The publication of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition by Cubicle Seven Entertainment is a reminder that once upon a time, Games Workshop published roleplaying games. Chief amongst these was of course Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which even thirty years on, remains the definitive British roleplaying game. Its mix of fantasy, European history, Moorcockian cosmology, humour, grim and perilous feel, disease and damnation, and mud and shit underfoot, very much set it apart from the fantasy found in other roleplaying games of the time—and arguably since. Perhaps the best expression of those elements is not in the roleplaying game itself, but in what is arguably the greatest British roleplaying campaign ever published—The Enemy Within. Published in six parts—The Enemy Within, Shadows Over Bögenhafen, Death on the Reik, Power Behind the Throne, Something Rotten in Kislev, and Empire in Flames—between 1986 and 1989, it thrust a band of lowly adventurers into a conspiracy that threatened the Empire not from without, but within, pushing them onto a larger stage which will bring them to the attention of the great, the good, and the bad and ultimately place the fate of the Empire in their hands. Mostly.

The Enemy Within as a campaign has been much discussed and examined over the years, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fanzine, Warpstone, which ran for thirty issues from 1996, paying particular to the campaign through histories and interviews with the authors and designers. My own history with the campaign begins in 1986 as a fan of  Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, playing through much of it three times—playing different characters each time—as published and then with different groups in the 1990s, before reading through the campaign as whole twice as a Hogshead Publishing employee. In the twenty years since, there has been discussion of revisiting The Enemy Within campaign, whether the original campaign using Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Second Edition, or the version of the campaign published by Fantasy Flight Games for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Third Edition. With the publication of the campaign again by Cubicle Seven Entertainment there may well be a chance that I will revisit it at the gaming table again, but in the meantime, it is worth looking again at the constituent parts of The Enemy Within campaign.

The first part of The Enemy Within is of course, The Enemy Within. Later reprints amalgamated this with Shadows Over Bögenhafen and Death on the Reik as Games Workshop’s Warhammer Adventure and Warhammer Campaign, or with Shadows over Bögenhafen as Hogshead Publishing’s Shadows Over Bögenhafen. The original came as a folio, much like the scenarios for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons from TSR, Inc., thick with content—a fifty-six page campaign booklet, a full colour poster of The Empire, and eight pages of handouts, the latter including letters and other clues for scenario included in the booklet, as well as six pre-generated player characters, and a map and calendar of The Empire for the players.

From the off, The Enemy Within clearly states what it is about and what the player characters will be facing. The Empire—described as the greatest land in the Old World—is under attack, but not from the many mutants, Beastmen, and Chaos Warriors that lurk in the all-too thick forests on the edge of civilisation, but from within the mighty civilisation itself. Whilst they do attack and maraud the lands and peoples near to their forest lairs, the true threat comes the members of the guild, merchant, burgermeister, and noble classes who have turned to the worship in secret of the Chaos Gods in return for promises of power, pleasure, and worse. Whether they understand the true perfidy they will unleash on The Empire or not with vile devotions, they are the true enemy, which will only be revealed as campaign progresses and the adventurers are pulled deeper into the horrors hidden behind façades of nobility and civility…

Having set out its remit, The Enemy Within booklet gives good advice for the Game Master in running both the campaign and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Notable amongst this advice is being flexible, being dramatic, and being humorous in presenting the Old World and the campaign. Certainly the humorous aspect to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is one that sets it apart from other roleplaying games, though as the campaign progresses, the authors’ predilection for puns and bad German word play becomes more groan worthy than actually funny. Then as well as covering travel in the Empire—primarily via its canal network and its coaching companies—more than half of the booklet expands upon the background of The Empire and the Old World given in the core rulebook, which was not really as extensive as it could have been. This covers the history of the Empire, from its founding with the unification of the tribes by Sigmar Heldenhammer and defeat of the Goblin armies, right up to the present day, its accompanying list of Emperors including a sly dig at eighties politics with the election of Empress Magraritha in 1979. (The inclusion of Boris the Incompetent on the timeline is just coincidence. Hopefully.)

The background covers not just the Empire’s history and emperors, but the current figurehead of an emperor, his advisors, and the Electors, the latter the members of the nobility who elect the Emperor. Below this, it examines the political and economic structure of the Empire; its guilds, nobility, and ordinary folk; its religion—primarily the Cult of Sigmar, the Empire’s state religion, but also prescribed cults like those devoted to Kháine and the Chaos gods; and its geography and means of communication over long distances, plus a short gazetteer. This is followed by stats for Soldiers of the Empire and Standard NPCs for The Enemy Within campaign. These are accompanied by illustrations of the typical dress worn in the Empire, a guide to herbs found in the Empire, and Mutants in the Empire.

All of which is useful material for the Game Master. A lot of this will come into play during a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign, not just The Enemy Within campaign, though that will involve mutants, it will involve the Empire’s Electors, and one of the pre-generated player characters is a herbalist. Much of this and The Empire is inspired by the history of the Germanic principalities, duchies, and other states of the Holy Roman Empire, which gives Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay its mittel-European sensibility and thus much of its identity which sets it apart from other fantasy roleplaying games. 

