I is for Icons

ICONS

I enjoy Supers games. I don't get to play them as often as I would like, but I enjoy them all the same.  I had been playing M&M 2ed and just picked up BASH! so I was hesitant to also get Icons.  But Icons comes with a pretty good pedigree.  First it is written by Steven Kenson, who gave us Mutants and Masterminds and also worked on Silver Age Sentinels.  Steve obviously knows his supers.  It has Gareth-Michael Skarka of Adamant Entertainment and one of the minds behind "Hong Kong Action Theater". Walt Ciechanowski has a ton of game systems under his belt too including M&M, True20 and Victoriana (1st ed). And Morgan Davie, whom I'll admit I am not as familiar with.  But he is one of the guys that wrote Icons, so that makes him good in my book.

Comics are a visual medium.  Full of art and color and eye catching action.  Icons is the same.  It is a really good looking book, especially one that has such a "retro" or even "indie" feel to it.  It lives somewhere between the free flowing cartoon fun of Cartoon Action Hour and the slick, high production values of Mutants and Masterminds.  All three of these games are fantastic and their style really tells us a lot about what they are about.  Icons is a comic book game that is close to a Saturday Morning Super Heroes cartoon.  The art, which some people have disliked, I think sets the perfect mood for this book.  It is simple art, but it is good art and has a earnestness about that I like.  That is also true for the rules.

Icons, as you may or may not have heard, is powered by FATE. Though the typical FATE/Fudge trappings of naming the power levels is gone in favor of numbers (sort of a step backwards from the FATE perspective, but fine for me). There is the option for named levels too, and I think it would fit the style of comic book action, but I myself prefer numbers. The scale is pretty simple, 1 to 10, with 3 an average.  So very similar already to a lot of games I play.

The rules themselves are really simple.  It is a modification of the dF system.  Use 2d6 with one as positive and one as negative, roll and add, apply mods.  Easy.  You can be up and running in less time than it takes to say "Meanwhile back at the Hall of Justice..."

Hero creation is unique for a modern game, it is random.  Not that you couldn't do it as a "point buy" system, but the randomness is what I think sets it away from BASH which can fill similar needs.

I feel I must at this point call out the Character Sheet.  Long ago I was a reader of Marvel and I  loved their "Whos Who" of the Marvel universe where they would have bar charts to rank their heroes on various attributes.  It was almost very game-like and I loved them.  Icons does something similar and it really gives their characters a different feel.

I would be lying if I didn't see bits of pieces of Silver Age Sentinels or Mutants and Masterminds peeking out every so often.  That is fine with me.  That familiarity is a good thing in my mind.

Icons is not really the game I would use if I were going to run a multi-year, multi-arc long game; that's what Mutants and Masterminds is for.  But if I needed to run a supers game on a rainy afternoon or a convention or just something to have some fun with, then Icons is a great choice.

I also picked up The Mastermind Affair and it is a great little adventure that gives you the feel on how to run an Icons game.

Lantern Corp: Confidence

So my boys have been getting into Green Lantern a lot lately and have enjoyed all the new Lantern Corps in the whole emotional spectrum deal from "Blackest Night".

So I got them some rings, a green for my youngest and a blue for my oldest, their favorite colors.  Today my oldest decided that he needed a new one; Aquamarine.   Here is his logic:

"Aquamarine rings are for Green Lanterns that are exceptional. They are the best so they get a Blue Ring, but it becomes like Turquoise or Aquamarine.  Their power comes from Confidence."

So he drew a picture (then we later did it up in Photoshop) and he wrote their oath.

Here is the oath according to Liam:

In wounded day, in Bleeding night

Confidence shall rise

To the sight of Aquamarine Light!

If we come up with an Aquamarine Lantern character we will stat him up in M&M3/DCA for you all to see.

H is also for Hobbit and Halfling

I don't pretend to be particularly original with everything I do in my games for fun.  I produce a ton of original material all the time, but sometimes I like to let others do the heavy lifting.  In this case I like it when a 119 year old English professor does the lifting for me.

1980 was a good year.  I had been introduced to D&D the year before and got my copy of the Basic set and I discovered the world of The Hobbit.  Sure I had seen the cartoon movie on TV and remembered it, but this was the year I read the book.  From that point on I have made it a priority to re-read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings at least every three or so years.  Frankly nothing else in the literary world even remotely comes close in my mind.

