ADVENTURE: STARDUST CRUSADERS Preparing for the Adventure…Pg. XX Terminology…Pg. XX Structure of the Adventure...Pg. XX To Jo or Not to Jo?…Pg. XX Incorporating Music…Pg. XX

The Stardust Crusaders Sourcebook…Pg. XX STAND PROUD: A Guide to Stands, Stand Users, and Standing Tall…Pg. XX Stand Power Sets…Pg. XX Roundabout: The Joestar Family Line, The Speedwagon Foundation, and the Ripple…Pg. XX Around the World: A Traveler’s Guide to the World’s Exotic Locales…Pg. XX Seize the Night: Creatures of Darkness…Pg. XX Falling Off the Edge of the World: Dio and His Bloody Ambition…Pg. XX Adventure Milestones…Pg. XX

ACT ONE: The Man With the Star…Pg. XX Scene Structure…Pg. XX Hooks…Pg. XX Doom Pool…Pg. XX Action: A Man Possessed…Pg. XX Transition: Jailhouse Blues…Pg. XX Action: Get Out of Jail Free…Pg. XX Action: The Terrible Invader…Pg. XX Action: DIO’s Curse…Pg. XX Transition: The Evil Spirit’s Identity…Pg. XX Transition: The Thing on the Plane Action: Insect Attack! Transition: Seek An Alternative Route

ACT TWO: The Stand Warriors…Pg. XX Transition: A Stay In a Nice Hotel…Pg. XX Action: The Devil…Pg. XX Action: Yellow Temperance…Pg. XX Action: Emperor and the Hanged Man…Pg. XX Transition: Research DIO’s Assassins…Pg. XX Transition: Enya’s Hospitality…Pg. XX Action: Justice…Pg. XX Action: "Geb" N’dour…Pg. XX Action: “Khnum” Oingo and “Tohth” Boingo…Pg. XX Action: Anubis…Pg. XX Action: “Bastet” Mariah…Pg. XX Transition: Relax At An Inn…Pg. XX Action: D’Arby the Gambler…Pg. XX

ACT THREE: DIO’s World…Pg. XX Transition: Beautiful Cairo…Pg. X Action: Deadly Duo!…Pg. XX Transition: Find DIO’s Manor…Pg. XX Action: Pet Shop at the Gates of Hell…Pg XX Transition: The Mysteries of DIO’s Manor…Pg. XX Action: The Mist of Emptiness, Vanilla Ice…Pg. XX Transition: Learn the Secret of DIO’s Stand…Pg. XX Action: End of THE WORLD…Pg. XX Action: Save a Hero’s Life…Pg. XX Transition: The Long Journey Ends…Pg. XX Action: Destroy DIO’s Body…Pg. XX

HERO Rap Sheets Jotaro Kujo…Pg. XX …Pg. XX Muhammad Avdol…Pg. XX Noriaki Kakyoin…Pg. XX Jean Pierre Polnareff…Pg. XX Iggy…Pg. XX Heroic Roleplaying: Stardust Crusaders is a fan creation based on the 1987- “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure” manga series written, illustrated, and created by Hirohiko Araki.

All images and names of characters, locations, and Adventures, unless expressly stated are TM and (c) Hirohito Araki, Shonen Jump, Shueisha, and Subs. Used without permission.

All references to people, places, and things including titles, lyrics, and other media are copyright their respective copyright holders. Used without permission.

Heroic Roleplaying and the Cortex Plus system TM Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd. This roleplaying supplement is a fan creation and is not intended to profit from or infringe on the rights of Hirohiko Araki, Sueisha, or Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd., etc. STARDUST CRUSADERS

Stand proud, warriors! This is a full-blown Adventure for the Cortex Plus Heroic Roleplaying system based on Part 3 of Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, titled Stardust Crusaders, with additional material referencing Pts. 2 (Battle Tendency), 5 (Aureo Vento/“”), and 6 (Stone Ocean). Future supplements will be based on Parts 1 () and 2 (Battle Tendency, still) and Part 6 (Also Stone Ocean) and will feature further material from their respective sources.

