Yeargh!!!

Hey true believers, glad to hear you are all enjoying your fill of Agency goodness of late. I apologize for the lack of updates, but the GF has been out of the country for the last two weeks, so I have been juggling double house management duties with a mondo editing assignment for Dark Inheritance. This is my first time out as an editor, but I think you'll like the result - we have some cool, but small, changes we are implementing to make the whole thing flow more smoothly. This is no reprint with new rules - consider it a revised edition, with Mythic Dreams making some calls on content based on experience and what they really want to do with the setting. Should be pretty sweet. Hopefully I'll be finished by Saturday morning, so more soon.

Weird Campaign Idea of the Month: Hellboy

OK, so I promise this is not going to become a Hellboy blog, but I just noticed I'm due for another WCIotM and I've not given things much thought, plus I have a friend who wants to use Spycraft to do a Hellboy game. Sooo...Hellboy it is.

By now, I imagine you've probably seen the movie, or at least read the graphic novels, so I won't cover the details too thoroughly. Basically, to do a Hellboy-inspired campaign, we're going to need paranormal agencies, weird breeds of agents, Nazis and some odd forms of NPCs. Thus, required reading should include....Agency, Hand of Glory Threat Book, the Archer Foundation Chamber Book, and Mastermind.

Agency - Let's start with the basics. The BPRD (which Hellboy and Abe work for) is a unique little outfit - kitted with a host of bizarre and wondrous superscience, quirky (and not entirely human) agents, an ultra-mundane front operation, and lots of inner politics. I figure in any Hellboy game, one will need a pretty fully fleshed out version of the BPRD and its resources, as its own unique structures and mission approaches will form the meat of the missions during the season. Enter Agency, with a host of very detailed options for creating a player-accessible Agency structure that may be built at random or by choice. This book covers everything from the front operation and public face, to divisions and their dispositions toward the agents and one another, to the Agency's influence at a local, regional and global level. When I get home tonight, I just might try building the BPRD using these rules and see what I can't come up with.

Hand of Glory Threat Book - You know, of all the SFA books out there, HoG was always my least favorite. Nazis have never really done much for me as villains, and mysticism was so *not* what I wanted in my "serious spy game." Yet, here we are again. HoG was doubtlessly heavily influenced by Hellboy (Pat Kapera is a rabid comics fan, donchaknow), and it only takes a little reverse engineering to make this book fit perfectly. You have Nazis; you have mysticism; you have weird-looking fringe science gadgets; you have ancient and powerful relics; and you have the departments and classes to recreate a mystically-obsessed group of WWII relics, all in the palm of your hand. You could even take Eva's stats, slap Rasputin's name on them, and have a go at the agents straight out of the book. Whooha!

The Archer Foundation Chamber Book - The first Shadowforce Archer splat and the companion volume to HoG is another valuable resource for running Hellboy with Spycraft. The Foundation is the home of weirdness in the Conspiracy, complete with an entire division (Division Nihil) committed to battling the paranormal. Incidentally, Archer Foundation is also the home of psion research within the Chambers, and also offers up rules for the Architects of the Fringe, a ghostly group of enemies. Sounds kinda like the BPRD, don't it? This book gives you lots of tools for Hellboy mayhem, including the Explorer and Fringewalker classes (both great for Red), loads of new psion powers (including Profile, a fav of Abe's), the Fringe explained (good for general weirdness needs) and a little on operations of a paranormal agent.

Mastermind - I hate to plug the upcoming supplement so much, but man...you need to get this thing. A popular question over on the Spycraft Boards has been, 'How do you stat the Clockwork Nazi?' Mastermind offers you the answer - I figure he should be an Old Blood Android/Fixer/Raptor ;) And hell - what if your players want to try to encourage the apocalypse rather than prevent it? Chapter 4 will tell you all about how to be bad (in a good way, of course).

Of course, when Dark Inheritance hits the shelves, the Hellboy-styled Spycraft game gains a whole new set of options. This summer!

Building characters is important, if only for walk-ons. I might stat out HB himself as a high-level Explorer/Martial Artist/Fringewalker, Abe as a Telepath with lots of Profile and telemetry-type powers, Liz as a Mentalist with some steep backgrounds in Defeated and lots of stress effects (from the 60's Decade Book), and Dr. Broom as a Scientist/Expert focusing on the arcane.

To help you build Hellboy himself, I offer this goodie. Enjoy!

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Demon (New Department Option)
Summoned from the darkest reaches of the Otherworld, demons are a scourge unleashed upon humanity by the cataclysm of the Rip. While most demons are committed predators and enemies of mankind, some have found a new home on Earth and have joined the fight against their former brethren. While they may be disturbing to most normal humans, their preternatural strength and resolve makes them staunch allies in the fight against the Daemonhost.

Special Talents

+4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Dex, -4 Cha

Intimidate is always a class skill.

+1 department bonus to all Intimidate and Knowledge (Otherworld) checks. This department bonus to Intimidate and Knowledge (Otherworld) checks increased by an additional +1 at 4th level and every 4 levels thereafter.

Damage reduction 1/-. This department bonus to damage reduction increases by an additional 1 at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter.

+2 department bonus to all saving throws versus fire, heat or fire-based spells and effects. This department bonus to saving throws increases by an additional 1 at 2nd level and every 2 levels thereafter.

Demons manifest increasingly more disturbing physical and behavioral traits as they age or grow in power. At 1st level, the agent receives a 1 point Mark of the Gods background. At 4th level and every 4 levels thereafter, the effective rating of this background increases by 1. This background does not count against the normal limitations for the number of points an agent may have invested in backgrounds at once. This background may never be resolved.

Bonus feat: Glint of Madness. All prerequisites for this feat – including other feats – are waived.

Smokin'

Well, I saw Hellboy last night, and while it was a fun ride, full of character and excellent mood (and shots straight from Mignola's pen), it did suffer a bit in the third act. I will make the same comment about this film that I made about Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - it could have benefitted from about 20 more minutes of movie in the end. Not to say this movie was anywhere near the horrific qualities of the late Star Wars franchise films...it just rushed a little bit, and felt anticlimactic for it. A friend of mine is really interested in doing a monster-hunting game, and I have a feeling we'll be playing a Hellboy inspired mix of Dark Interitance, Shadowforce Archer, Spycraft, and Project X here in the near future. Time to get working on a Hybrid and Demon department...

Other than that, sushi was excellent and a good time was had by all. We had much Japanese food in a local restaraunt, eating cross-legged in a tatami room, complete with bamboo mats and sliding paper doors. Very nice, and uniquely satisfying dining - totally different from the 'eat til you feel you'll burst' feeling you get from American or Italian cuisine. Nice.

Poll for the day; should I buy an X-box or not? I own a PS2 and a Gamecube already, and have a bunch of games I've not played too much. The drop in X-box price is tempting, since this week I can get an X-box, HALO, and Knights of the Old Republic for $200. That would give me access to the upcoming HALO 2 and Fable this fall...sound off!

30, here I come

Today I officially enter my late 20's - I turn 27. Good god, the flower of my youth is almost spent.

Happy birthday to me.

On an up note, however, I got a freakin' kickass watch for the big day from the gf and folks - a Seiko Arctura Kinetic Auto Relay. It's freaking amazing - I could barely scrape my jaw off the floor when I opened the box. Almost makes becoming an old man worth it :)