So then it should be no surprise that my D&D worlds have halflings, and lots of them.
I pretty much use Prof. Tolkien's guide with my halflings too.  Short, stocky, prone to laziness or at least not having the desire to go anywhere, much less on adventures (make you late for dinner!).

I think it was this picture by Jeff Dee that made me look at halflings as a good character race.

I always figured this was the local halfling sheriff and he didn't trust "big ones" like this guy. And how cute is that halfling girl?

My first halfling was a easy going guy named Perrin. Perrin though liked human women. He was an odd one. My games steadily got more and more dangerous that a guy like Perrin would have easily gotten killed. He retired and lives in a folder in my basement. I kinda hope he retired, bought a nice little cottage in the country and married a Valkyrie Warrior Maid, 6 foot tall and cleavage you could ski off of.

In my world I have a lot of halfling sub-races.  I do stick with the common ones.
- Hairfoots (D&D) or Harfoots (Tolkien) are the most common types.  These are your classical hobbits with hairy feet, slightly pointed ears and a tendency to be home-bodys.  These halflings get along well with dwarves.  These are the stereotypical hobbits.
- Stouts or Stoors are a touch shorter and tend to be more adventurous.  They get along well with humans and while not as numerous as the Harfoots tend to be the ones most humans see.  Their ears are more pointed.
- Tallfellows or Fallohides are a taller breed than the Harfoots, though no where near as numerous.  They have more pointed ears and are commonly found in the same areas as elves.    There is even speculation that the Fallohides have elf blood in their lineage.
- Lightfoots are the halflings that became popular with the advent of D&D3. Roughly the same size as Harfoots, the Lightfoots are notable for their desire to travel more and wear shoes.  The hair on their feet is sparse to nearly non-exsistent.
- Docrae a race of "cursed" halflings from the Blackmoor setting.  I have them closer in nature to the nomadic Native American tribes of the north.  A sad, stoic but hearty race.  I use some information on the Strongheart halflings from the Forgotten Realms here as well.
- Kender, the race of Kender of the hidden island nation of Ansalon believe they were created from gnomes. This is only half true. Kender are a magical, but now true, crossbreed of Gnome and Halfling.  There is even some speculation that Lightfoots are halflings that have bredd back with Kender as the two races have a number of similarities.

Halfling witches are known as Herb Women.

Halfling witches see themselves as the hands of their Mother Goddess. Allow the clerics to be Her eyes and voice; the halfling witch has work to do! This does cause some friction between the two set’s worshippers, but rarely among the populace. Halfling witches are most like their human cousins. More females pick up witchcraft, which they just call “the Craft,” than do males, but there has not been the history of persecution among the halfling witches as with the humans.

Halfling witches tend to be open and honest not only about their Craft, but many of their other opinions as well. While this makes them appear to be crass at times, it has also given rise to a popular saying among halfling youth, “If you want an Answer, ask a cleric. If you want the Truth, ask a witch!”.
Adventuring halflings are known to be full of wanderlust and a desire to see the world. Non-adventuring ones prefer the simple comforts of home, hearth and family. The halfling witch then is the self styled guardian of both halves of the halfling heart. The halfling witch is rarely an adventurer, but has been know to have accompanied adventurers in the past.

Halfling Herb Women fill many roles in the halfling community. First she is a center of wisdom and understanding folkways. In some respects she acts as an informal teacher outside of the halfling home. She is a healer, often a seller of herbs, remedies and minor magic. She may perform marriages (handfastings) and most importantly she is also the community’s mid-wife. Few, except the most knowledgeable clerics can match her wisdom in the ways of bringing the young into the world.

As mentioned previously, halfling witches are very similar to human ones, except there is no history of prosecution for the Herb Women, so nearly all Herb Women display the sign of their trade openly for all to see–a broom propped outside of their door. Each morning the herb woman will rise and sweep her back stoop or porch to signify that she is open. She will then place the broom outside of the door and leave the door open. This is a welcome invitation for the community who may stop by to buy her wares or even to gossip. It is believed that if the broom falls as someone walks in then that person is either special or under a curse. Since the herb woman’s shop is often her kitchen she can very well be fixing dinner all day while chatting with customers. When the witch closes her store she places the broom across the door as a lock. The ritual tool for the halfling witch is of course the Besom, or witch’s broom.

Herb women get along very well with most human witches of all sorts, Elven Kuruni and of course Gnomish Good Walkers. They are typically any non-evil alignment, but individuals have their own choices.