The scenario in The Enemy Within is ‘Mistaken Identity’. This begins with a cliché—the player characters answering a call for adventurers wanted in the Imperial capital, Altdorf—but is it? Perhaps in any other fantasy roleplaying game, but here it works because the player characters are at the bottom of the heap and cannot really expect to improve themselves except by answering this call. Some players may grumble at the admonishment that no Dwarves apply, but since no Dwarves are included in the six pre-generated characters, this is not really an issue. Of course, by the time the adventurers get to Altdorf to sign up, the potential employer will have already departed having hired everyone he needed. And by then, the adventurers will also have been distracted by other events…

‘Mistaken Identity’ is a travel adventure. The need for the player characters to get from Delberz to Altdorf more or less hides the linear nature of the scenario’s storyline, which is really designed to get the player characters from one plot point to the next. These plot points are twofold. The first is to get the player characters to discover the dead body of one Kastor Lieberung, a man who is the spitting image of one of their number and who happens to have a letter informing him of an inheritance in the town of Bögenhafen. The possibility of riches and elevation to the nobility is the real hook here, the fact that only one or two of the player characters is literate is a further reason to keep everyone together, since it is unlikely that doppelganger will be able to read the letter. The second is to wonder why certain men are taking a desperate interest in the player character—or rather Kastor Lieberung who the player character is impersonating—and third, why someone else wants those men and then Kastor Lieberung, dead. Of course, Kastor Lieberung is actually a dead Chaos cultist, and understandably, this will have repercussions throughout the rest of The Enemy Within campaign as death and murder follows in the adventurers’ wake (and not just at the end of their swords and axes, The Enemy Within campaign involving a fair bit of combat)...

Along the way, the Game Master has some fun scenes to portray. These begin with a night at the Coach and Horses Inn, populated with a range of characters ready to set out aboard the coach the next day. Here the player characters get to rub up against and probably rub up the wrong way various members of society, including a cardsharp on the make, an imperious noble who will employ her bodyguards to keep the player characters away, a cultist (from another cult!), and two very drunk coachmen. The player characters are free to do what they want here and roleplay their characters in the inn and on the road, before throwing them into the plot proper following a combat with Mutants on the road. This will have nasty consequences for one of the player characters as it turns out one of the Mutants was a friend. After this, there is the famous ear-scratching scene by cultists in Altdorf, a run-in with Hooray Heinrichs spoiling for a fight between their bodyguards and the oiks, and meet-up with an old friend, circumstances around these pushing the player characters to scarper from Altdorf—and on to Shadows Over Bögenhafen, the next part of The Enemy Within…

The Enemy Within comes with six pre-generated player characters, all in their first Career, and all ready to play except for each player needing to select his character’s first Advance. They are all complete with an illustration, background, and personality description. They include an Elf Minstrel, a Halfling Herbalist, and Human Boatman, Labourer, Thief, and Wizard’s Apprentice, and despite this range, they are a fairly ordinary lot. This though nicely plays off against the extraordinary series of events that they will find themselves thrust into as The Enemy Within progresses. The first part of the campaign also includes six player handouts, all nicely done on heavy stock.

Physically, The Enemy Within is an engaging product. The writing is excellent, the advice solid, and the new background useful. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has always been renowned for its artwork, but in coming back to The Enemy Within, it is artistically disappointing. Much of it is cartoonish even as it tries to evoke the Old World’s ‘grim and perilous’ feel. This is not to say that some of it is not good, but on the strength of this first part of the campaign, it needs work. Conversely, the maps are all well done.

Both Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and The Enemy Within were reviewed in Dragon #124 (August 1987) by Ken Rolston, who would go on to write Something Rotten in Kislev, the fifth part of The Enemy Within campaign. He commented that, “...The Enemy Within makes a very good first impression. Though that first impression weakens slightly on careful examination, it’s nonetheless a stand-out product, highly recommended, and a promising initial release for WFR’s line of campaign and adventure supplements.” Of the adventure structure, he said, “The adventure also depends on an unusually egregious use of plot manipulation to get the PCs from one encounter to the next. The encounters are excellent – elaborately staged, with detailed NPCs, GM presentation tips, and fine role-playing opportunities. The adventure materials are complete to current industry standards – prepared character sheets, with character personality and background notes, player handout props, GM reference summary sheets, attractive, functional maps and diagrams. But the creaking of the plot mechanisms for shuttling the PCs from encounter to encounter is a bit distracting. The adventure could be run without all the dubious coincidences – but the best parts of the adventure depend on those coincidences. If I ran this adventure, I would earnestly and shamelessly steer the PCs right into them. But I’d be a lot more careful about eroding my players’ trust in the plot devices. “Say, what a coincidence – again…”” Nevertheless, he was ultimately positive about the adventure. Similarly, Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer Number 82 (July/Aug 1988) reviewed not just The Enemy Within, but also its sequels, Shadows Over Bögenhafen and Death on the Reik. Of The Enemy Within, reviewer Richard A. Edwards said that, “If you want to bring your roleplaying group a new experience in roleplaying and introduce them to new complexities of plot then run, do not walk, to your game store and purchase a copy.” The late Stewart Wieck reviewed both Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, The Enemy Within, Shadows Over Bögenhafen, and Death on the Reik in White Wolf Magazine #9 (February, 1988), focussing in the main on the roleplaying game itself. He said, “The Enemy Within, Shadows Over Bögenhafen, and Death on the Reik are all very attractive and worthwhile supplements. The Enemy Within forms the basis for all of the WFRP adventures that follow. It begins an entire campaign for WFRP.” before awarding The Enemy Within a score out of eight out of ten.

The Enemy Within consists of two parts. In the first, it gives the Game Master the background—political, legal, travel, geographical, religious, and more—to The Empire, providing the background against which the events of The Enemy Within campaign as a whole will play out. At this initial stage, this is not obvious, but as the campaign progresses, it will become so, for one of the things that the authors do not do is lay out the whole plot. That will only come when it is complete. As to ‘Mistaken Identity’, it is easy to complain that the scenario is linear and too much of a railroad, but if so, it does what it is designed to do—pull them into the adventure before waylaying them with a completely different plot and shoving them into the campaign proper. As a set-up, it takes a session or two, and perhaps its plot is heavy-handed in places (though it hides it well), but The Enemy Within is a solid start to the definitive British fantasy roleplaying campaign.


