anyway, inspired largely by fellow M&M fan Greywulf, I am driven to create characters just for kicks, and then post them here to justify the time spent.

My first W&W character is a semi-corrupted sorcerer antihero I'm calling Khal Konos. All his magic is ritual-based, but he's pretty good at that since he's a friggin genius and also a master of arcane lore. His magic won't help him when bandits ambush him in the night, but if he's got a chance to plan ahead--especially since he's also got the Master Plan feat--he should be pretty terrifyingly effective.

He packs a falchion that he's pretty good with, but he mostly does his fighting with the Doom Hand, a taloned glove-thing made out of leather, bone, and volcanic glass. It projects a big, three-dimensional shadow hand that Khal can use to whittle away at his foes' life force (that is, their Constitution) from a short distance away. He also wears a suit of asymmetrical, scavenged-looking studded leather, but he's better at avoiding attacks than withstanding them.

Finally, his eyes have been changed, enhanced, and made kind of disturbing lookin by some magical ritual. He can now see and read magical auras, as well as being able to see in the dark. Unfortunately, his eyes are solid black and the skin around them is weirdly scarred, so he normally wears a fierce terracotta mask over the top half of his face. Inevitably, though, either the mask or the eyes are going to make people suspicious and hostile from time to time, which I figure counts as a complication for purposes of picking up Hero Points.

Man, I'd love to play this character in an actual game. The possibilities that come with the Ritualist feat are huge, so much so that I don't think you even really need any more magic system than that. Not for a sword and sorcery setting, anyway.

Khal Konos

Power Level
Power Level: 6
Power Points: 90
Max Attack: 4
Max Defense: 8
Max Save DC: 8
Max Toughness: 4

Abilities
STR: 12 (+1)
DEX: 10 (+0)
CON: 14 (+2)
INT: 20 (+5)
WIS: 12 (+1)
CHA: 12 (+1)

Combat
Attack 0 (Melee 4, Ranged 0)
Defense 8 (4 flat-footed)
Initiative 0

Saves
Toughness 4
Fortitude 5
Reflex 3
Will 5

Skills
Bluff 4 (+5)
Climb 0 (+1)
Concentration 8 (+9)
Diplomacy 6 (+7)
Disable Device 4 (+9)
Disguise 0 (+1)
Escape Artist 0 (+0)
Gather Info 0 (+1)
Handle Animal 0 (+1)
Intimidate 0 (+1)
Investigate 4 (+9)
Knowledge: Arcane Lore 10 (+15)
Knowledge: History 6 (+11)
Knowledge: Tactics 4 (+9)
Medicine 4 (+5)
Notice 4 (+5)
Ride 6 (+6)
Search 6 (+11)
Sense Motive 6 (+7)
Stealth 4 (+4)
Survival 4 (+5)
Swim 0 (+1)

Languages
Common (or whatever), some ancient tongue

Feats
Attack Focus, Melee (4)
Fearless
Master Plan
Ritualist
Second Chance (vs. mind control effects)
Trance

Powers
Super-Senses (detect magic, ranged, accurate, acute)
Super-Senses (vision counters darkness)
Device, hard to lose: Doom Hand (Drain Constitution +8, slow fade 1, extended reach 1)

Equipment
studded leather armor (Protection +2)
falchion (Damage +4, mighty, improved critical 2)

Complications
creepy damned eyes

Summary
Abilities 20 + Skills 20 (80 ranks) + Feats 9 + Powers 15 + Combat 16 + Saves 10 – Drawbacks 0 = 90 / 90

LWaSH character: Herr Wolf

Yeah, I saved the most insane character concept for last.

Herr Wolf
The Man Who Used to Be Hitler
(played by Jim)

ASPECTS
• Stoically Take the Pain
• Misunderstood Artist
• Pride of the Master Race
• Inducted Illuminatus
• Unausprechlichen Namen
• Humility of the Fall
• Secret Historian
• I Am the True Hitler!
• "Guys, We Need to Focus!"
• Hitler Must Be Stopped!