Reviews at DriveThru

Working on cleaning up some of my "to be reviewed" files on my flash drive.

Trollops Of Destiny
At $1.19 I was not expecting a lot. I did get a book of 7 NPCs that I could use in any fantasy/historical style game. With a bit of work I could use them in almost any game, so the utility seems to be pretty high. But the issue I have this (one of them anyway) is there is not really enough information here. There are background sketches and motivations. There is an idea of how each character compares to the commoners of the time (intelligence, skills, wealth) and presented in a way to aid conversions into any system. There are also some adventure hooks and use ideas.

But there are some issues I have with it. First the art, that is there, is not really related to the text. Some art of the women in question would be nice. And "Trollops". Really? Why not just women or Femme Fatales but Trollops? And I am not sure what the whole "Destiny" thing is about. I know these are supposed to be archetypes, but they are very close to being stereotypes.

At the end of the day, it's nine pages for under a buck and a quarter. I would have rather paid more and gotten more I think.
3 out of 5 stars

Dudes of Legend (Full Version)
Be Epic.

Semi-serious, but very much tongue-in-cheek, this started out as an joke that people really loved. Is it irony to use it seriously in a game or self-referential humor? Sometime to break through the cliche is to embrace it.

It is the source book on how we wish the guys at White Wolf really were.

Every White Wolf player cliche of the 90s and on is here, and not just presented, but embraced and loving brought to us as if it were the only True Way to play. What is so funny here is that the stats for everything seem rock solid. They really put some care and attention to this.

White Wolf's April Fools jokes are usually pretty good and this one is no exception.

Grab your katana, trenchcoat and this book and be the Epic Awesome Legend you are.
5 out of 5 Stars

Player Races: Dragon Men
Misfit Studios gives us another fantasy race for Savage Worlds. This time we have Dragonmen, humanoid dragons. The document is not large, but does exactly what it needs to do. Description of the race, point values as a race and ways to use them in your game.

Good product for the price.
5 out of 5 Stars

Forgotten Foes Clip Art 1
Forgotten Foes Clip Art 3
Forgotten Foes Clip Art 4
12-14 excellent pieces of art to use as monster or character art or use in your own products with included license. All are black and white, but have a feel about them like you are reading a high-end bestiary. What would be nice if someone came up with stats for these for their own games. These are more inline with the classic monster books of the 1980s. The quality is great and the monsters/characters are good fantasy fare.
Includes a PDF for easy viewing.
4 to 5 out of 5 Stars

The Northland Saga Part 1 - Veangeance of the Long Serpent, Swords and Wizardry Edition
The Northland Saga Part 1 - Veangeance of the Long Serpent, Pathfinder Edition
I picked this up because I am playing in a Pathfinder game called "The Northlands Group" (unrelated). I am glad I did since this is a very interesting little adventure for low-mid level characters. Combining different cultures (Eskimo, Viking/Norse and others) and working on the "Lot's of planets have a north" theory, this adventure can be easily dropped into any campaign world. Brought to us by Frog God Games, which is what was Necromancer Games, it has the same high quality layout and writing you would expect from Necromancer.

This adventure comes in both Pathfinder and Swords & Wizardry versions, but I did not see any loss of fidelity from one version or the other, just the mechanics have changed. The Pathfinder version is longer by 4 pages, but that is entirely due to stat blocks. It would be interesting to me anyway to hear how the playtests for the different versions went. Is there that much of a difference in playability. In any case this adventure is a very good example of how the game design can change in 3+ decades, but game play is still what matters.

Designed as part of Frog Gods new Northlands campaign setting it shows a lot of promise and certainly will be something I am going to want to pick up and use.
5 out of 5 Stars

Undefeatable: The Collected Feats Sourcebook (PFRPG)
The collected volumes of Undefeatable for d20/Pathfinder. 90+ pages of feats for all sorts of characters and situations.
A good resource to have. Nothing jumped out at me as particularly broken or munchkin, and I read many feats that were of the very useful sort. Some do seem to blur the line a bit between 3.x feat and 4e powers, but that is not a big deal to me.
4 out of 5 Stars

[PFRPG] Moon's Folly
I love little towns with a lot of mystery. I love weird, freaky cults and weird, freaky goings on. And I love material that I can use in any setting, especially my own.
So I snatched up Moon's Folly in a hurry.
So take a town, plant it near a pre-historic megalithic structure. Fill it full of humans, elves, fey and lycanthropes and all peacefully worshiping the Moon Goddess, add your PCs and I am sure something is going to happen. But in case you are at a loss for ideas, there are plenty in this book. Did I mention that there some lumberers wanting to cut down the forest for profit? Yeah they are there too.