In this Adventure, you’ll be playing as someone with phenomenal powers, be it the power of the Ripple or Spin, mighty martial arts infused with the power of the sun, a Stand, a ghostlike entity that hovers behind you and can affect your opponent or the environment with a variety of bizarre effects, or even another power entirely (there’s vampires!)! When the course of your life is radically altered by the machinations of a vampiric madman named Dio Brando, you and a group of other likewise-affected warriors must race against Dio’s assassins to the city of Cairo, Egypt to put an end to DIO’s bloody ambition once and for all. Will you and your fellow Stardust Crusaders put an end to DIO, or will he fuse once and for all with the stolen body of his ancient arch-rival and bring an age of darkness to the world like none ever seen before?

Stardust Crusaders works best as an Adventure for 4 to 6 players (but more or less are welcome and even encouraged! Do what you want, Heaven’s Door hasn’t written “I will only run with 4 to 6 players.” in the margins of this Adventure), and can take an absurdly long amount of time to play or could be over in seconds if someone removes time with King Crimson or just advances the end of the universe in seconds with Made In Heaven. You could even be doomed to just replay the Adventure over and over again with Killer Queen. Point is, don’t play RPGs with bad guys.

You might get inspired by the Rap Sheets, scenes, and other elements to continue past the three Acts, and that’s cool too! Your story doesn’t end just because the book did. Heck, you might not even use all the scenes in this book, or you might add some after using them all, or whatever! The future Phantom Blood + Battle Tendency and Stone Ocean supplements will add even more fun stuff for you to use, so your campaign can run as long as Anubis’ life (which is a few thousand years, give or take).

Everything in this Adventure is meant for the MC’s eyes only, but they might throw you a bone and let you see some stuff before, during, or after in the Sourcebook section. Ask and ye shall (probably) receive. Also in order to play this, you WILL NEED EITHER a copy of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game or the Premium versions of either Annihilation or Civil War, or the Cortex Plus Hacker’s Guide which contains the rules for Fantasy Heroic Roleplaying a differently focused game with all the rules you’ll need. There may or may not be a forthcoming version of the Heroic Roleplaying rules, but that’s between you and Margaret Weis and is beyond the scope of this game. PREPARING FOR THE ADVENTURE

Like most adventures, Stardust Crusaders requires some prepwork before you inflict it on your helpless players. Here’s what you’ll need:

* Read over the whole Adventure and become familiar with the three Acts and the way the scenes flow in each Act. Familiarize yourself with the sourcebook so you won’t be caught flat-footed if your players do something tricky (which they should, it’s JoJo’s after all). Print copies of the Sourcebook if you think your players will dig it! * When your group meets up for the first session, each player should choose a hero from the Rap Sheets provided, make their own with help from the STAND PROUD chapter, or even convert a hero from another Cortex Heroic game line entirely and re-fluff them as a Stand User or with some other incredible power! * Be sure you have enough dice (d4, d6, d8, d12, and d12), Style Point tokens (D’arby the Elder prefers poker chips!), and some kind of action order token for each player (maybe a Major Arcana tarot card). You can also include miniatures, maps, and anything like that. You may also benefit from taking note of each hero’s Affiliations and what Milestones they’ve chosen. Keep this list near you during the game. * If your group has never played a game of Cortex Heroic Roleplaying, you should introduce your players to the basic rules and go over their Rap Sheets with them, or help them construct or convert their Rap Sheet. The rules of this are virtually unchanged from Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, so if you think it would help, hand out copies of a Cheat Sheet as well. I recommend both the Hero’s and Watcher’s Cheat Sheets from Nerd NYC, which can be found rather easily via Google or your search engine of choice. Obviously the terminology will be changed (see below), so make sure your players are privy to that too.

TERMINOLOGY To better fit the mood and feel of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, I’ve modified some of the terminology a little. Anything that’s unchanged means what it means per Heroic Roleplaying, but otherwise the differences are listed as follows: * Adventure: Replaces Event. The overall journey your player characters go on, and the campaign you’re playing in. * MC: Replaces Watcher. Your loving GM. * Pose: Replaces Push. Adding a d6 to your dice pool. * Rap Sheet: Replaces datafile. Basically the character sheet. * Style Points (SP): Replaces Plot Points (PP). The narrative currency of the game. * MC Character: Replaces Watcher Character. The NPCs, good, bad, or otherwise.