SKILLS
+5: Resolve
+4: Mysteries, Rapport
+3: Academics, Art, Intimidation
+2: Athletics, Awareness, Empathy, Guns
+1: Contacting, Endurance, Investigation, Stealth, Weapons

STUNTS
• Psychic
• Right Place, Right Time
• Smooth Recovery
• Unflappable
• Voices from Beyond

This version of Adolf Hitler--war veteran, failed artist, nationalist, Illuminatus, and occultist--performed a ritual to summon an angel that he hoped would grant the German people power and glory. And he succeeded. What he didn't expect, however, was that he'd call a fallen angel, or that it would fulfill its bargain by stealing his name and leading Germany to power in his place. So, yep, this character is the real Hitler, and the one running Nazi Germany is a demon.

Now reduced to a state of metaphysical namelessness, he cannot convince anyone of his old identity, regardless of the evidence he might offer. Instead, he must fall back on an old nickname, "Herr Wolf". It's still not a true, metaphysically-meaningful name, however, so people find it difficult to even really think about him. This is represented by the "Unausprechlichen Namen" aspect (German for "unspeakable name"). It can be useful when he wants to avoid being tracked down, but makes it essentially impossible for him to rise in the ranks of any organization again.

Naturally, his "Pride of the Master Race" aspect has already been a lot of fun. Since this is a pulp campaign set in 1937, I'm inevitably going to be setting up a lot of Nazis as antagonists . . . forcing Herr Wolf into situations of divided loyalties. He's already used such a situation to talk a Nazi agent into defecting when he found himself unable to simply shoot the man, and that was awesome. Especially when Abraham Hale (who hates Nazis and doesn't trust people who speak foreign languages around him) took disagreed violently with this decision, and decided to shoot the Nazi agent, who had just surrendered. Better yet, the Nazi survived, but lost an eye to Abe's hail of gunfire.

Herr Wolf has also been making great use of his Mysteries skill and Spirit of the Century's declaration mechanics. For those unfamiliar with the game, it actually lets you use a PC's knowledge in an area to decide what the facts are in a related situation, rather than simply rolling to see if the GM has to tell you about something they've already decided. It was just such a move which, in our third session, determined the powers of Abraham Hale's monkey idol.

Oh, and did you notice the slightly-Photoshopped mustache in Herr Wolf's portrait, there? I figured that, as Hitler's slightly-less-evil twin, he is absolutely required to have different facial hair from him.

LWaSH character: Marko Kraljević

Marko Kraljević
Immortal Serbian Folk Hero
(played by Nesko)

ASPECTS
• Marko's Mace
• Strength of 10 Strong Men
• Living Legend
• Short Fuse
• Man Out of Time
• Champion of Christianity
• Sees the Heart
• No Man Should Be Chained!
• Darling of High Society
• Because My Honor Demands It

SKILLS
+5: Might
+4: Endurance, Weapons
+3: Academics, Athletics, Resolve
+2: Alertness, Intimidation, Mysteries, Rapport
+1: Empathy, Engineering, Investigation, Stealth, Survival

STUNTS
• Animal Companion: horse (quality: Great, skill: Athletics)
• Herculean Strength
• Piledriver
• Weapon of Destiny: Marko's Mace (advancement: Arcane)
• Wrestler

Marko Kraljević (literally, "Marko, the King's Son") is a Serbian historical figure with a huge amount of heroic folklore attached to him. Since this is Spirit of the Century, this version of the character is definitely the mythic one. He was born in the 1300s and granted superhuman might by a vila (fairy), and grew up to become a great hero, fighting against the Turks. His death was prophesied to be be only a temporary state, one which would end when the Serbian people needed his protection once again.

In our campaign, Marko was awakened to fight the last gasp of the Ottoman Empire, a gigantic clockwork war machine called the Mechanical Turk. He and Abraham Hale defeated it together, in fact. Since then, the Van Helsing Society has taken him in, giving him a place in the world (and, not incidentally, making sure this supernatural superhuman isn't running around Europe unsupervised).

Marko is absolutely the heavy hitter in this campaign. Between his great strength and endurance, and his titanic, magical mace, he's terrifyingly effective in combat. He's not strictly a bruiser, however: His high Academics skill and friendly, inquisitive nature have given him plenty to do when there isn't a fight available.