Reminds me a bit of the Village of Hommlet, if Hommlet was in the Scottish Highlands surrounded by dryads.
There are plenty of other secrets and plenty of NPCs to keep a Game Master occupied.

The one thing it is missing though is some sort of threat the Characters can solve the old-fashioned way, with sense violence. Not a requirement mind you, but players do enjoy a good combat session. The Keep had the Caves of Chaos, Hommlet had the Temple of Elemental Evil and Moon's Folly could do with something similar.

All in all, an enjoyable work and a great starting place for a group of new adventurers.
4 out of 5 Stars

Tobyart 006
Tobyart 007
Tobyart 008
Tobyart 009
Tobyart 010
Good line art to use as a character portrait, stock image or even for your own publications.
The license is included and easy to understand
5 out of 5 Stars

Bill Coffin's Septimus
Bill Coffin's Magnum Opus Septimus is yours for the asking.
Using the D6 system you can now play in this far future setting of a dying empire and a huge Dyson's Sphere.

This book is the ultimate in expression of the D6 system. Everything you need to play for years is here. Like the characters, there is so much to uncover here that it would take a group years to run out of ideas. If you area fan of Dune, Foundation or of the D6 system, then this really is a must have.
4 out of 5 Stars

Arcane Flavor
Need more background for your wizards or a cool place for them visit? Then this is the book for you. Living in a world full of magic should make for some magical lands and people, Arcane Flavor present five such cultures. Easily added to any campaign world. Each city, culture or locale also comes with new powers, spells, feats or rituals that are common to that region (and no where else!)
Cailleath is a fey city like no other. It's people are a strange assortment for any world and getting stranger all the time! It is a magic cosmopolitan filled with wonders not possible anywhere else in the world, or worlds, given it's nature.
The Valok are nomadic peoples with their own stories and songs and these contain power.
The Merry-Bedlam Company stretches this idea even further with a large extended theater family whose original race is no longer clear.
Karxal is a arid nightmare of a land, all the more reason to find arcanists devoted to beauty.
And finally to strike fear into hearts of power mad wizards everywhere are The Ternion.

The product has good layout and everything is very clear to read. The art is also good.

The rules are 4th Edition, but there is enough background here that it would be good for any game.
5 out of 5 Stars

Smallville High School Yearbook
An excellent source book to use with Smallville focused on the what really is the core concept of the show; Clark in High School. As expected the layout and art is top notch, this is a fantastic looking book. I love the whole "Yearbook" motif, very clever.

In you play Smallville, then this is a must have.
If you play any other game based in or around a High School then this is also a great resource to have on hand for character development. I loved the idea of the cliques and think I see a bit of the "Leverage" design philosophy in this game as well. In the end it makes for a much cool game.

Very much worth the download.
5 out of 5 Stars

[PFRPG] The Genius Guide to Fire Magic
Every group has one. I have had several. That wizard that is a complete pyro. It makes sense, fire causes a lot of damage, cleans up dungeons and the preferred weapon against most undead. Now the Super Genius' have given us this useful tome.

Tons of fire magic (including a new one, Steam) and ways to use your fire based spells and spellcasters. I got this one for my sun and his "Fire Wizard" so I am going to be getting a lot of use out of this one.
5 out of 5 Stars

Zatannurday: H is for Hex Girls!

There was a recent episode of "Batman the Brave and the Bold" that featured a cross-over of Batman and Scooby-Doo.  This is the latest incarnation of Scooby, "Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated".

Of course this easily reminds me of the old Scooby-Doo movies that featured Batman and Robin in ther "Super Friends" years.  We have that one on DVD (both movies)  and we are looking forward to seeing this new one, "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!".

This got me thinking.  If Batman and Scooby-Doo can have a crossover, why not Zatanna and the Hex Girls!  The set up should not be too hard really.  Both are scheduled to perform at the same town/locale and something weird happens (something weird always happens) and all four would be needed to solve the mystery/case!  It's really not all that far-fetched given the logic of both universes.  Plus Jennifer Hale does the voice of both Thorn and Zatanna so that is not a stretch, obviously I am not the only one to think so.  An on going gag can be that the Hex Girls are bit star struck with Zee and in the end she is the one that asks them to autograph copies of their CDs (That is if Zee is an NPC).

