Willow & Tara: Big Eyes, Small Mouth 2nd Edition

Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM)

I came to this game late. I picked up BESM 2.0 at a game auction and really dug it’s simple style, flexibility and shear “funness” of the game. GoO may be no more and BESM 3.0 is the current version, I still need to do something with all the BESM/Tri-Stat books I bought.

So I did conversions.  I like to think that every game has something to offer me. Whether it is a new complete game to play, or something I can use in some other game.

As everyone knows, normally I play a Unisystem game, typically WitchCraft RPG, Ghosts of Albion or I mix them all up. The great thing about Unisystem and Tri-Stat is they share a lot of compatible features. I can usually pick up a Tri-Stat book and run with it no problems in my Unisystem games, I suspect that the opposite is true as well.

With BESM 2.0 and 2r I spent more time adding material to my Unisystem games.  BESM 3.0 I played more as-is.

Unisystem vs. Tri-Stat
Unisystem has 6 attributes, 3 physical and 3 mental. Attributes, skills and most qualities are all measured on the same metric, 1-5 for normal humans, 6 for the truly exceptional, a 7 and beyond (typically 10) for the supernatural types.

BESM uses (used) Guardians of Order's Tri-Stat system, which they use for a variety of Anime-based games. The main feature of the Tri-Stat system is the Tri-Stat, or Body, Mind and Soul. All skills, attributes and defects as well combat roles are made with these three in mind. They range up to 12, but cannot go over. A quick and dirty conversion from Unisystem would be to add two Unisystem Attributes to get one Tri-Stat stat, so as an example take Strength + Dexterity to get Body.

Unisystem                            Tri-Stat
Strength + Dexterity             Body
Intelligence + Perception       Mind
Constitution + Willpower      Soul

Skill Levels are similar, ranging 1 to 5, with 0 as unskilled or unable to use this skill and 5 representing the human maximum in most cases. Tri-Stat's Attributes and Defects size up pretty well to Unisystem's Qualities and Drawbacks respectively.

Unisystem is a roll-over mechanic. Tri-Stat is roll-under mechanic.
BESM 3.0 is now a roll-over mechanic is much closer to Unisystem, but that is another post for another day.

Willow and Tara
I have often enjoyed the “Magical Girl” style of Japanese animation, sometimes called the “Shôjo” or “Maho Shôjo” style. Course the word Shôjo comes from the Japanese word meaning “virigin” or “virgin girl”, not really something I'd attribute to Willow or Tara. Shôjo-ai or Yuri would be more like it. Shôjo does feature strong female protagonists and stories about love.

These stories are typified by a young girl, normally high school age, that gains or learns of her magical powers. Other girls often join her and they battle evil monsters, evil wizards (almost always older and male), demons and things from “somewhere else”. Sound familiar yet? Common themes include friendship and the power of love. There is tragedy, but in the end the world, the girls, friendship and love all prevail.
"Buffy" is "Sailor Moon" without the school uniforms.

Willow and Tara are perfect for the “magical girl” style of anime. But since I have no ability to draw and less to animate, I'll settle for stating them up for Anime RPGs.

Unlike my version of Robin Sena, for Willow and Tara I choose not a direct translation, but rather how would they look around the time of my Unisytem game, “The Dragon and the Phoenix” using the BESM rules.  An alternate universe deal.

Overall I am very pleased with how the girls turned out under these rules. It certainly was a really good fit. Not a perfect one mind you, I still think Unisystem has a leg up on Tri-Stat here, but really, really damn close.

Willow and Tara, the Animated Series

So how can you fit these two witches into an Anime-style RPG? Simple. Create an animated series!
I'll take a page from the Marvel Mangaverse and create a new universe of the same characters, with a twist.
Let's put Willow and Tara in Japan (Tara already speaks Japanese in my games anyway). We have MKF start talking to them, ala Gigi from “Kiki's Delivery Service”. We can retcon the whole thing and place them there as High Schoolers, maybe foreign exchange students, that learn about their new magical powers.

