Character Creation Challenge: Voyages of the USS Challenger

 I have mentioned a few times this Character Creation Challenge that there are a few characters in Grenda's stack here that are homages to or inspired by my own characters. That was a two-way street. I already talked about how I used his Yoln as the Big Bad in my Buffy games. Today, I wanted to talk about a character that wasn't lifted but was certainly inspired. That would be John Adnerg, Captain of the USS Challenger. 

I figured then that today, the anniversary of the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger, would make for a good time to talk about it. And of course a nod to the Character Creation Challenge's founder, Carl Stark the TARDIS Captain himself. 

My original USS Challenger was a Galaxy-class starship for FASA's Star Trek game using the Next Generation Officer's Manual. I gave it the registry NCC-62901, placing it a couple of years after the launch of the USS Galaxy and USS Enterprise-D.  The registry comes from the zip code of the city where I went to university.

In these games, John Adnerg had been promoted from Captain to Admiral and was handing the ship over to his former first officer, Johan Werner. That is until disaster struck and sent the ship to the Andromeda Galaxy (2.5 mly away). Yeah, a little like Voyager, but I had this idea in 1989.  Of these games, I only ran "The Ship on the Edge of Forever" and "Ghost Ship." These games obviously informed me of what I wanted out of Thirteen Parsecs. 

I don't know if the USS Challenger ever got home. I might need to revisit that someday. 

Adm. John "The Wizard" Adnerg

Class: Diplomat
Level: 14
Species: Human
Alignment: Light Good
Background: Scholar 

Abilities
Strength: 14 (+1) 
Agility: 15 (+1) N
Toughness: 16 (+2) 
Intelligence: 14 (+1) N
Wits: 15 (+0)
Persona: 17 (+2) A

Fate Points: 1d
Defense Value: 1
Vitality: 7
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +4/+2/+1
Melee Bonus: +4 (base) 
Ranged Bonus: +4 (base)
Saves: +9 to Mental (Diplomat and Scholar background)

Diplomat Abilities
Contacts, Languages, Lore, Mesmerize Others, Suggestion, Slicer Skills (Sneak, Open Locks, Bypass Traps, Sleight of Hand, Fast Talk, Disguise), Read Languages.

John Adnerg was the Captain of the Galaxy Class Starship Challenger until he was promoted to Admiral. Nick named "The Wizard" for his ability to find ways out of nearly impossible situations and come out on top.

Yeah. I like this version of him.

This is not the only USS Challenger I have in my collection. I also finished building an NX refit from the 2150s that I am calling NX-03 Challenger. Though when the Federation formed in 2161, the NX-refit was renamed the Explorer Class, and the Challenger became NCC-099, the retroactive "first" of the class of Explorer class scientific research ships with the USS Beagle NCC-100, USS Endurance NCC-101, USS Roebuck NCC-102, and the USS Victoria NCC 103, all named for ships of exploration in Earth's past. 

My other Challenger, NCC 2032, is an Excelsior-class ship I am working on. That one was in service from 2278 on.

You can get the Thirteen Parsecs RPG, the  Wasted Lands RPG and the NIGHT SHIFT RPG at Elf Lair Games.

Character Creation Challenge: Corvell "Ice" Multane

Heading into the home stretch and have a stack of Forgotten Realms characters here. I am certainly going to use them in my own games in the Realms. 

"Corvell Multane" is a quintessential Grenda character name.  He comes from the same time period as does the HIVE. And much like the HIVE was influenced by my Spyder Society, this Ice seems (on the surface) to have been influenced by my "Ice" from three years prior. Was he trying to recreate some of my characters for his own game? I don't think so. I have found character sheets of some of my characters in his collection. If he wanted them in his game, he just used them. These characters are inspired by, but not the same as. 

Since I am translating these characters to the Wasted Lands, I think I am going to try to keep them as "Realms accurate" as I can. So that means classes RAW and little to no Heroic Touchstones. 