It would be a cool one-shot, or part of an on-going Hex Girls game.
Now the question is, what system to use?

For a one shot or one off adventure like this I would not use Smallville's version of Cortex since I think it works better with a season long plot and Hex Girls games are more "monster of the week".
Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition might also be a good choice.  Zatanna is already stated out in the DC Adventures book.

I have done Zatanna and Hex Girls for Witch Girls Adventures and that still feels like the best first choice.

Cartoon Action Hour would also be fun, and the new look for the Hex Girls that I was using for CAH:2 fits well with the Bruce Timm design of Zatanna.

So what would the focus of the adventure be?  Something bigger than a Chupacabra or ghost.  No we would need something worthy of Zatanna.  Maybe Modru.  I never liked that guy, and even though he is more of a Legion of Superheroes bad guy, he has the magic to go up against Zee.  Modru it is.
I think I'll even pull a cliché out of the bag and have Modru turn Zee evil and the Hex Girls (ie the players) have to turn her back to good and then defeat Modru.

And in typical Scooby-Doo/Hex Girls fashion the girls play a song (I am thinking "Magic" by America) at the end, with Zee on stage doing some magic.

Maybe this is the start of a Season 3.

Here are some other Hex Girls posts

• Unisystem and Witch Girls Adventures
• Cartoon Action Hour 2
• New Hex Girls
• Cortex
• Those Meddling Kids

And Zatanna for Witch Girls Adventures.

Season of the Witch: Episode 13

Episode 13: All Along the Watchtower

May/June, 2005
Heatherfield, WA

No previously on “Willow & Tara: Season of the Witch” we pick up right where we left off.

Willow and Tara are separated by the newly repaired veil. A lot of things happen at once. Tara is screaming for Willow and collapses, but does not pass out. Cordelia and Bob both disappear. The Guardians “power down” and revert to their normal forms.

The members of the Witches’ Committee attempt to use magic to capture Tara, but all discover that they no longer have any magic at all. S.A.V.E. (Nigel, Faith and a couple of field agents) gets in between them with guns (Faith, btw no longer feels like a Slayer). At some point the Daughters of Flame had arrived and are now surrounding Tara to protect her from anyone that might cross their line. It looks like everyone is going to resort to physical fighting. In what would later be called “Tapping a Line” in my games, Tara, the only Mage in the group, screams “Enough” and summons up enough magic to physically move everyone away from her. Think of those anime shows where the hero summons up magic. So lit from the bottom, hair flying wild, glowing eyes.

Tara manages to round up the groups and sets them into figuring out what is going on. I tell her player she can still feel Willow, but it is weak and distant. She can tell that Willow is still alive, but that is it.

With Bob and Cordilia gone I get their players to play Nigel (and Faith, representing S.A.V.E.) and Morgan (representing the Witches’ Committee). I slip them notes with what their ultimate goal is. S.A.V.E. wants to keep the veil closed so there are no more magical threats. Nigel though wants Tara to be with Willow because of his own guilt with Megan and Bob. The Witches Committee wants the veil to be removed since they have the most to gain in a world of magic. Lilith is also there, being represented by Anya. She is an NPC, but Lilith’s interests are maintain the status-quo. But she has plans for either outcomes. The Guardians for the first time in years have nothing to guard. They have no powers and they feel lost.

While meeting and discussing the various merits of all the plans, Tara and company get a visitor. The Lich from Episode 10. Tara meets with him alone, everyone else is too terrified and too surprised to see him still walking around (they had gotten reports that all magical creatures were gone or dead).

On the other side of the veil, Willow is having the opposite problem. She is super powerful, but everything she throws at the veil does nothing to change it. She is joined by Coyote. He mocks her a bit, saying this what the old Willow would have wanted, all this power. Willow tells him if the price for power is Tara then it is not worth it; That she would rather be a normal human, living a normal life as long as she is with Tara. Coyote tells her that maybe she can have both and he wanders off. Willow follows.

Tara and the Lich are meeting in a room, the Daughters begged her to allow a body guard, but Tara didn’t want one. The Lich tells her that they are linked, that she owes him but in the present state of the world there is no way she could pay him back. Tara figures out the other reason they are linked. Everyone else’s magic is gone, but his and hers. He was a Mage too. The Lich says that the only way they can settle their debt, and he indicates his mark on her, is to bring magic back to the world and not just the trickle that leaked through the Veil, all of it. Tara asks him what he wants in return. The Lich is silent.

