Willow and Tara: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying

I am still playing around a bit with Marvel Heroic Roleplaying now that I have seen it out in the stores.  Saw a copy at my local Barnes & Nobel last night in fact.  I thought this might be appropriate for today.

"Willow and Tara" by David Reynolds

Willow and Tara in the Marvelverse
I have to admit, that anytime I think about the girls in a super hero universe I always think of it in terms of DC.  But the roleplaying and character development aspects of MHR are too good to ignore.
I have already done up my two DC go-to characters Zatanna and Justice with this system.  And I have stated up Willow and Tara in one other version of Cortex in the past.

For the girls in this universe I'll start with the assumptions that the events in my previous games, The Dragon and The Phoenix and Season of the Witch happened.  In fact even though this game was not part of the original plan it would work fine as part of the Generation HEX season I started and never finished.


Name: Willow
ID: Willow D. Rosenberg (public)
Age: 32 (2012)

Base of Operations: Boston, MA

Affiliations: Solo d8, Buddy d10, Team d6  (Willow in highschool was certainly more Team, but this is an older Willow)

Distinctions:
Bad Ass Wicca
Technophile
Quick to Anger

Power Sets
Sorcery d10
Magical Spells d10, Blast d10, Senses (magical) d10, Teleport d10, Telekinesis d10
Limit: Conscious Effort
SFX: Versatile
SFX: Area Attack

Anamchara d10  (Willow and Tara can combine their powers)
"I will always find you." (Telepathy) d8,  "I am you know...yours" (Combine) d10
Limit: Distance/focus
SFX: Multipower
SFX: Boost

Specialties 
Mystic d10
Tech d10
Cosmic d8
Science d8

Milestones
Magic
1xp You uncover some plot that is magical in nature.
3xp You discover some new magical tome or artifact.
10xp You defeat the main villain without magic.

Anger
1xp When you loose your temper
3xp When someone you are helping takes trauma
10 xp When your anger threatens the world, or saves it.

Willow in "Generation HEX" is one of the most power spell casters in the world.  But her own issues surrounding her anger still plague her.  She has turned to magic as a means of not just obtaining control over her situation, but of herself.  She is slowly getting there.


Name: Tara
ID: Tara A. Maclay (public)
Age: 33 (2012)

Base of Operations: Boston, MA

Affiliations: Solo d6, Buddy d10, Team d8  (Tara does best with Willow or in a group)

Distinctions:
Witchy Woman
Loyal
"Tara hide your magic" - Tara is a deep, quiet, well of magical power, but she has been told her whole life to hide it.

Power Sets
Sorcery d10
Magical Spells d10, Blast d8, Senses (magical) d10, Telekinesis d10
Limit: Conscious Effort
SFX: Versatile
SFX: Healing

Anamchara d10  (Willow and Tara can combine their powers)
"I will always find you." (Telepathy) d8,  "I am you know...yours" (Combine) d10
Limit: Distance/focus
SFX: Multipower
SFX: Boost

Specialties 
Mystic d10
Psych d10
Cosmic d8
Science d8

Milestones
Magic
1xp You uncover some plot that is magical in nature.
3xp You discover some new magical tome or artifact.
10xp You defeat the main villain without magic.

Soulmates
1xp When you or Willow are dragged into a problem together
3xp When someone uses you to get to Willow or visa-versa
10 xp When you have to work together after being apart to stop the threat

Tara is more self-actualized than Willow is.  She knows and accepts the dangers and responsibilities of her power.  What she is most afraid of is loosing Willow; either to death or darkness.   In my games the girls have seen many alternate realities, any reality without a Tara in it results in Willow turning evil and destroying things.

Willow and Tara have a lot of linked powers and milestones, as to be expected given their lives together.

To follow along with the Generation HEX plot ideas, they are living in Boston teaching at a school that has a lot of magical kids enrolled.  In my game they would of course know of Zatanna and I would still have to say they are not up to her power level on their own, combined though they could give Zee a run for her money. Not that they would mind you, Tara is a HUGE fan of Zatanna, I have this on authority.