—oOo—
With thanks to Shannon Appelcline for arranging access to White Wolf Magazine #9.

I started to specialize my toy soldier collection in fantasy around twenty years ago when I realized just how many figures and sets are available.  Nobody else I knew of was collecting this stuff.  When I really got into it, I started having a blast finding and learning about a whole category of toy soldiers that other, and much older and knowledgeable, collectors were ignoring.  It has been my pleasure to share what I have learned through this blog.  
Some fantasy toy soldiers are much harder to find than others and some sets are very difficult to complete.  Their are fairly common sets with just one or a few super rare figures that make them hard to complete, and other sets are all very rare.  Below is my best guess at the twenty rarest. I have tried to add pictures of individual figures that make certain sets hard to complete.   These are all complete sets of original figures, no bootlegs and no worries about color variations, just the base figure sets.  These were all commercially  produced  and mass marketed.  There are no custom figures like the insanely rare sets made by the Alliance of the Free on this list.
My list is based on twenty years of experience collecting and conversations with other collectors since I started this blog. That is all I have to go on.  So, the rankings are debatable.  I have looked for solid information without any success. I even summoned Cthulhu last Christmas and offered up my brother's soul but he did not have any useful insights.  


20.  Toyco Demons & Dragonriders.











19.  Arco Dragons n' Monsters.

















18. Durham Fantasy Figures.








17.  Unknown 1980s Soft Rubber Weirdness.









16.  Skinner The Lurkers.



















15. Supreme Dragon's Lair Castle Playset Figures.










14. Simba The Legend of Zortan.









13.  Percy Jackson Movie Figures.











12.  HEI Vampires.













11.  Larime Blacktar.



 


10.  Galaxy Warriors.












9.  Unknown Ant Warriors.








8. Games Work Shop Fighting Fantasy. 





















7. Oritet Elves, Dwarves, Goblins & Fairy Tail Characters.
















6.  Unknown Vending/Party Favor Rubber Orcs.









5.  Polotoy Battle of the Ancients (and other titles).














4. TSR Dungeons & Dragons Character Figures.



3. Helm Toy Playset Figures.



2. Yolanda?  Horrors n' Heroes.









1.  LarGo Toys Stingers & Wings.

Welcome to the fifth character build guide. I know this is a niche RPG and as such, I’m not getting a lot of traffic to this blog, but if you are reading and enjoying these guides, please leave a comment and let me know what’s working for you, what isn’t, and what you’d like to see. Let’s get started on the build. In modern gaming terms a Support class or character is someone that heals, protects, or enhances the abilities and effectiveness of their allies. Comics have had their fair share of characters with healing abilities, but I was having a hard time finding heroes that are purely built for support. This being the case, I looked at the V&V 3.0 Abilities for inspiration, and to one of my players whose character Lodestar is one of the most tightly designed in our entire campaign. Unfortunately, he’s currently in a coma under the care of the Crusaders. That’s what happens when you’re so effective—the villains tend to focus on you to your detriment. Lodestar was built to heal and protect his allies, but it’s how he does it that’s so slick. He does this—correction, did this—by exploiting Teleportation. With the Teleportation Modifier “Beam” he used it to teleport dangerous villains away or bring allies close to him where he could then use Healing. Teleportation takes place during Movement which saved his Action for Healing or creating Force Bubbles. In addition to his support, he had one offensive tool—the humble but very effective Power Blast. This meant that no matter what the situation was, Lodestar was always contributing something—mobility, protection, healing, or damage. Entire fights would pivot on his versatility and this made his character the ultimate Support in my eyes. Until now.

You see, V&V 3.0 introduced Ability Modifiers. These allow players to customize their Abilities in ways that make them totally unique, flavorful, and useful in ways that they might not have considered. One that jumped out at me when I was creating the Support character for this guide was Reversible. A Reversible Ability is one “…that can also produce the opposite effect (for example, an Electrical Bolt that can be used to inflict or heal Electrical Energy damage)” for the cost of 10 CPs. Speaking of healing, I’m gonna be honest here. Some of the Abilities as written are total stinkers, and Healing is probably one of the worst. Even with a whopping 20 CP investment you can only heal 2 Hit Points (4 if you Push), and it takes an entire Round. As soon as I saw Reversible, I flipped to one of the most powerful Abilities in the book—Siphon. Sure enough, Reversible makes this Ability better than Healing in every way. 10 CPs in Siphon with +10 more spent on Reversible has the same Range as Healing, but costs zero Power and can inflict 2d4 damage or heal 2d4 Hit Points. As I’ve said before, a Standard Power level hero—which is what I tend to build the most—has an Ability Cap of 20 CPs. So, with that in mind I started looking for other Abilities that are still powerful with only a 10 CP investment. Devitalization Ray is one such Ability. At 10 CPs it inflicts a staggering 2d8+d10 Power damage. A couple of hits can quickly shut down a target’s Abilities, and leaves them without a way to Push, or ‘Roll With’ Damage or Save Attacks. With the Reversible Modifier, Devitalization Ray perfectly fits our Support mold, replenishing buckets of Power to your allies.

As I’ve said before, I’m a huge fan of Lodestar’s design, and they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so I’m going to pick up Force Field, and Teleport. I’ve seen firsthand how Power hungry his build is, so I’m also buying Energy. For defense and utility, I’m going to the well to pick up some Armor and Heightened Expertise. Here are our Abilities and their Modifiers:

Siphon w/ Reversible

Devitalization Ray w/ Reversible

Force Field w/ Area Effect – Perimeter, Moves with Self, Reduced PR, and Does Not Block Teleportation

Teleport w/ Beam

Energy w/ Gear

Armor w/ Gear and Light Partial Coverage

Heightened Expertise

Weaknesses:

Compulsion: Rejuvenator always puts the safety of others above her own.