Willow Rosenberg, a shy but brilliant student is dismayed to learn that her mother has taken a new teaching position at the University of Neo-Tokyo. Willow enrols in a new school where she is even more of an outsider than she was before, that is till she meets Tara. Tara Maclay is another American student on cultural exchange. After the death of her mother Tara needed to get away from her home so she applied for and was accepted as a foreign exchange student. Packing her bags and her cat, Miss Kitty Fantastico, Tara left her life behind to discover a new one in Japan.

Willow and Tara meet, discover their common bond of magic and soon their love for each other in many exciting and harrowing adventures against the supernatural. Aided by the wise spirit of Tara's mother (also a powerful witch in her own right) and the smart-ass comments of MKF, the girls fight evil and discover they had to journey to other side of the world to discover what they were missing.

Or something like that.

Demons have been so over-done, so I’ll focus instead on other types of supernatural creatures: ghosts, spirits, faeries and the like. BESM/Cold Hands, Dark Hearts has quite a bit of guidelines for dealing with these types, as well as faeries and spirits from other BESM books. There are plenty of creatures, threats and distractions so I never have to use a vampire or a demon. After all the point of a new universe is to establish it’s own identity.

Willow Rosenberg
Game Type: Occult Horror/Magic Girl (Shôjo-ai/Yuri)

Race: Human
Sex: Female
Occupation: Student
Height: 5'3” Weight: 103#
Hair: Red Eyes: Green

Body: 3 Mind: 11 Soul: 9

Health Points: 60
Energy Points: 140
Shock Value: 12

Combat, Attack: 7
Combat, Defence: 5
Melee Attack Skill: 2x5 = 10
Melee Defence Skill: 2x5 = 10

Attributes:
Appearance 3x1 = 3
Aura of Command 3x1 = 3
Energy Bonus 4x1 = 4
Highly Skilled 4x1 = 4
Mechanical Genius 3x2 = 6

Defects:
Awkward 1x-1 = -1
Phobia (frogs) 1x-1 = -1
Significant Other 2x-1 = -2 (Tara)

Skills:
Biological Sciences 5x3 = 15
Computers 6x2 = 12
Electronics 5x2 = 10 (+2 levels from Mechanical Genius)
Mechanics 2x2 = 4 (+2 levels from Mechanical Genius)
Medical 4x3 = 12
Physical Sciences 5x2 = 10
Seduction 1x2 = 2
Social Sciences 4x1 = 4
Writing 3x1 = 3

Special Attributes (Magical):
Astral Projection 2x3 = 6
Dynamic Sorcery 6x4 = 24
Any Discipline
Force Field 3x4 = 12 (30 damage prevented)
Can Protect Others
Blocks Incorporeal
Item of Power 3x2 = 6 (15 item points left), Doll's Eye Crystal
Magic 5x4 = 20 (50 magic points left)
Telekinesis 3x2 = 6
Anything
Telepathy 2x3 = 6
Universal Utility

Tara Maclay
Game Type: Occult Horror/Magic Girl (Shôjo-ai/Yuri)

Race: Human
Sex: Female
Occupation: Student
Height: 5'4" Weight: 110#
Hair: Blonde Eyes: Blue

Body: 4 Mind: 8 Soul: 11

Health Points: 75
Energy Points: 145
Shock Value: 15

Combat, Attack: 6
Combat, Defence: 4
Melee Attack Skill: 1x5 = 5
Melee Defence Skill: 2x5 = 10

Attributes:
Animal Friendship 2x1 = 2
Appearance 3x1 = 3
Divine Relationship 1x1 = 1 (Mother is a Spirit working for the powers of Good)
Energy Bonus 5x1 = 5

Defects:
Awkward 1x-1 = -1
Inept Combat 1x-1 = -1
Significant Other 2x-1 = -2 (Willow)
Unique Character Defect 1x-1 = -1 (Weird Family)

Skills:
Animal Training 3x1 = 3 (+1 levels from Animal Friendship)
Artisan 3x2 = 6
Biological Sciences 2x3 = 6
Computers 2x2 = 4
Cooking 2x1 = 2
Cultural Arts 4x1 = 4
Gaming 2x1 = 2
Linguistics 4x1 = 4
Performing Arts 4x1 = 4
Riding 3x1 = 3
Seduction 3x2 = 6
Social Sciences 3x1 = 3
Visual Arts 4x1 = 4
Writing 4x1 = 4

