Legends Walk!
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LEGENDS WALK! A Truth & Justice setting of ancient and modern superheroes Written and designed by Tim Gray Based on the self-contained Legends Walk! game published by Silver Branch Games, © Tim Gray 2002-6. Art: Cover images by Storn Cook. T&J logo by Greg Holkan. Some images © Louis Porter, Jr. Design. Some images © Dover Publications, Inc. Some images © OtherWorld Creations, Inc. Some artwork from Fantasy Filler Art copyright Rick Hershey, All Rights Reserved. Some art copyright Octavirate Entertainment. Thanks to Chad Underkoffler, Mike Conway, Chris Helton and Sophie Lagacé for heroic commenting on the draft and pushing me to make it better, stronger, faster. Also to the daring playtesters: Sophie Lagacé, Edmund Metheny, Linda Freeman, Ed Freeman, Jenifer Ramsey; Chris Helton, Aaron Revennaugh, AJA, Lee-Ann Sincavage; John Harris, Tim Partridge, Ed Perkins. Also Andreas Melhorn for German advice and Fred Hicks for layout troubleshooting. Truth & Justice and PDQ system by Chad Underkoffler, Atomic Sock Monkey Press (www.atomicsockmonkey.com), used under licence. The Prose Descriptive Qualities (PDQ) System of Truth & Justice has been designed for evocative simplicity, speed, and flexibility in play. Three levels of resolution, suitable for any type of situation. The PDQ System and Truth & Justice are used under license from Chad Underkoffler; the following materials are not necessarily endorsed in any way by Chad Underkoffler, nor is he in any way responsible for the content of these materials unless specifically credited. Reference to comic book titles and characters is not intended as a challenge to copyrights and trademarks of their creators or publishers. www.silverbranch.co.uk © 2007 Tim Gray. All rights reserved. Legitimate purchasers of this product in PDF may have print copies made for personal use only. CONTENTS Entries in italics refer to boxed information and The Greek Pantheon 43 “documents” from the setting. Gods 43, Heroes 54, Monsters 57 The Clown 48 The Black Ghost 49 INTRODUCTION 3 Background 3, Ways to use this book 3, The Norse Pantheon 59 What’s inside 3, Some key concepts 3, Style 4 Gods 61, Heroes 70, Monsters 72 Warcry 69 Leviathan 74 The Aztec and Maya Pantheon 76 OVERVIEW Gods 77, Heroes 87, Monsters 88 Pronunciation hints 77 MYTHIC SUPERS 5 Doctor Obsidian 83 Themes 6, Setting 7, Opponents and Deceit 85 Challenges 7, Agency 8, Life on Olympus 9, Playing the Source 10 The DIY Aesthetic 9 LEGENDARY EARTH SETTING SETTING SEEDS 11 Legendary Earth 11, Here and Now 11, The way of the world 89 Dark Age Legends 12, Victorian Legends 12, Changing the world 89, International affairs 90, Pulp Legends 12, Secret Legends 13, Crime and punishment 90, Entertainment 91, Supernatural warriors 13, Legends Black 13, Science and technology 91, Religion 92 Superworld 13, Legends Ooze! 13 A partial timeline 93 Factioneering 95 Governments and agencies 95, UNOMA 95, The Guild 96, Freelances 97, Criminal organisations RULES 97, Anti-Meta movements 98, The Green Hand 98, The First Century 99, Ask and Embla 100, CHARACTER CREATION 14 Church of Astral Enlightenment 101, Scarab 101 The Source 14 The Rat 96 Power programme components 15 Creating First Century characters 99 Aegis 15, Required power 16, Qualities 16, A few First Century characters 100 Powers 16, Imbued items 17, Vulnerabilities 18 Young Person’s Guide to the 21st Century 102 Scale 15 The Second Battle of Midway 103 “Attributes” 16 Gazetteer 104 Targeted Damage 18 Europe 104, Americas 106, Africa 108, Asia 109, Other character types 19 Middle East 112, Oceania 113, Elsewhere 114 Alterants 19 Squires 105 Character creation example 20 Nimura Katsutoshi 112 An Introduction to Parapsychiatry 116 RULES ADDITIONS 22 Things in Heaven and Earth 119 Size 22, Normal and super overlap 23, Collisions Sources 119, Sprites 119, Scions 120, 23, Lethality 23, Favour 24 Incarnos 121, Maelstroms 121 A collection of possible truths 122 KEY POWERS 25 Powers directory 25 RESOURCES POWER PROGRAMMES 41 Construction guidelines 41 Adventure seed generator 126 List of Sources 42 Inspirography 128 Cheat Sheet 132 2 INTRODUCTION Background Legends Walk started as an idea: connecting superheroes and mythology. It first appeared as a stand-alone RPG in 2002, using the purpose-designed LODE system, and was updated to second edition in 2006. It has sold slowly but steadily, gathering a certain amount of critical approval. Two supplements have added pantheons to the options available for making characters. Because I’d been filling my head with supers through working on LW, I took the opportunity to join the playtest and peer review group for Truth & Justice as Chad Underkoffler was developing it. I really liked a What’s inside lot of things about T&J - in particular, I realised that the LW system had started from games and moved The book divides into three