The idea is to have a character that can not only replenish Hit Points, but Power as well which is arguably more valuable when you think about it. It’s used to fuel your Abilities, Push past your normal limits, and ‘Roll With’ Damaging and Save Attacks. Every point of Power represents offense, defense, damage mitigation, and resistance. I would argue that this version of Devitalization Ray is even more important than healing in most situations. Enough pontificating–I’m going to go do some min-maxing and then I’ll be back.

Introducing Rejuvenator!

Rejuvenator’s tactics focus on depleting her foes Power to end fights early thus preventing as much damage as possible. She always puts the health and well-being of her teammates above her own, teleporting them out of danger, healing them, or protecting them with Force Bubbles which she can carry and drop where needed. Her only offensive tool is Siphon, which has a range of Touch. While she does have protective Armor, getting into melee should be a last resort. Lastly, she has Heightened Expertise to increase her overall effectiveness in combat. I hope you found this guide helpful, and please feel free to submit your character build ideas or requests in the comments.

lackadaisycats:

lackadaisycats:

Patreon request for Rocky in the shape of a dragon. I was happy to oblige.
Originally, I posted it for Patrons in color, but I think I prefer it in more of a monotone like this.

———————————-
Lackadaisy is on Patreon - there’s extra stuff!

Here’s the color variant

Let’s cut to the chase, because this build is all about speed. The Speedster has been around since the 40s with the creation of the Flash, and later Quicksilver, Whizzer, Speed Demon, and so on. To me, a Speedster’s role is to even the odds by taking extra Turns each Round and using their increased movement rate to allow them to be everywhere at once. It’s akin to having two or three extra heroes on the battlefield. First let’s review the best Abilities a Speedster can buy: Super Speed (for extra turns), Speed (increased movement rate), Heightened Initiative, and Heightened Cool. Recommended Ability Modifiers are: Activation Power, Reduced Power Cost, Fast Acceleration, Water Running, and Body Part. While this archetype might seem very straightforward, there’s no reason we can’t take it in a new direction.

My concept for this Speedster is an unstoppable pursuer that isn’t hindered by the usual obstacles. V&V has no shortage of mobility Abilities, and while most V&V veterans think of Flight and Teleportation as being the premier ways to get around the battlefield, they would be mistaken. When your character can run nearly 200 miles per hour across water and up walls or through them, those other modes of travel will seem a bit tame. I’ll start with the core of our build. These Abilities are non-negotiable, and as such they will be maxed out at 20 CPs for this Standard Level hero.

Next, I’m going to fill out my character’s “Go Anywhere” suite of Abilities and Modifiers before moving on to offensive and defensive powers. The Speed modifier “Water Running” allows the character to run across the surface of liquids and the Physical Ability “Wall Crawling” allows our character to travel along sheer vertical or inverted surfaces; a bargain at only 5 CPs. That covers up and over, but what about through? That’s where Tunneling comes in. Tunneling allows a character to move through solids by opening a tunnel in front of them. The maximum SR (Structural Rating) of matter that the character can tunnel through is determined by how many CPs they spend, as is their maximum tunneling speed. Lastly, there is a Tunneling Damage bonus that you may apply to one of your character’s Attack Abilities. My Speedster digs with her hands, so I’m associating this bonus with their unarmed Punch attack. Let’s look at our Abilities thus far:

Super Speed

Speed

Wall-Crawling

Tunneling

Now that we have our mobility worked out, we need some offense, defense, and utility. With the Tunneling Damage bonus to her unarmed Punches she has a good offense, but I want to make sure she can land those hits. I’m choosing to go with Heightened Expertise. Normally I would choose Natural Weaponry, but we already have extra damage. The Power cost of her Super Speed is rather steep, and I want her to be able to Push her Punch damage and Tunneling Speed, so I’m choosing Armor for defense. It provides a good amount of flat damage reduction at no Power cost. For utility I want to support her Super Speed and Tunneling. Heightened Initiative grants a bonus to every Initiative Roll, and when you get three Turns per Round (three Initiative Rolls), this bonus is effectively tripled! Lastly, I don’t want her tunneling blindly with no idea where her quarry is, so she’s getting some X-ray specs in the form of Heightened Senses penetrating vision. Here’s the final loadout, Core Abilities in Bold as usual:

Super Speed with the Activation Power modifier. This doubles the cost of an Ability, but after the initial Activation, it costs 0 Power to use. If a combat lasts more than two Rounds, this Ability will pay for itself.

Speed with the Body Part modifier (I’m choosing legs, naturally) which refunds 5 CPs, which I’m spending on both Water Running (2.5 CPs) and Fast Acceleration (also 2.5 CPs). This allows my character to move across the surface of liquids and doubles their Acceleration Rate to 256”/Turn. Eat your heart out, Teleportation.

Wall-Crawling

Tunneling

Heightened Expertise

Heightened Initiative

Heightened Senses – Penetrating Vision with the Gear Modifier.

Armor with the Gear, Ablative, and Heavy Partial Coverage modifiers for a whopping 15 CP refund. Gear makes her armor breakable, Ablative causes it to lose Protection as it’s damaged, and Heavy Partial Coverage allows her enemies to ignore her armor by making a called shot at -6 To Hit, and it only provides ½ protection vs Area Effect Attacks. These may seem like large disadvantages but being able to max out her Protection is worth it.

Weaknesses: Can’t Hold Back because she never learned to pull her punches, and Compulsion—if she has Power left, she won’t stop chasing her quarry until she captures them or collapses from exhaustion.

I’ll go run the numbers and be back in a flash. Let’s meet Pursuer, the Speedster.