Corvell "Ice" Multane

Class: Warrior
Level: 1
Species: Human
Alignment: Light Neutral
Background: Warrior 

Abilities
Strength: 15 (+1) A
Agility: 16 (+2)
Toughness: 16 (+2) 
Intelligence: 16 (+2) N
Wits: 9 (+0)
Persona: 17 (+2) N

Fate Points: 1d8
Defense Value: 1
Vitality: 7
Degeneracy: 0*
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +2/+1/+0
Melee Bonus: +1 (base) 
Ranged Bonus: +1 (base)
Saves: +1 to all Saves, +2 to Toughness (Warrior background)

Warrior Abilities
Combat Expertise, Improved Defence, Melee Combat, Master of Battle, Ranged Combat, Supernatural Attacks (Melee), Spell Resistance, Tracking

Wow. Ok, I like that. I mean, there are no surprises here, but that is a clean-cut character and would do well in the Wasted Lands or Forgotten Realms. 

I will likely drop Degeneracy and Corruption if I continue these for the Forgotten Realms. Though, one could argue that Szass Tam is the model for both of these. 

This is going to be fun.

You can get the Wasted Lands RPG and the NIGHT SHIFT RPG at Elf Lair Games.

Mail Call: Even More Mayhem from Dark Wizard Games

 Ok. I totally forgot I backed these. Two new adventures (#10 and #11) from Mark Taormino's Maximum Mayhem adventures from Dark Wizard Games.

Fantastic Quest of Whimsical One (#10) & Lost Tomb of Mummy Lich (#11) are his two newest adventures and they fit into that nice sweet spot that Old-School Essentials covers so well. Though Legend of the Seven Golden Demons (#9) goes to the 18th level.

I have been doing so much with Wasted Lands lately, maybe I could try these out with that system!

Regardless of the system I choose to use, I am running out of room in my box!

Character Creation Challenge: Amok Silvertyne

 Amok Silvertyne is another Cheysuli Beastmaster. I know that needs translating. I have mentioned Cheysuli here before with Finn Danis, Vale Warmark, and my own Absom Sark. They are a race of shape-shifting warriors with animal companions known as Lyr (or Lir, I forget).  I have also talked about Beastmasters before. Beastmasters were one of the "Riddlemaster" classes that Grenda created along with Starmasters, Shadowmasters, and Riddlemasters proper. 

In this month of character postings I have found good substitutes for these classes in the Wasted Lands rules, or by dipping into the other O.G.R.E.S. classes. This has not been the case yet for Beastmasters. This is no fault of the Wasted Lands rules, more akin to the nature of the classes Grenda created. For my own Absom Sark I used the Beastmaster from the Complete B/X Adventurer. It works, but Amok here feels closer to the Riddlemasters than he does to the Beastmasters.

In Wasted Lands I think the best way to do this guy is make him a Psychic Warrior (Class from Thirteen Parsecs), give him the Animistic Background, make his species Supernatural (Lycanthrope), and round out the edges with some Heroic Touchstones. Granted, the Beastmaster, like all the Riddlemaster classes, are grossly overpowered, so I am not going to match him up power for power. But I want to get close to his concept.

Amok Silvertyne

Class: Mystic Warrior (from Thirteen Parsecs)
Level: 6
Species: Supernatural, Lycanthrope (from NIGHT SHIFT)
Alignment: Twilight Good
Background: Animistic 

Abilities
Strength: 16 (+2) N
Agility: 19 (+3) N
Toughness: 19 (+3) 
Intelligence: 19 (+3)  
Wits: 17 (+2) A
Persona: 17 (+2) 

Fate Points: 1d8
Defense Value: 0
Vitality: 45 
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +4/+2/+1
Melee Bonus: +3 (base) 
Ranged Bonus: +3 (base) 
Number of Attacks: 2
Saves: +1 vs saves

Mystic Warrior Abilities
Combat Mastery, Impossibly Agile, Mysticism, Lightning Fast, Survivor Skills, Free Running, Favored Weapon: Sword

Mystic Powers
Enhanced Senese, Danger Sense, Supernatural Attacks

Lycanthrope Powers
Shapechange into a wolf.