Willow follows Coyote to the court of the Fae. Both the leaders of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts are there. The Seelie King and Queen treat Willow with an odd amount of respect. The Unseelie Queen is down-right friendly. King Oberon address Willow and says it has been over a hundred years since they last met. Willow is confused. Queen Maeve (the Unseelie Queen) tells her that the King refers to her past life when the Veil was erected by herself and her Anamchara.
The Seelie want the veil to remain closed, and have offered Willow a home on this side of it. The Unseelie want it open, Maeve enjoys humans and will miss the interactions. The court leaves Willow to think about her future, Coyote joins her.

Tara has decided to drop the veil. Living in a world with no magic is one thing, but living in a world with no Willow is another thing all together. Since she and the Lich are the only ones with magic she doesn’t even bother to tell the others.

Willow can feel Tara’s anxiety but does not know what it is about. She decides that living in a world full of magic is meaningless without Tara. She goes back to the Veil. Laughing, Coyote follows her telling her it is time to destroy the world.

At the Veil Tara is followed by the throng, wanting to see what she is going to do. She summons up her magic and tries to bring down the Veil. Nigel asks her to stop, telling her that if she drops the Veil she might not get it back up again.

On the other side Willow feels Tara at the Veil and uses her own magic to lower it. The Seelie Court detects this and are right on her heels trying to stop her. The Unseelie try to stop them.

The Veil is weakening as it does the people with magic on the other side begin to feel the return. The Guardians are first, and they are unsure what to do. The decide to help Tara. The Witches Committee member, Morgan, lends her magic as do the Daughters of the Flame.

On Willow’s side she can feel the flow of magic more and knows Tara is on the other side helping. Maeve is also lending her magic. So total we have five Guardians, three Daughters of the Flame, Morgan, Maeve, Willow and Tara, and the Lich for a total of 13 witches/mages.

The Veil falls.

Willow and Tara are reunited as magic rushes into the “real” world, banality rushes into the magical one.

The Guardians of the Veil are now the Guardians of the Watchtowers, each a mage in her respective element.
Morgan and the Daughters all have their magic levels increased.
Bob and Cordelia are back.
Maeve and the rest of the fae feel weaker in terms of magic, but they mention this is a temporary solution. King Obereon tells Willow and Tara that the pact forged in their past lives is now broken.
Two of the Daughters, Ceriweden and Brigh, offer themselves as their personal protectors as long as they draw breath.
Morgan can be heard on her cell phone talking away about setting up a press conference right away. She is ushered into a car that had just pulled up. She pauses to thank Willow and Tara and tells them they should come to offices, now that they are not trying to kidnap or kill them. They can do lunch.
Nigel and Faith mention they will figure out something to tell S.A.V.E., Faith kisses both girls on the cheeks and tells them not to be strangers anymore.

Tara looks out to see the Lich. It nods to her and she feels her mark burn. The Lich speaks in her mind, “there is still the debt”.

Tara feels ill, then light headed and she passes out.

--

Tara wakes in a hospital room. She is connected to an IV drip and Willow is sitting by her side. Bob is “pacing” the room. As soon as Tara sits up Cordelia orbs in. She tells them all the Elders are “Freaking out” but not as much as the demons. They are all crazy busy, but she felt they knew this was the direction everything was going to go. Now that they don’t have to cover up magic anymore they can concentrate more on fighting evil. Cordy gives Willow and Tara both a hug goodbye. She tells them she can’t be their Whitelighter anymore since they are Mages and she is needed elsewhere. But she will come by to see them when she can.
Cordelia orbs out.

Bob, who has been quiet this whole time says he has to go too. Tara protests, but he tells her that she is grown up and doesn’t need her daddy to help her back on to the horses anymore. He tells her this was how it was always going to be, he was here to help with the Awakening and that is what he did. He tells her he is tired, and he wants to see Megan again. Megan appears (played by Eliza Roberts again) she goes to Tara and hugs and kisses her. She also hugs Willow thanking her for being there and loving her daughter so much. She tells them both how proud she is of them and how exciting the future will be for them. She takes Bob’s hand and as they fade away they fade to their younger versions from the 1980s.

Tara is crying and Willow is holding her.