STRUCTURE OF THE ADVENTURE Stardust Crusaders is a 3-Act Adventure. Each Event should provide ample opportunities for your players to be tricky, mess up enemies with their incredible powers, and show off their impeccable style. The MC should have equal opportunity to keep the action funky fresh with an exciting selection of bad guys and other MC characters. —Act 1: The players should be introduced to the concept of Stands, learn of the mad ambition of DIO, and even fight a couple of enemies themselves before they leave for Cairo. —Act 2: On the road to DIO’s hideout in Cairo, the heroes have found themselves pursued at every possible corner by DIO’s loyal assassins, other Stand Users who wish to kill the Stardust Crusaders (that’s the adventuring party) to prevent them from learning DIO’s secret and possibly even harming their master. —Act 3: Having learned the lengths DIO is willing to go to to prevent the heroes from reaching him, the heroes finally arrive in Cairo. There they must find the location of DIO’s hidden base and put an end to his reign of terror once and for all.

TO JO… This Adventure, as-written, assumes you’re playing as the Stardust Crusaders provided in the HERO Rap Sheets provided starting on Pg. XX. However, I understand if that might not be your players’ style. Maybe they don’t like the heroes of Part 3, they want to play as their own heroes, or they might even want to play as heroes and characters from a later (or even earlier!) part of the series.

For characters from the earlier parts of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, they will be covered in the later Pt. 1: Phantom Blood and Pt. 2: Battle Tendency sourcebooks. For characters to play from later parts, work with the player to extract the most important parts of the character and put them onto a Rap Sheet. For help, I suggest going to the character’s page at the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Wiki at http://jojo.wikia.com. Pay extra attention to the Stand Rankings and note what each means to help make a character mechanically.

Finally, if your players want to play as original heroes, or a mix of original and the provided Heroes, help them make a character sheet utilizing the next chapter, STAND PROUD: A Guide to Stands, Stand Users, and Standing Tall. If the group consists of all original heroes, I highly recommend including at least one party member related as friends, family, and/ or by blood with the Joestar family line. It’ll make their conflict with Dio more personal, and give Dio a reason to be especially careful with the party on his tail.

…OR NOT TO JO If you don’t want to use the pregenerated Rap Sheets but you do want to retain a little authentic JoJo’s flavor, I recommend making up your party in a slightly specific way. In JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, there’s typically a fairly thematic way that the main characters’ party is set up, with the protagonist, usually a JoJo, a friendly rival, a straightforward ally, and a mentor. This dynamic typically gets mixed up for variety, but it’s tried and true more often than not.

In Part 3, the party makeup goes as follows: Protagonist/JoJo: Jotaro Kujo Friendly Rival: Kakyoin Noriyaki, Iggy Straightforward Ally: Joseph Joestar, Jean-Pierre Polnareff Mentor: Mohammed Avdol This party makeup typically works for most parts, so when composing your party, I recommend your group work together to build a dynamic similar to this one. Remember that just because the Protagonist is, well, the Protagonist, doesn’t mean he gets the spotlight. In the original Stardust Crusaders manga, Polnareff gets in as many victories and chapters as Jotaro and grows just as much as a character. Everyone gets to shine, whether they’re the JoJo or the Friendly Rival. One last word of advice on this dynamic; Always name thematically. If someone wants to be a JoJo, make sure they’re a JoJo, even if they come up with a name that tows the line a little (Giorno Giovanna and Josuke Higashikata are excellent examples; look up some Japanese to see why “Higashikata” counts as a “Jo”.) They don’t necessarily have to be a Joestar, but a name like Joseph Jones, Joe Jonovan, or Georgette Jolson would fit a JoJo nicely. If someone wants to be the friendly rival, make a name that’s cool as ice, like Caesar Zeppeli or Okuyasu Nijimura. Over-the-top and ridiculous fits in just fine. Also, you can never go wrong with a celebrity reference name. Actors, musicians, fashion designers, authors; Name your character after stuff you like! This goes so far that there’s even a character named Funny Valentine at one point. Don’t be afraid to ham it up. Finally, there’s also the matter of converting datafiles from Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (remember, they’re Rap Sheets now!) into existing characters. This is perfectly fine and will even be discussed a little bit more in-depth in the STAND PROUD chapter. The long and short of it is, if you make a Stand User out of Wolverine, remember that the character themselves isn’t inherently made of metal, extremely adept at healing, and capable of producing claws; all those powers come from their Stand. Come up with a whacky name (probably music-based!), a cool Stand design, and the Stand User’s relationship with their power and you’ll be golden! INCORPORATING MUSIC Now we’re in the thick of it. One of the most important things to the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure franchise, besides posing, using your wits, and being fabulous is the music. Even in the silent manga form, music plays an essential part in the story and setting, ranging from characters having obscure knowledge of Weird Al to human beings with names like “Robert E.O. Speedwagon”. After Part 3, nearly every Stand is named after a band, album, or song, and several humans before, during, and after Part 3 are named after band members.