• 

A former Ultimate Fighting Champ, Sue lost the use of her legs when she suffered a spinal injury at the hands of a bookie and his thugs when she refused to throw a fight. When she heard that Manning Enterprises had opened human trials for an experimental drug that might restore her ability to walk, she immediately signed up. She regained the use of her legs but also gained superhuman Abilities, which got the attention of the Crusaders—the local superhero team. There she received training, along with her armor and x-ray goggles. When she fought professionally, she was known as a fierce and tenacious opponent and her crime fighting style is no different. With a top speed of 174 miles per hour she isn’t going to be beating the Mercury Mercenary in a foot race, but she can run across water (or any other liquid), on vertical or inverted surfaces, and she can see through and tunnel through nearly any material. This makes her a nightmare for the cowardly villains who would try to evade justice, and her fists.

geosaurus:

Dragons Love Hot Tubs!

LOD just released this set of four foot and two mounted 60mm amazons as historical rather than fantasy figures.  These are intended to be more realistic female warriors than the sexy figures made in Russia.  Some have armor and most show a little less skin than the Tehnolog or Oritet amazons.  I like both styles.   
They are made from a soft plastic.  The quality is very good but the aqua color is a bit difficult to photograph.  A nice set but a little expensive at around $30 a bag for 10 figures (two of each foot pose).






































Scale Shot

zwierzodudle:

a few months back i started drawing this dragon for my sister, she requested a mix of my geode dragons and plant dragons. since then i’ve been working on it on and off.

im so glad it’s finally finished ????????

sticksandsharks:

Lo’ and behold, the savage a-hole of the Dragon-Type family: Salamence.

A companion piece to this one.

sticksandsharks:

faerie dragon

Welcome to my third character build guide. This time we’re focusing on the master of the battlefield—the Controller. Comic book characters like Ice Man, Cable, and Graviton are great examples of this archetype. A Controller’s role is to incapacitate their enemies, de-buff them, and well—control them. Key Abilities for a Controller are: Darkness Control, Devitalization Ray, Emotion Control, Grapnel, Gravity Control, Ice Blast, Mind Control, Paralysis Ray, Paralytic Poison, Siphon, Telekinesis, and Transmutation. I highly recommend the following Ability Modifiers: Area Effect, Duration, and Success Power. There are more ways to play a Controller than any other archetype, but like the others builds it pays to remain focused. I would strongly suggest building around one controlling Ability—two at the most. All your other Abilities should either support your choice of Control or provide you with some utility and protection so you can stay in the fight long enough to be effective. With that in mind, I’ll start with the Control Ability—Gravity Control.

In V&V, much as in real life, Gravity is O.P. It can bring down the biggest and toughest foes you’ll face, and it’s very hard to protect against. Even if a target doesn’t take much damage, they’ll still be lying on their back staring at the sky (or ceiling) and thinking about that time they were upright and mobile. Those were good times, they might think—I should have appreciated them more. Anyway, let’s dive into Gravity Control—just like things with a lot of uh, gravity—the mechanics are very dense and need some unpacking. To quote the rules, Gravity Control are a set of Abilities that “enable a character to modify the pull of gravity on objects or areas. There are three forms of Gravity Control: Gravity Decrease, Gravity Increase, and Personal Gravity Well.” The first version allows you to make a target weightless or even fall upward, the second allows you to make a target weigh more thus pinning them to the ground, and the third is a kind of gravitational distortion that makes you harder to hit. I’m choosing to focus on Gravity Increase. While I think it’s funny to make someone fall upward for a while, the subsequent fall seems cruel, and this is a superhero I’m designing.

To make Gravity Increase better, we need to understand how it works exactly. First off, it’s a Voluntary Attack Ability with a range of ST (Strength) and it covers a 1” square. The multiplier to the weight of targets within the affected area depends on your CPs in Gravity Increase. For example, if you have 20 CPs in Gravity Increase, you multiply the weight of your target by eight. If their new weight exceeds their carrying capacity, they are pinned and dealt kinetic damage equal to their new Mass Roll minus their HTH Damage Roll. There’s a bit of a unique twist to Gravity Increase, and this is where the build gets interesting. Remember Pushing? Yeah—that thing where you spend 2 Power to do things like gain a +2 damage bonus, double your maximum speed, or gain a Save bonus? Well, forget that measly +2 bonus or multiplier. Where this Ability is concerned “Pushing increases the Weight Multiplier by a factor of (Power Spent +2)! “So?” you might say “2 power for Pushing + 2 = 4, times 8 = 32”, and you’d be right. Unless we have Willpower C) Self-Control, which allows you to Push for more than the normal amount—a lot more. For example, if you have 10 CPs in Self-Control, you get a +4 bonus to Pushing for the cost of 4 additional Power. So now you’re pushing for a total of (6 + 2) times 8 = 64! This makes your Gravity Increase effective against even the strongest targets, meaning you don’t have to be content to smush small fry into the dirt. Moving on to the other support Abilities.

Gravity increase costs 3 Power to use, and to maintain. If we’re going to be pushing for more than the normal amount, we’re gonna need some Power. Let’s grab Energy, which gives us 2 extra Power for each CP we spend. Twenty CPs gives us 40 extra Power to play with, allowing us to Push our Gravity Increase to awesome limits. Let’s review our Abilities so far:

Gravity Control B) Gravity Increase

Energy

Willpower C) Self-Control

There are couple of build directions that present themselves: Find other Abilities we can dump ludicrous amounts of Power into, or make sure we don’t get pasted by the first villain that turns their attentions on us. Both? Both. Monkey House Games recently added some Abilities to the official rules, and there just so happens to be one that benefits from our Willpower Pushing Bonus. Inertia. I know this article is getting long but stick with me—this is a sweet build. Inertia is an attack that reduces the movement rates of characters and vehicles by applying a divisor. As usual, the divisor is based on your CPs in this Ability. However, you can increase the divisor by Pushing, adding the extra Power spent directly to it. Inertia makes the cut. Even if we don’t invest many CPs into it, our Willpower will more than make up for it.