LWaSH character: Myrna

Myrna
Famous Reporter and Socialite
(played by Brigid)

ASPECTS
• Debutante
• Educated at Wellesley
• Gay Divorcèe
• Intrepid Girl Reporter
• One True Love
• Another Tight Squeeze
• Not in the Face
• How Do I Make This Go?
• Damsel in Distress
• Fat Alimony Check

SKILLS
+5: Rapport
+4: Contacting, Investigation
+3: Alertness, Empathy, Resources
+2: Burglary, Deceit, Gambling, Resolve
+1: Art, Academics, Leadership, Sleight of Hand, Stealth

STUNTS
• Best Foot Forward
• International
• Linguist
• Popular Gal
• Quick Eye

Myrna doesn't have a last name, as far as I'm aware. The player was having trouble coming up with one that she liked, and I think we just decided that, after her divorce, she discarded her husband's name but didn't go back to her maiden name. Also, she's a famous society pages reporter, so she might be known by just her first name. She's somewhat based on Brenda Starr, down to her melodramatic love life. It's a different kind of pulp from what Spirit of the Century is usually about, but it is most definitely pulp.

Myrna is a totally non-fighty character--no combat skills whatsoever--so I'm actually really looking forward to throwing the characters fights while she's around, and seeing if she participates at all. SotC is a system that absolutely would make it possible for her to contribute, but then again, she's also got that "Not in the Face" aspect which should make her do her bes to stay out of the fray. I bet she could use her Alertness and Empathy to discover aspects about her enemies and share them with the more direct participants, though.

Of course, she's an absolute ninja in social situations. She already rolled so well while attempting to charm a police officer that I decided that he's now thoroughly smitten with her. I've yet to get her into a real social conflict, though. I've really got to try that out soon.

LWaSH character: Arthur Chamberlain

Arthur Chamberlain
Vatican-Trained Thief of Ancient Artifacts
(played by Brian)

ASPECTS
• Uncommon Thief
• Edinburgh Street Urchin
• Lupin the Mentor
• Artifact Acquisitions
• Many Identities, Many Personas
• Spear of Destiny
• Why Is It Always Cultists?
• It's the Artifacts, Stupid.
• Storm Cloud Stalkers
• Like Robin Hood with Style

SKILLS
+5: Burglary
+4: Deceit, Stealth
+3: Athletics, Mysteries, Sleight of Hand
+2: Academics, Contacting, Investigation, Rapport
+1: Alertness, Drive, Engineering, Guns, Resolve

STUNTS
• Clever Disguise
• Human Spider
• Personal Artifact: The Spear of Destiny (advances: transmutation, unnoticeable)
• Quick Exit
• Tripwire Sensibilities

This character's name is actually Oliver McIntosh. "Arthur Chamberlain" is actually just his English persona, and the one he uses while functioning as a member of the London-based Van Helsing Society. (He's also got a host of other international identities, named James McCrimmon, Rene Girard, Helmut Schwartz, Roger Johnson, and Igor Leonov.)

His deal is that he was born Scottish and poor, the son of an Edinburgh pickpocket. His father was eventually caught and hanged, and he was taken in by a Catholic-run orphanage. There, his natural talents for thieving were noticed, and the Vatican ended up grooming him as its "Artifact Acquisitions" expert. That is, training him to steal dangerous occult objects for either safekeeping or prudent destruction.

One object he actually held onto was the head of the Spear of Destiny. Interestingly, he's found that is has the ability to change into any simple object of similar size. Also, it has some property which causes people to overlook it if they aren't looking for it rather specifically. These qualities make one wonder if this artifact actually has anything to do with the spear that pierced Christ's side, or if it might be something else entirely.

Anyway, Arthur has so far only participated in the first bit of this adventure, and I'm sorry to say I was a really poor GM for him. We decided to stay behind any keep watch over the scene of a break-in (someone else's work, I should specify) while the rest of the party was elsewhere, and I didn't use that to hand him anything cool. I should have had some new player show up and attempt a second break-in, or at the very least compelled one of his aspects to encourage him to do something. Instead, the player just decided to infiltrate the police-controlled crime scene himself out of boredom.

Anyway, notes on some of his odder aspects: "Lupin the Mentor" refers to the fact that he was very possibly trained by the son of Arsène Lupin (and the father of Lupin III). "Storm Cloud Stalkers" refers to a curse he suffers as a result of an incident with a storm-related artifact: Storms follow where he goes. I wouldn't say it's literally cartoonish dark clouds hovering over his head, but I figure that the weather is just a lot more likely to turn stormy when he's around. (This actually offers huge opportunities for synergy between him and Robin's "Thunderbird" aspect. Plus, she's got a crush on him, so she's totally likely to be tagging along with him anyway.)