Special Attributes (Magical):
Astral Projection 3x3 = 9
Dynamic Sorcery 5x4 = 20
Any Discipline
Force Field 4x4 = 16 (45 damage prevented)
Can Protect Others
Blocks Incorporeal
Healing 2x4 = 8
Magic 6x4 = 24 (60 magic points left)
Servant 4x1 = 4 (Miss Kitty Fantastico, see below)
Sixth Sense 2x1 = 2
Empathy
Sense Spirits
Telekinesis 3x2 = 6
Anything
Telepathy 2x3 = 6
Universal Utility

Miss Kitty Fantastico
Witch's cat, Irreplaceable Servant

Miss Kitty is a normal looking black and white cat.

Body: 10 Mind: 3 Soul: 5

Health Points: 20
Energy Points: 40
Shock Value: 9

Combat, Attack: 6
Combat, Defence: 4

Attributes:
Art of Distraction 1x1 = 1
Combat Mastery 2x2 = 4
Natural Weapons: Claws and bite, 5 damage
Energy Bonus 1x1 = 1
Extra Attacks 1x4 = 4

Defects:
Diminutive: Medium 2x-1 = -2
Less Capable: Strength 2x-1 =-2
Not So Strong 2x-1 = -2
Not So Tough 3x-1 = -3

Skills:
Stealth 8x4 = 32
Wilderness Survival 3x2 = 6
Wilderness Tracking 4x2 = 8

Special Attributes (Magical):
Astral Projection 1x3 = 3
Heightened Senses 2x1 = 2
Vision
Hearing

Miss Kitty cannot be replaced between adventures.

Comparing this to the Unisystem stats, it is fairly straight forward.
What I am trying to do here is use Dynamic Sorcery to replicate their levels of Unisystem Sorcery/Magic and Magic to replicate their magical knowledge and occult library.  Which brings up my biggest gripe with BESM.

Magic vs. Dynamic Sorcery
Where do you use what where?
To me Dynamic Sorcerery feels more like Mage's magic system while Magic seems more like WitchCraft's the Gift with extra points for metaphysiscs. In BESM d20 dynamic sorcery allows you to cast d20 spells of the same level. So in that respect it is more like Cine Unisystem's Sorcery or Magic. In BESM 3.0 Magic (now called Power Flux) feels more like Magic from Mutants & Masterminds. So there is still some debat even among BESM players about which one does what. My prefernce to scrap the whole deal and use Cine Unisystem's Magic system.
Also I'd like import Dynamic Sorcery into Cine Unisystem to get some of those more Mage like effects.

I picked up "Cold Hands, Dark Hearts" a while back and there are a lot of really cool ideas in it. It really plays like a dark horror animated game. It is also largely compatible with Unisystem, though some of the points seem a bit high to me. But if you wanted to play a BESM game out of the box that feels like an Eden game it is a great place to start.

In the end, I really, really liked BESM 2nd Ed revised.  But it was missing something...I am not sure.  I am going to talk about BESM 3.0 in a bit, so maybe that will help.

What Did I Get Out of This?
Well my journey into discovering Anime went hand in hand with BESM.  The roots for a couple of on going projects started here.  While I never got the chance to try out much of "Willow & Tara The Animated Series" it did give me ideas to use in my second season Unisystem game "Season of the Witch".  I also started work on a multi-genre, multi-game idea of a school for magical kids.  It would be part horror, part anime "magical girl" trope, and part supers.  Over the years "Generation HEX" would morph and change, but the ideas are still growing.

Anime Action
The combat and action in a typical BESM game is fast and deadly.  It actually sort of spoiled me for other so called fast and furious combat systems.  BESM is a great design, hampered though by some flaws, but nothing that can't be overcome.

Next time, I'll talk about BESM 3.0 to see if the flaws have been fixed and the ultimate fate of Guardians of Order.