The doctor comes in, a young Indian man. He apologizes for being so late, saying that the ER has been a nightmare for the last 24 hours. He asks if Willow can leave so he can talk to the patient, Willow protests, but Tara mentions they are legal domestic partners and are married in the tenants of their faiths. That they are spending the rest of their lives together and that anything that she needs to know Willow needs to know too.

The doctor says, “Ok, this should be good news then. Congratulations Ms. Maclay, you are pregnant!”

The final scene is the stunned look on the girls’ faces.

--
Notes: Ok so big things here. Let’s break it all down.

No Big Bads: One of the things I wanted to do here was do a Season/Series/Arc/Campaign with no Big Bads. No final boss at the end of the level to fight. I am going to say that this was 100% a success. It did take some work to do. The mental place you are in when working on this game is a Big Bad. It’s what the show does, it’s what a lot of shows do.

The Awakening: The big season focus was on the Awakening, or the return of all Magic. Or as we said at the time, Magic was being outed. I felt that the world as it was could no longer exist. You can’t explain everything with gangs and PCP, you can’t even explain anything really. So the best plan was to have a world where everyone knew magic was real. We do it all the time in D&D and ShadowRun. My major influence here was the Piers Anthony “Incarnations of Immortality” series. Magic has returned to the world and it allows me make some rather big changes.

Pregnant: Yup. I got Tara knocked up. Well. Not me personally.
I wanted to keep the identity of the other parent secret for a while, but my Season 3 never quite got together the way I wanted. It got together in a completely different way, but more on that later.
Tara is pregnant. At the time we were building “The Dragon and the Phoenix” there was a meme of Tara getting pregnant stories. There were tons of them. Examples,  http://www.uberwillowtara.com/artfamily.htm  and http://www.uberwillowtara.com/artmothers.htm
I thought we should do our own take too. Taking a cue from Lisa , our co-author and resident Tara expert, I went to her Willow & Tara epic tale (700+ pages) “Unexpected Consequences” and got the name for Tara’s child, Brianna. Brianna was born Feb 2, 2006.

Who is the “father”? Well I wanted to do a lot of Red Herrings and things like that. Maybe even implicate the Lich, but in the end that never came to pass. Season Three picked up many years later, with a small “Mini-series” in between.

The father of Brianna is Willow.

You can even see where (and when) I came up with the idea, http://edenstudiosdiscussionboards.yuku.com/reply/21984#reply-21984

During the adourflame the girls suffered provide the magical catalyst, and they were certainly having enough sex at the time. This is also (I am told) a fairly common theme in lesbian authored Sci-Fi stories, so I suppose I should not have been surprised there were so many fics out there of it.

Ghosts of Albion: A lot of what happened in Season of the Witch made it one way or the other into Ghosts of Albion. These were our play tests. Anamchara casting rules became “William and Tamara Casting Together”, faeries, expanded vampires, magical philosophies, all of it came from these games. Mages obviously never made it to Ghosts, but we also did not have Protectors in Season of the Witch (except Milicent, and she was only there in the beginning).
This lead to a number of discussions with Chris Golden, Amber, and all my players on how different were William and Tamara compared to Willow and Tara. The answer of course is not much at all.

This was the last time I played with that group. I had a more local group forming at this point and we were getting back into D&D and Ghosts of Albion. We played a lot of games, thus continuing my “conversions” threads over the years, but it was not the same without my witches.

Where are Willow and Tara now?

Well the character sheets (hundreds of them, for several dozen games) sit in a 4-inch binder in my game room.

The characters?

Willow created a small software company that produced a new type of data encryption method. It was quickly bought by a larger company making millions for Willow and Tara. Willow was hired by the same company as an executive consultant. She helps other companies set up her software to protect their data. Willow herself uses the same software on her home computers to protect all the magical texts she has scanned in over the years.
Willow took her money to have special Subaru Outback converted to a hybrid car.

Tara completed her degree and is teaching Art History at a local private school. She is also a youth councilor at the school. She still has her mother’s spellbook/journals as well as her own. She wants to complete a Ph.D. but thinks she will wait till after Brianna is older. She is also starting to think she wants another child.

Brianna is four and is the spitting image of Willow.

They all live in a converted Brownstone in Boston, MA. Tara takes her bike to work everyday (when it is cold she laments giving her dad’s car to the vampires). They have not seen Cordy again, but have heard of her and some of her charges. They have seen Dawn a few times, she is currently in medical school where she uses her psychic powers to diagnosis and treat patients.