Anyway, I hope to do better by Arthur in the future.

LWaSH character: Robin Stormchaser

Robin Stormchaser
Daring Pilot of the "Blaze of Glory"
(played by Sarah)

ASPECTS
• Tomboy Next Door
• Where the Action Is
• Thunderbird
• Smokin' Like a Chimney
• Storm Chaser
• Last of the Barnstormers
• "Anything Art Can Do, I Can Do Better!"
• Rashness of Youth
• Freedom from Religion
• Dread of the Depths

SKILLS
+5: Pilot
+4: Athletics, Engineering
+3: Fists, Mysteries, Science
+2: Alertness, Endurance, Rapport, Resolve
+1: Art, Contacting, Deceit, Resources, Survival

STUNTS
• Acrobat
• Barnstormer
• Fly by Night
• Personal Aircraft: The Blaze of Glory
• Walk Away from It

Robin is an extremely fun character. She's a farm girl who found herself piloting planes as part of relief operations during the dust bowl, and had a high-altitude encounter with an Indian thunderbird spirit. Despite the fact that she's very specifically built around the whole pilot concept, she's been able to take a lot of the roleplay spotlight and participate quite nicely in combat.

Her "Anything Art Can Do, I Can Do Better!" aspect is one of the coolest ones in the whole campaign. It refers to the party's thief type, Arthur Chamberlain, and is driven by Robin's unconscious (but entirely obvious) crush on the dashing young man. Theoretically, she could invoke it to actually do anything she sees him doing, but mostly it's been used to compel her to tag along with him. And, since he's a stealthy guy and she has no skill in that area, this could really get both of them into trouble. Also, her "Rashness of Youth" aspect is awesome for making the whole party get up and get going. Robin is utterly fearless and pretty impatient, and every male character in the party (this is 1937!) is driven to protect her, so she can really drag them along behind her.

She's proven she can take care of herself quite nicely, though. She just recently used that "Thunderbird" aspect--representing a mysterious connection to a Native American lightning spirit--to absorb electricity shed by a Nazi sorcerer's spells and use it to charge up her punches, which was exactly the kind of thing I'd hoped she'd end up doing with it.

Also, I really dig her shtick of trying out exotic tobaccos and any other theoretically-smokable substance she can fit into a hand-rolled cigarette.

I think the character's crowning brilliance, though, is her plane: The "Blaze of Glory" is defined as whatever plane she's currently flying, as long as the title's previous holder has been destroyed. This is going to fucking rock.

LWaSH character: Abraham Hale

Okay, it's about time I started posting character bios for the PCs from my Lost Worlds and Secret Histories game.


Abraham Hale
Gun-Slinging Scourge of the Supernatural
(played by Gerry)

ASPECTS
• Enemy of the Devil
• His Own Brand of Religion
• Gun Nut
• Wisdom of the West
• Finding the Weak Spot
• Rube Goldberg Shot
• The Harder They Fall
• Speak American, Damnit
• I Hate Nazzys!
• ...Woulda Given Us Wings

SKILLS
+5: Guns
+4: Alertness, Intimidation
+3: Endurance, Fists, Survival
+2: Athletics, Might, Stealth, Resolve
+1: Drive, Investigation, Mysteries, Rapport, Weapons

STUNTS
• Danger Sense
• Iron Determination
• Tracker
• Trick Shot
• Two Gun Joe

Originally conceived as sort of a 1930s gunslinger version of Solomon Kane, Abraham Hale has quickly developed into an extremely distinctive character. His background is a story about how his sister was possessed by a demon, and killed by their preacher father in his attempt to exorcise the thing, leading Abraham to conclude that the supernatural should be fought with guns rather than faith. (In fact, that "His Own Brand of Religion" aspect actually refers to the fact that he believes that God has abandoned the world, which is really interesting.) He then went on to fight cultists and other occult evils, including--just before the beginning of this campaign--a trip to Africa that involved pterodactyls. As Abraham's player says, every pulp hero has to go to Africa at some point.

He also likes a drink, now and again, a trait which was used to such great humorous effect ("Hell yeah, I'm drunk!") that I wish it had made it into his aspects.

His "Speak American, Damnit" and "I Hate Nazzys!" aspects have already been great for fueling intra-party conflict, as one of the other PCs actually used to be Adolf freaking Hitler. That "...Woulda Given Us Wings" aspect, representing his fear of flying, is also bound to be fun, since another PC is primarily a pilot. And the game's plot is already pointing back towards Africa...