*Yeah I know, those pics are not Willow and Tara, but rather Will and Corneila from W.I.T.C.H.

Anime RPGs

My first Anime was Akira.  I remember hearing a lot about it in college and I finally watched it, but I was not all that impressed.  Sure I liked the whole neo-Tokyo vibe that pervades so much Anime and it had style, but the story left me flat.

Then, a change happened.  I was teaching at night so I had my days free.I also had a NetFlix account.  Ao I began to get anime, and flankly a lot of it was so good I even dragged my wife into them.  I do admit I sought out what had been considered some of the best, Witch Hunter Robin, Cowboy Bebop were our faves.  We also enjoyed the Witchblade anime as well as some that were even less than family fare.

What I liked about them were obviously the stories and in many the humor, but also the style.  Anime have a beginning, middle and an end.  Obviously due to their manga origins.  Some TV shows in america seem to go on ad nauseum.   It is a style I would want to duplicate in an amime based RPG game.  Get in, tell your story, and get out to let others have the stage.

It's a style more than a system thing.  You could do high action anime D&D (and some claim that is what D&D4 is) or even horror.  But all the same I sought out various games.  Here is a breif run down before I get into details.    For this I even have new "label" for these threads; Anime.

BESM
My first Anime game.  I started with 2nd Edtion and quickly found out that there was a 2nd Edition revised.  What was great about BESM was it was a primer on all things related to Anime.  I learned what "Fan service" was, even if I already had an idea, the history, the conventions of anime (not Anime cons) and in there was also a pretty slick system.  There were parts I didn't like, but that is fine.  BESM + Unisystem in my mind was  a great mix.  I picked up BESM d20 (which I really liked to be honest), Silver Age Sentinels (using the same system) and a bunch of the splats to go with it.  I also bought BESM 3, which I really did like a lot, but never could find anyone to play with.  I like BESM, it is very easy to write for, I just wish there was a market for it.

Mutants & Masterminds: Mecha & Manga
I love M&M and was really looking forward to this.  To me anime and supers are of a similar breed.  Both typically have comics or cartoons as their storytelling medium, so that gives them a lot of surface similarities and similar stories are often told.  Astro Boy and Superman are more alike than different.   But while I like M&M, Mecha & Manga left me a little flat.  It is a great book to add to your normal M&M game and it is a great book to add to a BESM game for other ideas.  But I think I was expecting more.

OVA
This is a new one to me, but not a new game.  I just got it and I like what I see so far. The system is very different that BESM, but it has some good character creation guidelines that I think would work nice with any game.

Cartoon Action Hour Season 2
AKA CAH:2. Another new one for me.  Like OVA I have not gone over it much other than to print it out.  It is not really an Anime RPG, but a Cartoon one.  But I am not going to let that stop me.
It also has some great character creation ideas and a series creation worksheet that is great for every game really.  Of my recent purchases (OVA, BASH and CAH:2) this one is my favorite so far.

Heart Quest

Heart Quest is a Soujo Anime/Magna RPG using the Fudge RPG. Why did I choose this one? Well a lot of what goes into Shoujo can be found in Buffy as well and visa versa. There is even a very anime looking Buffy-like character on page 43.
It is obvious from the start that while the mechanics are mostly the same to other Fudge games, the tenor is very different. HQ only has five attributes in what looks like an odd cross of Unisystem and BESM. In fact, the holds up that Fudge Universal Translator theory well since HQ looks like it could convert to BESM in a snap. Skills are the same, mostly, as are the Gifts/Faults. Magic becomes a Supernormal Power, so more inline with Buffy here.
Where HeartQuest has the most to offer is half-way through the book with different Shoujo genres. Teen Romance can add lighter feel to a younger Junior High or just starting High School set game and has some good advice on how to deal with relationships and sex on a more mature level.
The chapter on Magical Girls shows the connection between and obvious debt owed to Sailor Moon by Buffy. Here again is advice on how to run a game where a group has magical powers, fighting against some evil, and yet still trying to live a normal life. In fact all seven of the types of Magical Girl games they suggest can be done with the Buffy rules. Extending the TV theme farther it is easy to see shows (and thus Buffy or Now Playing rules adaptations) for most of the Magical Girl types. Team: Sailor Moon; W.I.T.C.H., One Girl: Buffy, Witch Hunter Robin; Rivals: Winx Club, Psychic Girls: Twitches; Witch In Training: Kiki's Delievery Service, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, 8th season of Charmed.
Charmed and my Willow and Tara series has run the gambit to include all of these at one point. The book goes on to describe Historical Romance (great for Ghosts of Albion game), a sample setting for the three different genres and some sample characters. There is also a sample bibliography and resources not to be missed.
There is also another Fudge game actually called Shoujo Anime that covers similar material. The bibliography in fact is identical. Which is fine for Fudge I guess, but a little odd all the same.
I also have a post about Fudge/Fate coming up sometime soon.