Let’s get this hero some Defensive Abilities before they get pounded. Our Tank was tough as nails, and our Blaster was evasive, so I want to mix it up a little bit. I like the theme we have going so far, and I want to expand on it. We have a hero that can tap into unseen forces to manipulate gravity and slow enemies to a crawl, so I’m going with Force Field. I’ll spare you the description as this Ability is straightforward—you wrap yourself in an invisible Force Field that deflects damage. It’s Power-hungry, but our hero can handle it.

Lastly, we want to hit as often as possible with our Gravity Control and Inertia. Normally I would grab Heightened Expertise, but this time I’m going with Heightened Agility. It raises our hero’s Physical Defense, To Hit chance, and gives them a healthy chunk of Power. Sometimes the best choices are a little boring. Inventory time:

Gravity Control

Willpower C) Self-Control

Inertia

Energy

Force Field

Heightened Expertise

Just as before, our Core Abilities are in bold—those are the ones we’re allowed to start at 20 CPs. I’m going to go apply some modifiers and Weaknesses, and then I’ll be back with our hero…

Introducing, Gravitas!

Gravitas is a young mutant with the power to manipulate Earth’s gravitational field. He is able to slow or even pin his enemies in place or use this force to shroud himself in a protective barrier. His will to do good and protect the innocent provides him with a deep well of energy that fuels his powerful abilities. I hope you liked this build guide. If you did, please let me know. If you didn’t, I’m impressed that you read this far. See you next time.

While going through a storage unit back in Fall of 2016, I stumbled on my copy of V&V 2.0 and a stack of adventure modules. I was immediately brought back to 1985 and images of Mega Man’s adventures flooded my imagination. However, without a regular group to play with, I brought my books home, stuck them in a drawer, and didn’t think about them until Spring of the following year. In 2017 I discovered a browser-based tabletop simulator called Roll20, and suddenly got the itch to play something—anything to get back into TTRPGs. I had recently become part of an online gaming community—a small but very friendly Discord Server that belonged to a friend of mine. My first thought was to reach out to some of the other members to see if anyone was interested in trying to mount an online campaign. I was happily surprised to get over half a dozen responses, and our RPG Chat channel was born. There I spent time talking to my future players about the virtues of V&V–trying hard to sell a decades old RPG that none of them had ever heard of. I snagged a PDF copy of the 2.1 rules (which really went a long way to clearing up some of the murkier corners of the game’s mechanics) and an updated character sheet. Everyone started generating characters, and I was buzzing with the possibilities of a blank canvas–a new campaign and a fresh group of players!

V&V (pre-Mighty Protectors) is a harsh mistress. You roll a d6+2 to see how many Powers you get, and then randomize said Powers, plus one Weakness. You must discard one Power immediately, and if you want to get rid of your Weakness, you have to discard another. It goes without saying that finding a theme within those oddments is a challenge. However, in Mighty Protectors they remedied this by allowing all players to roll six Powers (now called Abilities), and encouraging them to pick up two Offensive, two Defensive, and two Miscellaneous to round out their character. I was excited at the prospect of helping my players update their characters. The lucky few who had a lot of Powers might lose one or two, but the ones that rolled poorly were in for a treat.

While our 2.1 campaign progressed, I was planning our transition to V&V 3.0 behind the scenes—trying my best to master the character creation process and familiarize myself with the updated combat system. My players were currently fighting their way through the classic Crisis at Crusader Citadel—teaming up with the Crusaders and facing off against the hated Crushers. It was a great hit of nostalgia, but I wanted a meaningful next step for them. When I played V&V it was less of a campaign and more of a series of combat-heavy episodes that had no overarching narrative. While reading the Guide to the Multiverse section of V&V 3.0, I came across the Crusaders entry. Jeff and Jack saw them moving on and forming an Academy for up-and-coming heroes. I found the foundation upon which to build my campaign. My players were going to school. (to be continued)

sosuperawesome:

Pride Dragons

Sonsational Creations on Etsy

See our #Dragon or #Pride tags

See more drawings by the artist here.

Artworks found at the Royal Academy of Arts.

10/2/2019 Finally completed my set of these guys and just in time because of the prices they are fetching these days.

These came in surprise bags released some time in the 90s or early 2000s.  There are 16 figures based on Greek mythology.  They are about 50mm, and are made of soft plastic.  Only released in Europe as far as I know.  Very rare.  Most people think they were made by Yolanda of Spain, but I do not know for certain.













8 Horrors







8 Heroes






















I found this picture on the net (MXD I think).
This picture is also from MXD I think
This picture is also from some place on the net.
Found this picture on the net a few years ago, I don't remember where.

This is the second in a series of articles for V&V 3.0 focusing on building character archetypes. I want to reiterate that these guides are for players who are already familiar with V&V 3.0, and that my ideas of how each archetype should play are a mix of what I’ve seen in comics, other TTRPGs, and my own opinions and personal play style. Moving on. The Blaster has been around since the dawn of comics in one form or another—Cyclops of the X-Men (1963), and Black Lightning (1977) are great examples. A Blaster’s role is to deal high damage at medium to long range with a high degree of accuracy. Some useful abilities for the Blaster are: Disintegration Ray, Electrical Bolt, Flame Blast, Heightened Expertise, Laser, Power Blast, Repulsion Blast, Sonic Blast, Special Weapon, Telekinesis, and Vibratory Blast. As for Ability Modifiers, I highly recommend the following: Area Effect, Armor Piercing, Autofire, Activation Power, Focused, Increased Duration, Different Damage Type, and Reduced PR.

