Kelvar Silvermace's page

I saw the first couple of episodes of this (as a double bill) on the BBC a few night ago. Quite a lot of hype ("the acclaimed series, Heroes") and, you know what, I actually found it quite boring. If they hadn't shown the two episodes back-to-back I doubt I would have bothered with no. 2, which in the final two minutes at last did something vaguely interesting (blowing up New York).

It might be me and my attention span (or lack thereof) but is it going to carry on in this rather tedious fashion? (OK, the cheerleader and the stripper liven things up slightly, but its not enough - I'm too old to watch a series just for that now.)

Hmm. If blowing up a major city only ranks as "vaguely interesting" in your book, could it be that you are just hard to impress? Maybe you've set the bar a bit high? Or maybe the programming on the BBC is more interesting than I had believed...

I don't specifically recall episodes 1 and 2, but I will say that Heroes is a great television series. In fact, I'd probably say it is the second best television show ever. Maybe you should give it another episode or two to see if it catches your interest. I don't think you'll regret it.

I scanned all four pages of this thread, and I can't tell if they are still looking for ideas or not.

If not, disregard. If so...

I've long had this idea of a city square with a HUGE hourglass set in some fancy bronze statue-like fixture. The hourglass takes 80 years to drain (or 60 years, etc.), to represent the average lifespan of a human. I think there's something depressing yet poetic about that. Compared to the longer lived races, time is our greatest enemy, and yet, our short life span explains our ambitious nature. Anyway, every 80 years (or 60, whatever), when the last of the sand drains, the people of the town gather and there's a big celebration in the square as gears or pulleys or something turn the hourglass over and it begins again. Maybe children born during this year are thought of as special. I don't know.

Also, I like the idea of a city with an underworld that is a *literal* underworld. Maybe above the sewers or below the sewers, but definitely below the street level. Old stone and brick passageways create a labrynth and another, darker, city exists below the real city. This is where the thieves' guild has its headquarters. Maybe the city was built on the ruins of a former city, once largely destroyed in a war, but the remains of old buildings underground remain. There are numerous hidden entrances in various old cellars all over town. All manner of sinister deals take place here. Whatever you're dealing in can be had here for the right price--if you're allowed to leave again, that is. And I like the idea that it is run by a roguish Guildmaster who refers to himself as "The Lord Below" (as opposed to the "Lord Above", i.e. the true Lord of the city above. Or maybe even "The King Below.") He has a "throne room" of sorts, with a wooden chair that has been painted gold and encrusted with cheap costume jewels. He's a petty tyrant with delusions of grandeur, but he's also a ruthless cut-throat who holds the title of Guildmaster for a reason.

Anywho, just some ideas I had for my homebrew. Feel free to steal if you think there's anything worth taking. (And if it's not too late).

Duck sauce.

Kelvar Silvermace wrote:

You know, I believe an old issue of Dragon magazine had a list of interesting but not terribly powerful magic items.

"Non-Violent Magic Items" from May 1983 ... one of my favorite articles. Players love things like magic frying pans, lamps that require no oil or automatically light when you enter the room, non-melting ice cubes and so forth.

Rez

That was it! Wow, I've been reading these magazines for a looong time...

And I agree, it's fun to have magic items that do cool things but don't really make the characters any more powerful.

This won't be an option until third level (at the earliest), but I would take a look at Eclectic Learning, an alternative class feature from PHB2 (pg. 67).

It gives you the option of learning just a few utility type, non-evocation spells...which is really the only thing the Warmage lacks.

Okay, I'm just going to pick the highlights. March 9:

1841 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the Amistad case, concerning captive Africans who seized control of the slave-trading ship carrying them: the court rules that they had been taken into slavery illegally.

1862 - American Civil War: The first battle between two ironclad warships, a five-hour battle near Hampton Roads, Virginia between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia, results in a draw.

1959 - The Barbie doll debuts.

1964 - The first Ford Mustang rolls off the assembly line at Ford Motor Company.

2006 - Liquid water is discovered on Enceladus, the sixth largest moon of Saturn.

2007 - The US Justice Department releases an internal audit that found that the FBI had acted illegally in its use of the USA Patriot Act, to secretly obtain personal information about US citizens.

Births:
1943 - Bobby Fischer, American chess player

1961 - Camryn Manheim, American actress

1971 - Emmanuel Lewis, American actor

1972 - Kerr Smith, American actor

Deaths:
1996 - George Burns, American actor and singer (b. 1896)

Interesting.

Hmm...funny you mention that, because I was just flipping through my copy of the Book of Vile Darkness tonight, and you might want to check out the sidebar on the bottom of page 124. In that side bar, Monte Cook basically suggests, "perhaps there is only one Lower Plane. Just called Hell, this dismal plane is home to demons and devils and all manner of fiends. In such a setup, there might not even be a distinction between demons and devils, so that the words are merely synonyms."

So what you suggest has clearly been contemplated. And there are some good ideas above. They may have slightly different powers and different slants on law or chaos, but what they have in common is that they are all immensely Evil. I think that works just fine.

Dragonmann wrote:

I would have to be drunk to get ontop of a 5 story tall bottle rocket and throw myself out of the lifegiving atmosphere trusting only the computational abilities of other engineers

That is an astoundingly good point.

*Especially* when that 5 story tall bottle rocket was built by the lowest bidder...

just saying...

Look at the close up of this one. Anyone else think this guy looks a lot like Conan O'Brien?

What?

Color me confused.

*shrugs*

Okay, let's see...

I think I just gained a level...

I also was very pleased with D0. But I am not at all concerned with Pathfinder being "limited" to the SRD + whatever the creative minds at Paizo can come up with--because the second part of the equation means there really isn't much of a limit on the awesome goodness we can expect. That being said, I'm not specifically happy that they *can't* use other WOTC non-SRD material--I'm just not bothered by it. I can do without Beholders and Yuan-ti because I know the folks at Paizo will come up with something just as good or better.

And the good thing is that *we* the players aren't limited by anything. For example, maybe Pathfinder can't have NPCs who are Spellthieves, Hexblades, Warmages or Favored Souls, but we as players can. And it gives Pathfinder a chance to possibly introduce new material for which they might have lacked the impetus to create, absent such "restrictions."

So, in short, I'm not worried.

Just eager.

You know, I believe an old issue of Dragon magazine had a list of interesting but not terribly powerful magic items. I think there was a glass rod that you swirl in liquid to make it cold, a pair of frying pans--one with an "S" on the handle that would spice anything cooked in it and one with an "H" that would heat and cook whatever you put in it (without need for a fire). I think an older issue of Dungeon had a cauldron that would heat up and boil water on command.

And I'm pretty sure the ol' Encyclopedia Magica had an "Everfull Saltshaker."

Sweet! You guys are the best!

Oh, and, um, that shiny good-good will arrive in four to six weeks.
;-)