Of course this would also be a good episode to have the girl visit the wilds of Canada and check out the Cave of Cool.

A to Z: Reflections Post

So the A to Z Blog Challenge is over for another April.  Not sure what I'll do next year, but I am sure  I am going to plan ahead for it better.

How did your journey through the alphabet go? Did you meet new bloggers with similar interests? Are there any you would like to feature and share with others?
Yes.  I joined several new-to-me blogs and found a bunch of books I wanted to read from my travels.

What were the highlights for you? (lowlights too...we want to hear it all)
Highlights for this blog was to get the word out on so man great games out to people that didn't know about them.  Lowlights...trying to do this for two blogs at the same time!

Did you enjoy posting daily? What was your biggest hurdle? What was your easiest task?
I tend to post everyday anyway.  Biggest hurdle was coming up with something appropriate for the letter in question that also fit with my theme.  Easiest part was finding games to talk about.

Was time management an issue? (I know, silly question, when isn’t time management an issue - but, it is worth reflecting on)
It did cut into my schedule quite a bit to be honest.

And what about your content - did you have a theme or did you wing it? Was it easy to come up with ideas for each letter, or were some harder? 
I had a theme and I stuck with it. But I had thought about it a lot and tried to find games ahead of time.

How about commenting - did you stumble upon lots of sites still using word verification? Did this prevent you from leaving a comment? What worked for your blog? 
I tried to visit every blog in the challenge.  Yes, I ran into a number that had Word Verification still turned on and it was annoying.   Though much worse than that were the people the had to approve my post/comment and then never did.
I keep word verification turned off. I would rather have it easier for my readers than worry about spam.

What will you do different next year? (Yes, you are doing this next year, you know you are, even if your brain is telling you to run for the hills - it appreciates the exercise)
Try to get more posts in before April!   Craft the posts in such a way to encourage more feedback.

What pearls of wisdom do you want to share with the Co-Hosts of this event? (We would love to hear from you and know what you think would make this awesome event even better)
There were a number of "dead" sites on the list and some were some that didn't link to their blog, but some other page.  You might want to get more Co-Hosts next year to help clean out the non-participants (the ones that signed up then never posted) and dead links.

So I ended up with a bunch of new followers.  50 on the Other Side and almost 20 on Freedom of Nonbelief, and very little overlap between the two.

My growth in views was not as much relative to last year.  But that is to be expected really.
I will be participating again next year.

Wayne Foundation Charity

Last year I posted about the Wayne Foundation and how they work to stop child sex trafficking.

They are having another Charity drive at DriveThruRPG/One Bookshelf.

All money goes to stopping the trafficking of children as sex slaves/merchandise.

Please consider this bundle of games, fiction and art.

Zatannurday: More Monday!

A while back I featured some pictures of Cosplayer Jettie Monday as Zatanna. It was, needless to say, a popular post.

So popular in fact that Jettie herself Tweeted about it, asking if I had seen her newest version of the costume.

Well I have now! :)
And imagine my delight when I saw they were Steampunk Zatanna!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.258798927493343.68039.209333585773211&type=3

So here they are by request and permission of Jettie herself!  Photos by Bill Nash, http://www.billn.net/
http://www.billn.net/Events/Causeplay-Las-Vegas-Sept-2011/19100465_Rw3GcM#!i=1486556791&k=wJBV74f

I think she looks fantastic!

So please "like" her on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/jettiemonday, and follow her on Twitter, http://twitter.com/#!/jettiemonday and view her Flickr page, http://www.flickr.com/people/jettiemonday/

One Solstice Night

So I enjoy reading lots of different types of books and the one thing the advent of the eBook has given me is access to authors I might not other know about and access to their books.  So I stepped outside my normal range of books and found this new-to-me author Elroa Bishop.


One Solstice Night

Take equal parts of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service” and give them a solid twist and make it a love story then you might have something close to One Solstice Night.  But you should read the book anyway just to be sure.