Bounty Head Bebop
A game using the Inverted 20 system.  I reviewed it here.

Open Anime
This one just came out from Battlefield Press.  Looking to buy it here soon.

Random Anime
I have never been able to find a copy of this game, but have wanted to try it out.

I'll detail some of these games in, well, detail, as the weeks progress.  I'll start with BESM since that is where I started.  I am most looking forward to OVA and CAH:2.

Looking at any Game through the Anime Lens
What happens when you add a bit of Anime to your games?

Well some things change that is certain. Obviously the easiest answer is, it's the same game only there is more of it. Black Cat above notwithstanding there is more to it than that.

I'll try to detail that when I deal with each game, but the idea is this is something different.  I in fact separated out my normal Unisystem-based Willow and Tara game (the Dragon and the Phoenix universe) and my anime based Willow and Tara the Animated Series.  They had a lot of things in common, but enough differences that I was compelled to make them different worlds.  With doing things Anime or Manga it is ok to break the rules that are often the sacred cows of the normal worlds.  For example, in the Marvel Universe Iron Man is Tony Stark, but in th eMarvel Manga universe it Toni Stark who is the Iron Maiden and the Hulk is a 70 ft tall Godzilla like monster. Small changes, but there are a lot like that.

Cartoons and Anime

I am gearing up for a bunch of posts on Cartoon and Anime RPGs.

Not really a genre (like Horror, Fantasy or Supers) it sort of covers them all really.  It is more of a style to be honest.

With anime and Cartoon RPGs you can do things that would seem crazy or otherwise rule breaking in other games.  They can be silly, or very deadly.

Why?  Well I have picked up a few new games.  Cartoon Action Hour Season 2 and OVA.  I will also likely pick up Open Anime from Battlefield Press, so I'll mention that too.  But I am going to start off with the game that got me into all this mess, the late, great BESM.

Given how much I like horror and magic, I am certainly going to look at those from an animated perspective. And what can Anime/Cartoon RPGs help all games with.

Treasure Discovery!

So I found a disk I had burned a bunch stuff.  Mostly this was some writing I had done back in the days of the Buffy-Angel playtests and then later the Ghosts of Albion playtests.

Most of it will stay on the disk.  It is either too old or not really representative of the kinds of things I do now.  But here and there there are some gems I had forgotten about. So things that would make for some good posts. Mostly Unisystem, there is also some d20 stuff, a few other systems, and even I think something for AD&D 2nd ed.  Quite an assortment really.

It might take me a bit to sort it all out, and then a bit more to bring anything on it to post-able quality, but I am looking forward to it.

GROGNARDIA: A Common Culture

Saw this today on Grognardia: GROGNARDIA: A Common Culture

Where I grew up Metal and D&D were hand in hand. My first DM was a fan of Iron Maiden and other NWOBHM bands like no other I have since and my next, more regular DM was a fan of all sorts of metal, but also Rush. The covers looked like D&D books, complete with swords, magical looking figures and monsters. It was hard to tell where one had influenced the other.

A quick look at some of the titles of game adventures I have written over the years also shows how deeply I felt this connection: "Veteran of the Psychic Wars", "All Along the Watchtower", "Rainbow in the Dark", I even built an entire series based on the premise that music and RPGs are a natural fit, "The Hex Girls".