parts: toward comics, but T&J started from comics and • Overview - a short general discussion of mythic moved toward games. It would generate quite a supers, and some possible setting concepts different style of play, and that could work well for where they might be used. mythic supers. • Rules - using Truth & Justice to model mythic Bringing the two together by converting LW as a supers. How to adapt character creation; a few setting for T&J has been a goal of mine for some new rules additions; a bunch of key powers fully time. I hope you like the result. written up; and “power programmes” (see below) for gods, heroes and monsters of the Greek, Norse and Aztec pantheons. • Setting - one of the “setting seeds”, Legendary Earth, written up in detail. Its premise is that Ways to use this book “metahumans” first became known to the public at the turn of the millennium; that they’re pretty Different readers will be looking for different things, much all mythically powered (except for a few generally breaking down as: that are technologically augmented); and that it’s now 2020 and their presence has changed the 1) Running a game focused on mythic supers world significantly. Some of the material in the • Using this book’s detailed Legendary Earth setting rest of the book, eg sample characters, is based on Legendary Earth but can be used elsewhere. • Using another setting, perhaps based on one of the other “setting seeds” or ideas of your own 2) Using it as a resource for inserting mythic characters in general T&J games Some key concepts What you want to do will dictate which parts of the The default metaphysics is that the gods, heroes and book you’re most interested in, of course, but it’s monsters of legend exist in some form as suggested that you look through the whole thing. For supernatural beings called Sources. They “imbue” instance you might find ideas in the setting write-up mortal men and women (and, in fact, animals and that you like enough to transplant elsewhere. objects) with some of their power, giving them abilities far beyond those of ordinary folk. 3 Each Source is written up as a “power representation or agency in the modern world. Some programme”: descriptive text followed by a might even want to gather worshippers. Sources’ shortlist of Qualities and powers that fit, both for relationships to each other can be complex, based on capabilities and for flavour. So all you need to do is factors like ancient personality and culture clashes take your character points and use it as a shopping and cooperation or competition over their area of list. (Of course some players and GMs will want to influence. They will certainly expect their Metas to use these as a springboard for their own take a similar approach. The Rules additions section customisations.) The rules part of the book is about has an optional Favour system for tracking a how that works. character’s relationship to their Source. Variations: • In Legendary Earth the Sources are spirits or energy beings in a dimension bordering our Style world, who channel power through a “Gate” between worlds that exists everywhere at once. In terms of T&J’s discussion of style, the default • For a different flavour you could make Sources version of Legends Walk matches the cinematic physical beings who occasionally make a personal bracket most closely. The world is mostly as we appearance. As characters they’d need to have a experience it ourselves, but certain individuals are lot of Ranks, probably at least World Class more capable and powerful. It doesn’t have the level for the more significant ones, and oppressive atmosphere of the grim’n’gritty style, nor probably function best as plot devices the silliness that sometimes comes with four colour with difficulties set at GM discretion. and animated. • Characters might actually be mythological This is so because Legends Walk is about lots figures surviving from ancient times - this of sets of contrasts, which rely on a has been used quite often in comics, most famously with Marvel’s Thor. baseline of ordinariness. The most obvious is the contrast between what normal Again there’s pressure to include more people can do and the impressive feats stuff from the power programme than achievable by metahumans. There’s also the is easy to buy with character points - it’s difference between the workaday world and probably as well to look at combining the strange, even surreal, effects of some some of it under one or more Meta- mythically based powers - that weird edge is Powers. important flavouring. It connects with the tension • Another popular theme in comics, between ancient and modern, which also especially DC, is the character who gets connects with the characters as individuals powers from a set of mythological balancing life as a normal person with impulses benefactors, eg Wonder Woman and from a mythological entity that might work the Shazam characters.