OSN is a new novella by Elora Bishop, http://elorabishop.wordpress.com.

A self described “Author of magical lesbian love stories” I had read her previous work, “The Witch Sea” and enjoyed it.  I got a copy of OSN and instead of completing my curriculum redesign I read it.  I am glad I did.

The book is rather short (one of the downsides) but very entertaining.  The book focuses on Isabella Fox (a very mediocre witch) and her talking familiar Alice.  Isabella has just been run out of her last town and she needs a new job.  As a witch for hire, especially one that is only so-so, she doesn’t have a lot of options.   So she ends up with the town of Benevolence (which is part of a series I guess).  Benevolence is quiet to be boring and she only has one spell to cast every year (and she is not even convinced it’s needed) and it would be the perfect gig.  Except for the Outcast.

There are a lot of cool locales that I hope we get to see in other books.  The Hag Bar in the World’s Largest Swamp was a really cool idea. It was very easy to see all these witches, holding brooms and their drinks walking around, drinking, chatting.  I wish I had thought of it.     Benevolence is an interesting town.  I enjoyed the causal magic people were using and Bishop did a great job of detailing the inhabitants.

What I liked about this tale is there is a certain timelessness about it.  No indication is given on when it takes place or even where, leaving it all up to your imagination.  I think this is a good thing to be honest.

We get witches as a given but we also get “Changers” which are people that can change into animals.  Not like werewolves, one minute they an animal the next they are human.  I liked it to be honest.

The love story part of this is between Isabella and another woman (natch) and it is very well handled.  There is nothing here that would be above a PG-13 level really.  The relationship builds over the course of the book and when it happens you believe it.

The climax of the book is something Isabella didn’t expect (nor did I) and frankly the action parts really pushed this book in my opinion.   I will not spoil the end, but I will say I can’t wait to read more about Isabella.

My only issue with the book.  It was not very long.  It is described as a novella, but it is on the short side of that I think.  I like short stories and this is closer in size to that (maybe longer) though the plotting is more novel like.  In truth though to make this story longer would have been unnatural.  There is a well defined begging, middle and end here and to make longer would have seemed odd.

In the end, girl finds girl and they live happily ever after.  At least till next year when she has to do the spell again. ;)
I would love to read more about Isabella’s future adventures.

What strikes me the most about this book is how much it would work as a Witch Girls Adventures setting.  http://channelmlive.com/witchgirls/wgahome.html and http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/channelm/witch-girls-book-of-shadows-witch-girls-second-edi

The Hag Bar would be right at home with everything else in Witch Girls.  I can also practically stat up Isabella Fox, Emily Deer, Mrs. Cat, Mrs. Goose and Alice in my head now.

It does make me want to read some of Bishop’s work.

WIP it Out

I was digging through my hard drive the other day.  Just looking through files after files of things I have written spanning 3 decades, 6 different computers, 8 different OSes and countless game systems.

I have a huge desire to get these out of my hands and into yours.  Either as free, purchase or whatever books.

So here are the statuses of my various "Works in Progress", or in this case "Witches in Progress".

The Witch (for Basic Era Games) is off to an editor for final edits.  Art has been purchased and then I can wrap-up the layout.

Eldritch Witchery for Spellcraft & Swordplay is off to a different editor.  Art has been purchased for that one as well.  That one will need some tweaks according to my editor, but that is expected to be honest.

The Complete Book of Witches & Warlocks (working title) is a Pathfinder update to my Liber Mysterium book.  It is a collection of everything I have done for d20/OGL witches.  Significant edits and rewrites to bring my witches in line with the Pathfinder one.

Here There Be Dragons... my son's old school (OSRIC/LL Advanced) book on various new dragons.  Written, needs edits and stat revisions.

On other fronts I have:

The Vampire Queen adventure.  Needs maps.  For Spellcraft & Swordplay.

Darwin's Guide. A collection of monsters for Gaslight.  Writing.