Heroic Touchstones
Level 1: Psychic Ability: Telepathy (animals)
Level 3: Spirit Guide: Direwolf ("Lorn")
Level 5: +1 to melee attacks

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Nature

Gear
Longsword, Dagger, Mace, Spear, Bow

This is rather good, to be honest. I was worried I would not be able to capture what this character was in Wasted Lands, but I never should have doubted. 

You can get the Wasted Lands RPG, the NIGHT SHIFT RPG, and Thirteen Parsecs RPG at Elf Lair Games.

Character Creation Challenge: Enter the HIVE!

 I wanted to spend a week doing evil characters, but my week got away from me. I was supposed to do these yesterday. Plus I also have another reason for doing these. My oldest is building a bunch of NPC adventuring parties. In his current game these adventuring guilds are akin to the social media celebrities of his world. They are all ranked, with the ones with the highest ranks getting the best sponsorship deals and merchandising deals. Groups with signature-named weapons do better since the weapons can be sold separately for their action figures.  

The Hive here are not highly ranked. But that is fine since he needs a few of them.

I am not 100% sure about the origin of these guys, but the timing and the names of the characters remind me of my own "Spyder Society" I had made a couple years before them.  I don't think they were made to be NPCs, these look like characters he was going to play at some point. Plus a few have what look like "play notes" on them.

What REALLY stands out about these characters though is they were made for the Forgotten Realms. This is interesting because I didn't even know Grenda, a hard core Greyhawk guy, was doing anything at all with the Realms. But they all worship evil gods from the Realms. He also has his city, Rivendell (not the Tolkien one), placed in the Realms somewhere. If I use them, I'll change that to Waterdeep. Though I would have liked to have known where he put his city on Faerûn.

There is a nice variety here, but all are 1st level (or so) and all are fairly standard AD&D classes. So translating them into Wasted Lands is pretty easy.

Cobra

Class: Renegade
Level: 1
Species: Human
Alignment: Dark Evil
Background: Warrior

Abilities
Strength: 18 (+3) N
Agility: 18 (+3) A
Toughness: 18 (+3) N 
Intelligence: 15 (+1) 
Wits: 16 (+1)
Persona: 18 (+3) 

Fate Points: 1d6
Defense Value: 1
Vitality: 10
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +2/+1/+0
Melee Bonus: +1 (base), 
Ranged Bonus: +1 (base)
Saves: +3 to Death Saves
Number of Attacks: 1

Renegade Abilities
Improved Defence, Ranged Combat, Stealth Skills, Climbing, Danger Sense (1-3 d6)

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: +1 to melee attacks

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Thug

Gear
Longsword, dagger, crossbow

Widow

Class: Renegade
Level: 1
Species: Dökkálfar
Alignment: Dark Evil
Background: Warrior

Abilities
Strength: 17 (+2) 
Agility: 18 (+3) A
Toughness: 17 (+2) N 
Intelligence: 18 (+3) N
Wits: 15 (+1)
Persona: 16 (+2) 

Fate Points: 1d6
Defense Value: 3
Vitality: 6
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +2/+1/+0
Melee Bonus: +1 (base), 
Ranged Bonus: +1 (base)
Saves: +3 to Death Saves
Number of Attacks: 1

Renegade Abilities
Improved Defence, Ranged Combat, Stealth Skills, Climbing, Danger Sense (1-3 d6)

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: 1 Level of Sorcerer

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Trickster

Gear
Longsword, dagger, dart

Pi

Class: Renegade/Necromancer
Level: 1/1
Species: Half-Ljósálfar
Alignment: Dark Evil
Background: Cult

Abilities
Strength: 17 (+2) 
Agility: 18 (+3) A
Toughness: 16 (+2)  
Intelligence: 16 (+2) N
Wits: 17 (+2) N
Persona: 15 (+2) 