When most people think of a primary damage dealer, they think of D&D’s Evocation Wizards, Sorcerers, Rogues, Rangers, and terms like Glass Cannon and DPS come up. In V&V combat flows differently than most TTRPGs—they can be over very quickly, or drag on as the offense of one side struggles vs the defensive powers of the other. With so many Abilities, and so many options in combat it’s hard to pin down a target if they play intelligently, and there are plenty of Defensive Abilities that can mitigate or even shut down incoming damage. So how do we make sure our Blaster is good at her job? While you can’t account for everything, you can at least make sure you’re hitting often, dealing consistent damage, and bypassing some of the more common defenses. Unlike the Tank, we’re going to start with our Offensive options.

The Blaster is concerned with Damage Types more than any other archetype. In V&V there are Full, Sub, and Specific Damage Types. For instance, Energy is a Full Damage Type, while its Sub-Types are broken down into Electromagnetic, Energy Beam, High Temperature, Light, and Radiation, which are broken down even further into Specific types like Electrical Shock and Flames. We’re not too concerned with the Sub and Specific types as much as we are Full, because most Protection will mitigate a Full damage type. The most common types of Protection you will run into are vs. Kinetic and Energy damage. Yes—Armor, Ice Armor, and Force Field offer flat damage reduction across four Full Types, but the most potent Protection Abilities like Invulnerability and Absorption Protection usually focus on one or two. In my experience, the least common type of Protection is Psychic. There just aren’t a lot of Abilities that deal Psychic damage, which is where the most potent Ability Modifier for our Blaster comes into play, and that is Different Damage Type.

If you flip to page 89 of your Mighty Protectors manual, you’ll see Different Damage Type on the top right. It states that “This changes an attack Ability’s damage type. There may be an additional charge depending on whether the new damage type is more (or less) expensive. Notice that there is no point cost for changing the damage type of an Attack Ability among Kinetic, Energy, Bio, or Entropy. However, there is a 5 point cost for changing it to Psychic and a 10 point cost for changing it to Other. That’s because these two damage types are hard to defend against. Let’s start by building our “Primary Nuke.”

Power Blast. Has there ever been a simpler and more iconic V&V Ability? I don’t think so. For the paltry cost of 1 Power you can deal double digit damage. In a game where non-superpowered crooks and criminals have an average of 5 Hit Points, this makes dealing with street crime a breeze. Verses other superpowered individuals, it’s still a potent offensive tool, requiring only a couple of well-placed blasts to take down most opponents. We’ll get into the build later, but just so you know, I’m buying Different Damage Type ‘Psychic’ as my first Ability Modifier.

Now we need to make sure we hit often and stay out of trouble. Normally I would go with Heightened Agility because you get the benefit of increased To Hit, Defense, Power, and Hit Points, but a Blaster should be fighting at a distance. This build really doesn’t need that much Power to function, so I’m going to go with Heightened Expertise and Heightened Defense. These powers in combination make her both accurate and evasive. To help her keep her distance, I’m choosing Flight because it’s useful for staying out of harm’s way, and for getting line of sight to targets that are using hard cover. Lastly, I’m going to invest in some Protection as you never know when a lucky roll will overcome her defenses. Armor is a great choice here, and I’m going to apply some modifiers to make it cheaper. Let’s look at our Ability list:

Power Blast – Modifiers: Different Damage Type ‘Psychic’, Body Part (Eyes)

Heightened Expertise

Heightened Defense

Flight

Armor – Modifiers: Gear, Light Partial Coverage

Our core Abilities are in bold. As a Standard Power Level character, we may spend a maximum of 20 CPs in our four Core Abilities. As always, some weaknesses help round out our character, and refund some points so we’ll have enough to finish our build.

Farsighted – Has only Basic Vision within a range of 5″

Now that all the details have been worked out, let’s meet Farsight! *rimshot*

 I’ve engaged in a little min-maxing, but nothing outside of our theme and nothing too overly powerful. I was able to afford 20 Points in Power Blast and change its damage type to Psychic (5 CPs) by applying the “Body Part” Ability Modifier for a 5 CP refund. This does means that a hit to her eyes could potentially disable her Power Blast, but an attacker would suffer a -6 for the Called Shot. Add this to her Physical Defense of 6 and a Called Shot to her eyes would suffer a total of -12 making it highly unlikely. Farsight can use Flight to stay at maximum range (12″ or 60 feet), nullifying the threat of melee opponents, and making her even harder to hit, while suffering little from the reciprocal Range Difficulty penalty. She even has decent Protection in the form of some light armor that I maximized using the Gear and Light Coverage modifiers. I even shuffled some of the Protection points around to afford her some Psychic Protection as that’s her only real blind spot in terms of defenses. Her Farsighted Weakness is flavorful without handicapping her too badly—she is supposed to stay out of close range after all, plus the wordplay was too good to pass up.

Our Blaster is finished! She’s accurate, deals moderate to high damage, she’s very mobile, and hard to hit. There are so many ways to go with this archetype it’s staggering. V&V has no shortage of ranged attack options, mobility powers, and modifiers that help with your damage output.

This is the first of a series of articles for V&V 3.0 focusing on specific archetypal character builds or roles. While V&V has no class roles, that doesn’t stop people from wanting to play Tanks, Healers, DPS, Support, Controllers, Speedsters, etc. This desire might come from the comfort and familiarity that other TTRPGs character classes offer, or it could come from the original inspiration for superhero RPGs themselves—the comic books that introduced us to the genre. No matter where it comes from, it’s worth nurturing because it helps flesh out the identity and motivation of a player’s hero and helps to get them into character. Since it’s not entirely obvious how to mimic all the classic class roles using V&V, I’ll outline some system specific ways we can accomplish our goal.

