Cataclysm Cover Final

Whew! I honestly have NO idea how Perez or Byrne was able to knock out covers with dozens of characters how they did. This was a really challenging piece for me, and I ended up having to make a few concessions with the layout I don't love, but squeezing all these characters in was harder than I expected it to be. Here it is... the cover for the Mighty Doc Stalwart Annual #2. The adventure is written, so I have to do final edits and should have that posted to KS backers later today... 

Cataclysm Cover

This morning I roughed in the cover layout for Doc Stalwart Annual #2: Cataclysm Across the Cosmos. I decided to go ahead and include all of the characters that KS backers had requested for their commissions - it is 19 characters in total, so I was able to fit them into my homage to Mike Zeck's cover to Secret Wars #1. If you're going to swipe a cover design, may as well go for one of the most iconic of all time. 

Stalwart Adventures #1

So... it's been an eventful few days. The bad news is that my white blood cell count crashed because of chemotherapy and I ended up in the hospital for a few days as they work to get me back up to speed. The good news is that I have my computer with me and a lot of time, so I have been able to get work done on Stalwart. I finished Stalwart Phile 2 this morning, and I finished Stalwart Adventures #1 this afternoon. They are posted on DriveThruRPG. They are both PWYW, so head over and grab them. 

Stalwart Phile #2

Stalwart Phile #2 is now available as a PWYW release on DrivethruRPG. If you are a KS backer or a member of the FB group, you already got a link to the pdf. This will pair nicely with issue 3, that will stat out the Great War-era group Freedom's Four, and which will build on the theme of fighting Nazis. Because, again, we punch Nazis in the face. Because maybe we need a reminder of that once in a while. 

Multiple Birds

Well I've had a productive morning! I finally got the inspiration for something that was going to go into the core rules, but I never solved it (and which was suggested by Tony L. originally - who also suggested the letters page)... I wanted to include a 'classic advertisement' somewhere in the book from the early 80s, but never really figured out how to make the page work. However, my Facebook feed in the last week or so has included a bunch of Hostess ads from the early 80s, and I realized that was the sweet spot, and the perfect ad to include. So, I went ahead and created that page... but, I also solved a few problems. I haven't actually drawn many pages of comics in a long time (I did a page for the Core Rules, but I drew that over a year ago now I think)... I didn't have a process in place to create a page. I didn't have any sort of routine. So, I went ahead and created a blank page in paint that was 2000 pixels wide and 3000 pixels tall. Working at 50% size, I did a rough layout/thumbnail. Then I moved to 100% and blocked in some 'pencils'. Then I put in the dialogue. Then working between 200% and 300%, I did the black and white for the whole page. Then I did colors for the whole page. 

And I am very happy with how it turned out. So, here it is... the black and white and color versions. And, I now have a process in place to create the pages for Cataclysm (or any other comic pages I do going forward). The proportions ended up being just right for the various tools I use in Paint. FYI, the whole process took a little over three hours.  

Thinking about tyranny...

I have no idea WHAT contemporary news could have me thinking about Nazis and fascist dictators... but I started to cobble together some villains for my intrepid Freedom's Four to face. I love how these are coming out. I have both original characters and some public domain characters, so I'm thinking that I'll basically have two Stalwart Philes dedicated to Nazis. I mean, it turns out that there are never enough Nazis to punch in the face. Here are two more. I particularly like how Iron Maiden turned out. For Captain Reicher, I just took the public domain Captain Nazi and re-skinned him. I was not comfortable drawing a swastica at all, and I figured that he's a member of the Great Reich, so he needed their symbol on his costume.

Errata for Stalwart '85

A hefty prizeless goes to Rick Hull for bringing these to my attention. Please feel free to send any typos/corrections my way. I don't plan to correct the books (since many of you have physical copies), but for the purpose of being as accurate as possible, here is the list of errata for Stalwart '85:

• Antigen: Evade should be 5 (Tag Evade +1)
• Clockwork Killer: HP should be 13 (12 +1 Tag)
• Emissary: HP should be 30 (Tag HP+2) 
• Lord Wrack: Focus should be 7 (Tag Focus +1)
• Messenger: SP should be 8 (Tag SP +2)
• Typical Javelin Agent: HP should be 12 (no HP tag)
• Javelin Knights: Mind D8 (4); Reflex D8 (4)
• Rochambeau: HP should be 20 (Tag HP +2)
• Blue Sun Boy: Force should be 8 (Power D16), Evade should be 5 (Reflex D10, no tag)
• Earthquake Kid: HP should be 17 (HP +1 Tag)
• Gamma Grrl: Evade should be 5 (no tag)
• Stalwart Sentinel: Focus should be 6; Force should be 7
• Typical T.E.N.D.R.I.L. Agent: Level should be 3, Endure should be 4
• Aria, Daughter of Ancients: Evade should be 4
• Zero, the Final Robot: HP should be 34 (HP +2 Tag)

Stalwart Phile #1

After a few rounds of edits, I think that this is actually correct! You can now get a copy of the Stalwart Phile #1.

I finally stopped trying to be clever and did what I wanted to do originally, which is follow the format for the Marvel Phile from Dragon Magazine back in the day - a short article with 3-6 character stat blocks, and no particular frills. I'm going to alternate between my characters/world in odd-numbered Stalwart Philes, and PD characters in the even-numbered Philes. I'll be posting these with a direct link to the pdf to the FB group and the Kickstarter, but I'll also put these up as a PWYW release on DriveThru in case you feel like tipping and to increase awareness of the game to the larger community.

Thanks!  