I guess though it has a lot to do with where you grew up and when.

Pseudo Slayers

Meetings all day today, so here is a post I had ready a while back.
I have used this in my own Ghosts of Albion games as a way to introduce slayers without the ick factor that later came with them.

It is no secret that I hated the "official" explanation for Slayers. It is a thinly veiled gang rape sequence that implies that a woman can not be empowered until after she has been subjected to a defilement by men (see "I Spit on Your Grave" for a glaring example of this, a movie Whedon as discussed in the past).  Sorry, gore-porn doesn't do it for me.  It is also no secret that I also prefer my own "Angelic birthright" explanation ("Every Angel is Terrifying: The Secret and True Origin of the Slayer and Watchers").

But that doesn’t mean I can’t use this for my own purposes. Let’s go with the idea that Slayers are the offspring of Lilith, but the Watchers, in their own hubris and arrogance decided to try to create a Slayer of their own, using the methods seen (well, seen by you all, I won’t watch it) in Season 7. What they produced though was almost, but not quite a Slayer. And if the Watchers tried doing it you can be assured that they were not alone.

Pseudo Slayers

There have been various attempts to re-create the same circumstances that created the Slayer over the last few millennia. Some have met with success, but most have been abject failures. What follows are three different types of pseudo slayers, one created by the hubris of the Watchers, one created as a tool by the Government and a third group as soldiers in a private war.

All pseudo slayers share the same basic abilities of a natural slayer, save for the visions.

Despite the lack of visions slayers and pseudo slayers instantly recognize each other for what they are. There is at least that level of psychic communication to allow that.

How a Slayer deals with a Pseudo Slayer will depend on the Slayer in question.

The Demonic Slayer

This Pseudo-Slayer was created by the machinations and hubris of a group of Watchers. Already believing the lies told to them by the Demon Belial it was not difficult to convince them to try this blasphemy. What transpired here was later recorded in the official records as the "true" version of the Slayer’s origins. But what was not included was the fate of girl they violated.

The demonic Slayer was a normal girl from a local village subjected to attacks by vampires. The Watchers came to the village claiming they could help, but in exchange they needed a young girl. Fear makes people do things they would not normally consider, so the girl was given to them. After the process the Watchers claimed a new Slayer was discovered and she would fight the creatures of the night. And fight she did. It was not so much of a battle as it was a slaughter. Vampires troubled the village no more, but that was only the beginning of the nightmare. The girl became more and more troubled. She was violent, irrational and many times regressed to a state like that of a much younger child. She alternated between periods of being "The Beast" a mindless killing machine that could not tell friend from foe and "The Child" a helpless creature with the mentality of a five year old. The village begged the Watchers to make her right again; to bring back the young woman they had destroyed. They never got the chance. During one of her episodes as "The Child" the Watchers lured her back to place where they had "made" her. In her fear with memories of her pain and suffering flooding back she reverted to "The Beast" and killed them all. The villagers last saw the girl running into the night. Other Watchers came, tried to find her, but in the end took the writings of their dead brethren and returned to their own lands. It is unknown if she is still alive, but reports as late as 1987 has speculated that her conversion process has kept her alive.

Demonic Slayer

Motivation: Kill
Attributes: STR 9, DEX 9, CON 8, INT 1, PER 7, WIL 5
Ability Scores: Muscle 24, Combat 26, Brains 16
Life Points: 97
Abilities: Attractiveness -1, Hard to Kill 5 (total), Slayer* (no obligation, no visions)

Combat
Name Score Damage
Dodge 26 -
Kick 25 20
Punch 26 18
Stake 26 18

The Initiative Slayer

There is an old saying in the halls of Government. Why build one thing, when you can have two at twice the price. The Initiative fully endorsed this principle. While Maggie Walsh’s ADAM project was deemed a categorical failure it did produce positive research gains. These research notes, as well as some Slayer DNA the Initiative acquired lead to their next project. Not a demonic army they could control, but rather a Slayer Army.