Enter, the Tank:

When most players think of a Tank, they imagine her being durable—able to take a ton of punishment for her teammates. The problem with TTRPGs is that you will need to force enemies to attack your Tank. If you’re extremely tough, then they will likely turn their attention to softer targets. That’s why every great Tank has a Taunt—an ability that forces enemies to focus on them. In V&V, that ability is Emotion Control.

Emotion Control is a Psychic Save Attack. In V&V terms, this means that targets hit by it get to roll to resist its effects. In TTRPGs this is commonly known as a Save, Saving Throw, or Save Roll. As this will be the ability that defines our Tank build, we need to make sure it hits, and that the target fails their Save. We can do that with other Abilities like Heightened Expertise to gain a bonus To Hit with Emotion Control, and Willpower C) Self-Control which will allow you to Push to impose a greater Save Penalty on your target. Self-Control is also a handy ability in a pinch allowing you to run faster, lift more, and hit harder. Sounds like a great Tank power!

So, we have Emotion Control, Heightened Expertise, and Willpower C) Self-Control. There are many ways to go from here, but now that we have our utility abilities out of the way, we should focus on defensive and offensive abilities. V&V smartly suggest that all characters roll or choose two offensive abilities, two defensive abilities, and two miscellaneous abilities. This makes your hero well rounded—able to deal damage, survive, and perform some other useful tasks. There are dozens of abilities to choose from, but I’m going to narrow it down into three styles of Tanking—the Evasive Tank, Thorn Tank, and The Brick. Let’s start with the Defensive Abilities.

The Evasive Tank aims to avoid being hit. Some useful Abilities for an Evasive Tank are: Glare, Heightened Agility, Heightened Defense, Invulnerability, Non-Corporealness, and Teleportation. The Thorn Tank uses Ability Fields to deal damage back to their attackers when they are hit. Useful Abilities for Thorn Tanks are: Chemical Body, Disintegration Field, Electrical Field, Flame Aura, and Reflection. While the first two types of Tanks can be fun and interactive, I’ll be building The Brick. What can I say, I like the classics. Useful Abilities for The Brick are: Absorption, Armor, Density Change, Durability, Energy, Force Field, Heightened Endurance, Invulnerability, Regeneration, Shield, and Stretching Abilities.

I’m going to go with Armor and Heightened Endurance. Armor provides a flat damage reduction against the most common types of attacks, while Heightened Endurance gives our Hit Points a nice boost while also adding a hefty chunk to our Power score which we’ll need to fuel our Emotion Control, Willpower, Pushing, and to Roll With damage. Now on to our Offensive Abilities. It is very likely that the targets we have goaded into attacking us have some way to attack us from range. Therefore, I’m skipping making a list and I’m going straight for a longtime V&V staple—Power Blast. Its Power cost is low, and it deals respectable damage. Wait. What? You want to punch things? Some useful Close Combat Offensive Abilities for The Brick are: Heightened Expertise, Heightened Attack, Natural Weaponry, Poison, Siphon, and Stretching Abilities. Actually—now that I think of it, Stretching Abilities offers some great utility and defense, while allowing you to punch things at range. Ok—new plan! We’re going with Natural Weaponry and Stretching Abilities, and we’re ditching Armor. This Brick malleable! Let’s look at our creation so far, keeping in mind this is a Standard Power Level hero. That’s 150 CPs (Character Points), eighty of which will go into our Abilities, while the remaining 70 will go into our BCs.

Emotion Control

Heightened Endurance

Heightened Expertise

Natural Weaponry

Stretching Abilities – Elongation, Oozing, Plasticity

Willpower C) Self-Control

I’ve used bold text to indicate which of our Abilities are our Core Abilities. In V&V a new character may have up to four Core Abilities which may start at 10, 20, or 30 CPs for Low, Standard, and High Power Level characters respectively.  The other Abilities must have less than 20 CPs allotted to them. To get some points back, and add some flavor to our hero, we’ll be adding some Weaknesses:

Can’t Feel Pain – “Pain don’t hurt” –Dalton

Compulsion – Our Brick must always challenge the toughest enemy and may not flee.

After some creative use of modifiers and tweaking of numbers and stats, I give you…

THE PLIABLE MAN!

Gaze at his gelatinous glory. To shave some points from his Emotion Control I applied the “Single Emotion” and “Requires Speech” modifiers. I feel like every good Tank should have to shout to get their opponents’ attentions, and he only needs to focus on one emotion, rather than a broad spectrum. After all, he just needs to make enemies focus on himself. As you can see, he has plenty of Power and Hit points, increased accuracy with his Emotion Control and melee attacks, and the ability to punch targets up to 6” (30 feet) away! He has the added utility of being able to ooze through small cracks, and his Plasticity gives him a whopping 9 Kinetic Protection! Finally, his Willpower lets him Push for a -4 to a target’s Save, +4 to his own Saves, +4 damage, x4 Carrying Capacity, or x4 Movement Rate. On the downside, it costs 4 Power, so use it sparingly.

Our Tank is complete. He has a Taunt, he’s extremely durable, and he’s a capable fighter with some added utility. I hope you enjoyed this character build article. Please check back as I will be creating more, specifically: The Blaster, the Controller, the Support, the Speedster, and the Infiltrator.

snagerdragon:

a batch of dragon artist trading cards for open swaps on ATCs for all

my available cards

Artworks found at the Sergei Sharov site.

Painting from Ray Bradbury’s art collection.





Photo from the Saturday Evening Post found here.