G is for Guardians

New Quality: Guardians of the Watchtowers for Classic and Cinematic Unisystem

Hail! Guardians of the Watchtower of the East, Powers of Air! from Calling the Guardians rite.
Guardians! Unite! - Wil Vandom, W.I.T.C.H.

I have used the idea of witch guardians before, both here and in my various games.

Guardian of the Watchtower
5 point Quality
Prerequisite: The Gift (Classic) or Sorcery (Cinematic).
Optional: Three other Witches to complete the circle.

The Guardians of the Watchtowers are special spiritual guardians that guard the four cardinal directions (North, East, South and West) and the four classical elements (Water, Air, Fire, Earth). To a human Guardian they grant certain boons when dealing with their preferred element or direction.

When facing their chosen direction, or casting spell (invocation) that deals with their chosen element the witch is at a +2 for all spell casting roles. If it is the opposing element or direction then the roll is -1 and if they surrounded on all sides by their opposing element the they cannot cast at all. Directors/Chroniclers with a sense for more exclusion can up this to -2 for the opposing element/direction and -1 for the other two, but then no surrounding element restriction.

For example, Bonnie from The Craft is the Guardian of the Watchtower of the South, her element is Fire. She gains +2 when facing south or when casting a fire based spell (but not both at the same time). She is at a -1 when facing north or using a Water based spell. If she were surrounded by water she couldnt cast at all.

If we were to extend this example to W.I.T.C.H., then when Cornelia casts a Earth based spell she gains a +2, but since that shows mythology/cosmology is more elemental based she would be at a -1 when using Water or Fire based magic and -2 when using Air based magic. She would not however be at a loss of magic when she is flying (surrounded by air).
This can be used as source of rumor for your games as well. An old superstition says that submerging a witch in water will rob her of her magic, which is true, for a fire-based Guardian of the Watchtower, but completely ineffective on the Water Guardian like Irma Lair from W.I.T.C.H.

Classic:
Essence Channeling: +2
Invocation: Willpower + invocation level + 2

Cinematic:
Willpower + occultism + sorcery + 2

Often to use this added power the witches need to engage in a minor ritual. For the Craft girls it was a night long ritual that gave them their power permanently. For the girls of W.I.T.C.H. it is minor one that must be repeated (at least once per episode).

The advantage comes when all four (five for the W.I.T.C.H. example, with Wills element as pure magical essence) use their magic together. All minuses are dropped, regardless of the direction facing or element used, and all may contribute their +2 to the group spell casting. In W.I.T.C.H. they augment this by each girl facing their cardinal direction with Will in the center. The Craft witches join in a circle.

This could be extended to other numbers of witches as well. The girls from Scholastics T*Witches could be seen as day and night for example; Camryn getting the benefit under the light of the sun and Alexandra during the moonlit hours. Great dramatic potential comes when they are able to cast together under a total solar eclipse.

Examples
Witch group	Number	Notes
W.I.T.C.H.	5	As listed, elements plus raw magic.
The Craft Girls	4	Elements and Directions
Charmed	3	Special case, Charmed One Quality supercedes
T*Witches	2	Day and Night or Sun and Moon
Ghosts of Albion, William and Tamara	2	Special case, Protector Quality supercedes
Willow and Tara	2	Special case, Anamchara Quality supercedes

Why 5 points?
For your 5 Quality or Metaphysics points you get the equivalent of raising your Will 2 points, or your Sorcery 2 points, or an invocation and Essence channeling increase of 2 points each. The drawbacks of course are this power increase is limited to only a quarter of the total spells/invocations out there and there is an associated power loss. Plus it is dramatically pleasing to have other witches to complete the circle.
Like most qualities there is a significant roleplaying element that goes beyond the stats. Sure, W.I.T.C.H. might be interesting with just Will, we have seen many shows like that, but then it would be just W. I guess. The drama comes from the interaction of all the different elements. No pun intended.

Using Guardians in Your Game
This obviously works best, both game level and dramatically, when you have a few witches to compliment the powers. In most game this would work great with a small coven of guest stars with great powers despite their young age or naivety in other occult matters. Personally, Id refrain from using them as villains, they could become quite powerful together and you would miss your chance to have them explain to the Cast who and what they are.
It is also possible that they are short one member and a Cast member has the complimentary outlook/power.

In Classic Unisystem games, this quality is most common among the Wicce, although some small groups of Solitaries can sometimes band together and form an ersatz covenant based on their own personal outlooks.