Fate Points: 1d6
Defense Value: 1
Vitality: 7
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +2/+1/+0
Melee Bonus: +1 (base), 
Ranged Bonus: +1 (base)
Saves: +3 to Death Saves
Number of Attacks: 1

Necromancer Abilities
Channel the Dead, See Dead people, Turn Undead, Protection from the Dead

Renegade Abilities
Improved Defence, Ranged Combat, Stealth Skills, Climbing, Danger Sense (1-3 d6)

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: Psychic Power: Telekinesis 

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Speaker to the Dead

Gear
Shortsword, mace, dagger

Wasp

Class: Renegade/Sorcerer
Level: 3/3
Species: Deep Gnome
Alignment: Dark Evil
Background: Cult

Abilities
Strength: 17 (+2) 
Agility: 18 (+3) A
Toughness: 16 (+2)  
Intelligence: 17 (+2) A
Wits: 16 (+2) N
Persona: 15 (+2) 

Fate Points: 1d6
Defense Value: 4
Vitality: 13
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +3/+1/+0
Melee Bonus: +1 (base), 
Ranged Bonus: +1 (base)
Saves: +3 to Death Saves
Number of Attacks: 1

Renegade Abilities
Improved Defence, Ranged Combat, Stealth Skills, Climbing, Danger Sense (1-3 d6), Vital Strike

Sorcerer Abilities
Spell casting, Aracna (Enhanced Senses, Psychic Power Suggestion)

Sorcerer Spells
First Level: Chill Ray, Extinguish Light
Second Level: Invisibility

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: Psychic Power: Bio-feedback 
3rd Level: Luck Benefit

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Trickster

Gear
Shortsword, mace, dagger

Cottonmouth

Class: Renegade/Necromancer
Level: 1/1
Species: Half-orc
Alignment: Dark Evil
Background: Cult

Abilities
Strength: 17 (+2) 
Agility: 18 (+3) A
Toughness: 17 (+2)  
Intelligence: 16 (+2) N
Wits: 17 (+2) N
Persona: 10 (+0) 

Fate Points: 1d6
Defense Value: 1
Vitality: 8
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +2/+1/+0
Melee Bonus: +1 (base), 
Ranged Bonus: +1 (base)
Saves: +3 to Death Saves
Number of Attacks: 1

Necromancer Abilities
Channel the Dead, See Dead people, Turn Undead, Protection from the Dead

Renegade Abilities
Improved Defence, Ranged Combat, Stealth Skills, Climbing, Danger Sense (1-3 d6)

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: +1 to melee attacks

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Assassin

Gear
Bastardsword, morningstar, dagger

"The Shadow"

No idea who this is. "He" appears to be their boss or handler.  His name appears on all their sheets under Patron. It is likely that one of his own characters relocated to the Realms.

I must admit. I am tempted to reuse these characters for my own Forgotten Realms expropriations. A great set of antagonists for my Sinéad.

You can get the Wasted Lands RPG and the NIGHT SHIFT RPG at Elf Lair Games.

Character Creation Challenge: Eno Nosrep

 I don't know who this character is ("One Person"), but I do know what he is supposed to be. His class is Adept of the Spirit, which was our attempts to bring the Riddlemaster back down to a reasonable class, and use a name that wasn't going to get us into trouble if we had ever decided to publish it. 

We never got it to that point. I had bugged Grenda about it over the years and then again when the OSR scene first started going strong, but he was not interested in doing it then. It was always, "Yeah, I should do that soon." Well. That "soon" never came. I do admit some hesitation in releasing it now; I really don't, to be honest. But intellectually, I wonder how it would work for, say, Old School Essentials or one of the AD&D 1st clones.

For Wasted Lands, though, this is a perfect time for me to try him out as a Mystic Warrior from Thirteen Parsecs.