To this end, I highly suggest incorporating music into your Stardust Crusaders campaign! This will add flavor to an encounter, make character more awesome, and generally add excitement and fun!

As far as rules go, I suggest doing this… * Each character has 1 - 3 theme songs. The GM controls the soundboard/playlist/etc. and may play these themes whenever he feels it appropriate. * These theme songs play during critical moments such as a 3 or 10 XP Milestone, a particularly awesome showing in a scene, or just a really good description. * If your theme song plays during an Action Scene, the player has assumedly Stunted and does not need to pay the Style Point to gain the benefits of a Pose or Stunt on the first turn after the theme started. They just get a d8 or d10, depending on impressive description.

These rules don’t apply for MC Characters, whose themes usually play when they first appear and during their battle. If you’d like for it to apply, perhaps pick an exciting few generic battle themes, and play the MC Character’s main theme when you spend a d10 or higher out of the Doom Pool. The same rules as above apply, adding a d8 Pose or d10 Stunt to their dice pool for cool description and general evil-osity.

SIDEBAR: Super Sounds of the Stardust —In addition to all of the previous information, I’ve included 1 - 3 character themes for each MC Character statted out, as well as on the Rap Sheets at the back of the book. These are the furthest thing from mandatory possible, and you can feel more than welcome to change themes, only use one or two, or even scrap the whole thing and ignore the music bit. It’s all in you and your players’ hands! STAND PROUD: A Guide to Stands, Stand Users, and Standing Tall

The Limits of Destiny: Rules of Stands Now it’s time to learn about your special abilities, your hero’s Stand. While the form, function, and features of every Stand vary wildly from person to person (or rat to algae to corpse with an unstoppable flesh-eating mold thing), most of them are either bound by the rules or defined by their odd exception to them. So here we go!

* Your Stand is like your guardian angel, sworn to protect you. The name comes from the fact that Stands “stand by” their user, sometimes using their powers without their owner’s direct order in order to protect the user and, as a result, themselves. * An individual my only have ONE Stand, although the stand can evolve, such as a Stand that creates sound evolving into one that can create the effects of that sound, or a Stand that can create life becoming a Stand that can cancel the effects of any action. Just go with it. * Stands can be inherited down a family line. Weirdly, this one is less common in the manga than you’d think. * A Stand is a part of its user, so any damage taken is shared by both. Thus, if a stand breaks its arm, the user’s arm will also break. Some Stands, such as those with armor or increased durability, are immune to this effect (See Silver Chariot (Pg. XX)). * Stands may only be seen by other Stand users, except for Stands bound to physical objects (Such as a Stand attached to a sword or a ship. See Anubis (Pg. XX) and Strength (Pg. XX).) * Stands can only be directly damaged by other Stands. There’s not really a whole lot else to this one, but if you wanna have mooks or something be slightly dangerous, have them go for complications or Emotional or Mental stress. * A Stand’s power is directly inverse-proportional to their range. The further away a Stand gets from its wielder, the less powerful it gets (or, in the case of some super short-range stands, it dissipates entirely and returns to the user). Long-range Stands and/or Stands with long-range abilities work far more simply, basically being powerful up to their maximum range or, y’know, just plain being projectiles. A bullet doesn’t hurt any less until it’s exceeded its maximum range, a fireball or a gemstone fired from a Stand probably doesn’t either. * Stands are usually bound to their User’s body, but like with every other rule, there is always an exception. Iggy’s Stand, The Fool (See Pg. XX) is bound to sand and nearby dirt instead of himself, while Wheel of Fortune (See Pg. XX) is bound to a car. * When a Stand User is killed, their Stand vanishes with them. Conversely, when a Stand is dealt a fatal blow, its user dies and the Stand vanishes. What constitutes a fatal blow varies from Stand to Stand (some have higher durability, after all), but generally if an injury happens to the Stand that would kill the User, chances are good both are dead. <==To Be Continued |\|