And some Ghosts of Albion adventures: (various stages of completion)

GoA: Obsession - who keeps killing singer Miriam White?
GoA: Blight - the Protector of Ireland is dead and you are prime suspect.
GoA: Wilderness - the Industrial Revolution is on hold when the Wood fights back.
GoA: Dinosauria! - You are invited to a most unusual New Year's Eve party.
GoA: Angst - strange goings on at a local school for girls.  Ran once. needs edits.
GoA: Underground - The new London underground train has unearthed something horrible.
GoA: Pygmalion  - an artist  is surround by death.
GoA: Synchronicity - what threat is so horrible that it takes the combined casts of Ghosts of Albion and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to stop?

Some of these would work for other systems.

Anyway. Lots of stuff. I'll need more time to sort it out, but no sense is letting it languish any more.

I get these moods every so often.  The desire to clean house. Normally it takes the shape of me packing up a bunch of my books and games and unloading them at the local game auction.  But the last time I did that I so regretted it that I vowed never to do it again.  So this time I'll create new books to unload.

White Dwarf Wednesday #14

We continue our trek through time and space back to England of the late 1970s with White Dwarf #14 from Aug/Sept 1979.

How do you know you are reading White Dwarf and not The Dragon?  The ads have topless women in them. This was not the first time I noticed this, but 6 pages into the issue and already I have seen 4 topless women.  Mind you I am not complaining, but I am pointing out how different the attitudes were between the American game circles and the overseas ones.  This is the same theme (differences between the two groups, not nudity) of the editorial.  Ian Livingstone discusses the differences between British conventions and American ones.  Ian mentions his recent trip to America and we get more of that later.

Andy Slack is back with more expansions to the Traveller Universe. White Dwarf was the reason I picked up Traveller in the first place.  I never quite wrapped my head around it to be honest.   I would love to try it again someday.

Don Turnbull is also back with the fiends of the Fiend Factory.  This seems to be the also-rans of the bunch since non of these made it to the Fiend Folio.  We get a demonic elphant (the Gurgotch), the group entity Mindweb,  an Energy Cyclone, the Gazer (a weird beholder-like creature made of 1000s of eyes) and a frozen naked girl, the Ice Maiden.  But there is something else to note here.  Along with last issue alignments are now presented in AD&D format, so Chaotic Evil, Neutral Good.  But this issue the Monstermark scores are gone.  We knew it was coming, but they are now gone.   Another interesting bit, a note added later (but before publication) mentions "The Folio" for the first time.

Open Box we have reviews of Traveller book 4 (Mercenary) and 1001 Characters.  They get a 9 and 6 respectively from Don Turnbull.    Some Judges Guild books, The Dragon Crown and Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green. Both of these were used as Convention adventures but they were not particularly well liked by Don Turnbull giving them only a 5 and 7 respectively.  Mostly due to spelling and print errors but alos for some odd rule interpretations.

We are treated to a Runequest adventure "Lair of the White Wyrm" by John Bethell which would work for D&D with some tweaks.  But I want to try it with CoC to be honest.

Treasure Chest gives us a one-page dungeon (see, there is nothing new under the sun), The Bath-House of the Pharaoh. Well it's one page, front and back.
The letters page concerns itself with various attacks and defenses of the Monstermark and Fiend Factory.

The big feature of the issue is an interview with Gary Gygax.
A lot of this is stuff we now know and take for granted.  Highlights:  At the time of the interview TSR had 20-25 employees and expected that to grow to over 30 or 40 by August of 1980.  He does credit Dave Arneson's campaign and Dave Megarry's Dungeon board game as influences.  At the time WD estimates there are 30,000 D&D players in the UK and GG estimates that there are 250,000 to 300,000 in the US and Canada.  When asked what extent have other games (RPGs) have had on D&D Gary says "None to speak of."   The World of Greyhawk is planned for the summer of 1980.

We end the magazine with the few pages of ads.

Certainly more ads this time around, but not as strong of issue as the last one was.