Eno Nosrep

Class: Mystic Warrior (from Thirteen Parsecs)
Level: 13
Species: Human
Alignment: Neutral
Background: Scholar

Abilities
Strength: 18 (+3) A
Agility: 17 (+2) 
Toughness: 18 (+3) N 
Intelligence: 17 (+2) 
Wits: 14 (+1)
Persona: 16 (+2) N

Fate Points: 1d10
Defense Value: 1
Vitality: 104
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +6/+4/+2
Melee Bonus: +5 (base), +3 (STR)
Ranged Bonus: +5 (base)
Saves: +5 to all Toughness Saves
Number of Attacks: 3

Mystic Warrior Abilities
Combat Mastery, Impossibly Agile, Mysticism, Lightning Fast, Survivor Skills, Free Running, Iron Will, Favored Weapon (+1 damage die), Mind over Body, Instant Kill

Powers
Danger Sense, Enhanced Senses, Supernatural Attacks

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: +1 to melee attacks
3rd Level: +1 to Wits Saves
5th Level:  Luck Benefit
7th Level: Psychic Ability: Telepathy
9th Level: +1 level of Sorcerer
11th Level: +1 level of Sorcerer
13th Level: +1 level of Sorcerer

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Mental Discipline

Gear
Longsword, dagger, short bow

Yes. This works quite nicely, to be honest. Mystic Warriors do make for a good stand-in for Riddlemasters. I am just sad that Grenda didn't get a chance to see this.

You can get the Wasted Lands RPG and the NIGHT SHIFT RPG at Elf Lair Games.

Character Creation Challenge: Crystal the Psychic

 I was going to do a week of all evil characters, but Grenda did not have a lot of them. The ones he did have were fun, but they were the exception rather than the rule. Today's character could have been one of mine, but she isn't. Crystal is a Lawful Good Psionist, and she is giving me New Age hippie vibes. 

I mentioned before that Grenda and I made a lot of character classes. Lots. The Psionist was one of his. I hope there is still some more here to find on it because I would love to read a good psionic/psychic-based class. Especially one Grenda created, he was into psychics the same way I was/am into witches. 

Sadly, there is not a lot to tell here about Crystal. She is a teen (so I think some Teen Titans and X-Men influences are at play here), and she is a short (4'11") blonde girl with green eyes, so I also think she is modeled on a girlfriend I had around then. Kinda weird to see her here, to be honest. 

All of the O.G.R.E.S. games (Wasted Lands, NIGHT SHIFT, Thirteen Parsecs) have psychic classes. So, my cup is full of choices.

Crystal the Psychic

Class: Psychic
Level: 8
Species: Human
Alignment: Light Good
Background: Scholarly

Abilities
Strength: 8 (-1) 
Agility: 16 (+2) 
Toughness: 11 (+0) 
Intelligence: 16 (+2)
Wits: 17 (+2)
Persona: 15 (+1)

Fate Points: 1d8
Defense Value: 5
Vitality: 49
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +4/+3/+1
Melee Bonus: +3 (base), -1 (STR)
Ranged Bonus: +3 (base)
Saves: +3 to all Wits Saves

Psychic Abilities
Psychic powers (3), Supernatural Attacks, Sixth Sense, Supernatural power.

Powers
Bio-feedback, ESP, Telepathy, Precognition (S), 

Heroic/Divine Touchstones
1st Level: Psychic power: Empathy
3rd Level: +1 to Persona saves
5th Level: Spirit Guide: Kyri (hawk)
7th Level: Psychic Power: Telemagery

Heroic (Divine) Archetype: Mind

Gear
Dagger, bracers of protection

Ok. I like this version. Feels more like a psychic and less like a cleric pretending to be psychic (which is what I think Grenda was doing mechanically). She reminds me of the Psychic Healer class languishing on my "To Do" pile for AGES. I don't think she is in that class, but I am sure that the conversations we had sent me down the path of the class and Grenda to this character. 

Yeah. I would use this class and this character a lot. 

You can get the Wasted Lands RPG and the NIGHT SHIFT RPG at Elf Lair Games.