Variant rule alert!
Abe's been making good use of his Trick Shot stunt in a way which might not be completely okay with the Spirit of the Century rules. The description of the stunt states that it gives a bonus to attacks against inanimate objects, and cannot be used to attack other characters. However, I'm letting him use it to attack characters indirectly by shooting down suspended objects and such. The way I'm handling it, the player has to come up with the details of the shot, set the target number himself, and make a Guns roll (with the +2 from Trick Shot). If the roll misses that target, the shot fails and nothing happens. If the roll meets or exceeds it, though, that target number (and no more, regardless of how high the player rolled) is treated as an attack roll against the hapless sucker standing under the chandelier. (Maybe shifts past that target number might let the indirect attack hit multiple opponents? Not sure.)

Speaking of variant rules, I'm really looking for a chance to use Mike Olson's badass showdown rules with this character. I've just gotta come up with the right opponent for him...

Lost Worlds and Secret Histories character sheet

I'm finally putting the finishing touches on the custom character sheet for my Spirit of the Century campaign, "Lost Worlds and Secret Histories". The deal is, all the PCs are supposed to members of this 1930s monster-fighting organization, the Van Helsing Society. So I tried to build the character sheet to looks sort of like an actual personnel file from that organization, completely with smudged stamps, paper clips, and vintage fonts. It's very much inspired by coyotegrey's extremely awesome NEMESIS character sheet.

Anyway, click the thumbnail to see it at a halfway reasonable size. This sheet is for Abraham Hale, Gerry's character. He's supposed to be kind of a Solomon Kane / Charlton Heston / cult-fighting gunslinger character. And, yes, that's Lance Henriksen we used for the portrait.

[SotC] Ambrose Goodfellow: The Critic of Crime

I am hugely excited about Spirit of the Century, a pulp adventure roleplaying game based on the deeply brilliant Fate system. I still haven't gotten a chance to play the game yet, but, by God, it looks like fun. I'm hoping to it for my Tuesday night crew (shout out to Brigid!), eventually.

Anyway, one of the really cool things about this system is that even the character creation is an extremely fun, fast-moving creative exercise. The centerpiece of any character is a list of ten "Aspects", traits created by the player which describe the character's identity, background, personality, possessions, mottos--everything that defines the character's nature and shtick beyond the usual mechanical skill rankings and such. But these Aspects do actually have mechanical weight! They can both help and hinder a character whenever they might logically apply to a situation.

If you've got an Aspect along the lines of "lives in the woods", then you can use it for a bonus when attempting to do things like follow tracks, identify mushrooms, hide in foliage, or anything else you might reasonably apply it to. The main limitation is that you've gotta spent a "Fate Point" to use an Aspect. And where it gets completely brilliant is the way you get Fate Points: by letting your Aspects be used against you. So when your backwoods hermit is in the big city and interacting with big city people, the GM can offer you a Fate Point to do or say something inappropriate. And you can refuse . . . but only if you spent a Fate Point instead of taking one.

Anyway, it looks like a huge amount of fun, and I'm jonesing for it so badly that I'm making characters I'll probably never do anything with. Here's my latest, a guy who's kinda supposed to be a pistol-packing, mystery-solving, slightly Oscar Wilde-ish art critic.

Ambrose Goodfellow
The Critic of Crime

ASPECTS
• "Dead men tell tales."
• dressed fashionably and impeccably
• friends in low places
• lust for secrets
• magnificent bastard
• notorious indiscretions
• pearl-handled revolver
• rapier wit
• sexual invert
• too famous for prison

SKILLS
+5 - Art
+4 - Empathy
+4 - Investigation
+3 - Guns
+3 - Rapport
+3 - Resolve
+2 - Contacting
+2 - Deceit
+2 - Academics
+2 - Resources
+1 - Alertness
+1 - Athletics
+1 - Drive
+1 - Intimidation
+1 - Stealth

STUNTS
• The Artist's Eye (This allows him to guess personal things about someone by examining their creative works.)
• Five Minute Friends (He can make friends very quickly.)
• Razor Tongue (He can craft the perfect insult to enrage or manipulate someone.)
• Poison Words (His insults can sway the opinion of a whole crowd against a person.)
• Quick Eye (He can quickly scan a scene for clues.)