Slayer DNA has proven to be outrageously difficult to clone, so adjustments needed to be made with the DNA of various demonic creatures. Based on data obtained by the Bureau, Lilim and Seraph DNA was acquired. After many trials, a viable clone was created.

The clone, named Galatea, appears to be identical to her template, Buffy Summers, with minor augmentations. Her strength and speed have been enhanced. Her biology has been advanced to what has been described as the "Slayer Sweet Spot" of ability, or about 17 years of age. Galatea also has one other difference from Buffy. Galatea’s eyes are blue.

Galatea is aware of Buffy, they are linked on some sub-psychic level, and Buffy may even be aware of her. Currently Galatea is bidding her time, she is still employed by the Initiative (though they consider her "property") but she will make her break from them and her first stop is wherever Buffy Summers is.

(This is al loosely based on the JLU episode "Fearful Symmetry" and an off comment once comparing Buffy to Power Girl. Galatea is of course from Pygmalion).

Initiative Slayer "Galatea"

Motivation: Kill for her country; find Buffy Summers
Attributes: STR 9, DEX 9, CON 8, INT 3, PER 5, WIL 6
Ability Scores: Muscle 24, Combat 26, Brains 20
Life Points: 109
Abilities: Attractiveness +3, Slayer* (no visions, but knows what Buffy knows)

Combat
Name Score Dam
Dodge 26 -
Kick 25 20
Punch 26 18
Stake 26 18

The Thaumaturgic Slayer

Where the Demonic and Initiative Slayers were created as a means for two groups to control the power of the Slayer in some fashion, the Thaumaturic Slayer (also known as the Necromantic Slayer) was created simply as the best tool for a job.

The first group of Thaumaturgic Slayers (they are always created in groups in 4 or 5) were created by a faction of Mages to battle another faction.

The Delor and Animus factions had been fighting each other for unknown centuries. In the latest round of battles the Animus clan had been cursed by the Delor to a "living death"; their elders do not die, but instead persist in a semi-dead state. This is anathema to a group of mages that rely on the spirits of their dead elders to guide them. In turn Animus cursed Delor and Delor sent more undead monsters to fight Animus. As Mages, Animus felt that physical combat was beneath them (as do the Delor), so given that they were being attacked by undead monsters they discovered the means of replicating the Slayer. They take young girls, 15-17, and ritually kill them. They are then reanimated in new bodies made from magic. These new bodies are identical to their own save they are much stronger and faster. The girls are then summoned by agents of Animus to fight the monsters set out by Delor.

As of 2006 the battle has taken a new turn. Delor is now in passion of the magical tome that Animus uses to create their own Slayers. In the last creation five girls in New York City were converted, but one, Lise, was killed and taken by Delor. The other girls, Kate, Rachel, Rose, and Claire, have been converted and know they must battle Delor directly. If they succeed they will be allowed to return to their old lives.

Thaumaturgic Slayer

The thaumaturgic slayer uses same stats as a standard Slayer. While they do not receive visions or prophecies, they are aware of each other and when and where they are needed.
(Note: The Thaumaturgic Slayer is very loosely based on the Anime "Red Garden" and "Red Garden: Dead Girls", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Garden)

Reflection time!

Lot's going on around the ole' Other Side over the last few days. Let's recap.

New Followers
Welcome all new followers and thank you for your continued support to all!  If there is anything you would like to see me opine about, shoot me an email or a post.  I turned off moderation, which means I do get the occasional spammer, but I thought it would be better for ease of communications.

Ronnie Jame Dio
RJD died.  Truthfully he was as much an influence on my games as are names like Moorcock and Tolkien.  OK, maybe not that much, but he was still an influence.

Twilight the RPG
WOW. That struck a nerve.  I want to spend some more time on this one.  Just not sure what else I want to say yet.

Pathfinder weekend
Got to play Pathfinder with "the big kids" again this weekend.  I am just 125 XP for leveling up!   IT was a great time.  We were also just a table down from where Mike "Chgwiz" was playing his old school OSRIC game.  I didn't talk to him about his leaving the blog scene (I thought that would be rude), but it sounds like he has a hell of a game going.  So that is awesome.

More later today I think.