Into the Null Zone

Wow. I got something DONE - I put together a cover design for Doc #50, with the first foray into the fabulous Null Zone. I actually feel the cloud lifting a little today, and I haven't taken my two morning naps, so progress! Still not feeling math, but at least I was able to focus long enough to get this finished. Feels good.

And it gives me a chance to blog about an actual idea that has something to do with gaming... someone posted on FB somewhere about how Sandman could basically just kill anyone. He can send a little bit of sand into your heart or brain and cause a stroke and boom. In effect, many super-heroes could do this. If they really used their powers in a smart way, many supers could just cut off oxygen to their foes and end fights quickly... but they obviously don't.

And that got me thinking about why playing superhero RPGs is in many ways harder than other types of games - you have to willingly suspend your disbelief to have your character conform within certain standards, even when you have better options. As a fighter, your best option is going to be your long sword. If you had a fireball spell, you would use it. Every time. A supers game basically says, 'yeah, you have unlimited fireball spells, but wouldn't it be fun to conjure flame here and see what happens?' Everyone at the table has to be in agreement that this is the way the game is going to roll. You could use your force field to choke Simian Prime out in one round. But you don't because... you pull punches? You are dumb? 

Because it's a convention of the genre.

I have some built-in safeguards with Stalwart Points and ways you can use your powers in 'unusual' ways, but there's no rule saying that knocking out your foes with your force field isn't the 'usual' way you use that power, except that it's not a comic book way to do it.

Therein lies the rub for supers gaming. If you have one player at the table who's like, 'uh, logically, I just use my teleport to teleport the criminal directly to prison', then the game is already over. In effect, the players have to choose fun over winning. It's a mindset everyone has to agree to. Building a game that has traditional XP progression and advancement rewards players for winning. A supers game, to my mind, has to have rewards that have little to do with 'winning' the encounter, and more to do with 'enjoying' the encounter. Fun has to be the reward.

Fighting Through Chemo Fog...

I had a new chemo treatment with heavy-duty immunotherapy at the end of last week, and it has been a challenge to get my brain locked in ever since. I'm just kind of generally having a hard time focusing on anything, which is (all things considered) a minor annoyance. My pain is almost zero, and I spend my days napping and scrolling. My Facebook feed now overflows with LEGO updates, 70s and 80s comics, and a little bit of pro wrestling from the late 80s, so it keeps me occupied and I suppose on some level I'm filling the creative reservoir a little bit with raw material that I can draw from later on. 

I have tried on and off to work on both the adventures I'm writing (Cataclysm and Issue 58), but as soon as I get to math or specific details of plot, my eyes roll into the back of my head and my brain just won't cooperate. I have swelling in my hands and feet, so even building LEGOs right now is challenging because of uneven control of my fingers - just typing this feels weird because of the pins and needles feelings in my fingertips that's been here a few days. 

So, I doodle a bit and scroll. However, this morning I found an image I'd started during the KS campaign that I never finished (not sure why - but I obviously did now) of Satana, a PD character, and realized that she's the heavy hitter that Act 3 of Cataclysm is missing. She'll be appearing there, but I thought I'd at least share something that I am working on. I'm hopeful that since I'm almost a week out from my last chemo treatment, and have two weeks until my next one, at some point sooner than later this chemo fog will lift and I can get to some actual progress. 

However, in the interim it has been incredibly gratifying to watch you all start a community around Stalwart '85 on FB, and I'm very grateful to all of you who've contributed or shared your enthusiasm for the game. It has really and truly been a source of amazing positivity in the suckage of cancer.

Finally, thought I'd share that I have re-discovered the Decemberists, and I cannot believe how deep and rich their catalog is. It's like I find a new song and become completely obsessed over it. I have been listening to the Hazards of Love on non-stop rotation for a few days, but last night came upon the Infanta and just love it so much. I see that they are touring a little bit this summer, and I'd like to be strong enough to go and see them live. I don't go to many concerts (I have maybe gone to six in my lifetime), but the Decemberists would be front and center on my wish list. Being healthy enough in July to take a six-hour road trip to Canada to see them would be a huge win. 

Thinking PreGens

First off, thanks to you all (especiall Rick Hull) for getting a FB group up and running and for some great conversations so far. Here's the link if you want to jump in.

Now that I am thinking of including pre-generated characters for the introductory adventure, I was first tempted to go pretty generic and go with maybe four elemental heroes or something that would be 'archetypal' in some way. Then I thought I'd just re-print the Young Wardens from the core rules. Then I thought - nah, that's not the game I want. I started to look at my legacy characters, and realized that I have given Monument III, but have barely referenced who Monolith I or II were, and there was my opening. I could put together a team of 'midnight guardians' or somesuch. I then realized that I'd drawn Mr Justice, a PD hero, for someone last week on the Public Domain Heroes FB, and seeing that this guy is a ghost, he'd fit in perfect. I figure I have 2-3 more spaces - I already have Vesper as controlling darkness energy, but I could always add another character who can do that... in some ways, this group would have been a foreshadowing of the group that Doc ultimately ends up with in issues 251-260, which included Zirah and Monolith III. 

- Maybe the apprentice to Eldritch? A young sorcereress might be a good fit. Not sure how a new player would handle magic, since it requires a bit of understanding of how to use the rules and existing frameworks to do cool stuff. I think the more imaginative you are as a player, the more fun magic would be to play - and the less comfortable you are, the more un-fun this could be.

- Gila the Monster doesn't canonically appear for 20+ issues yet, but he would have been a good fit here. I could do an earlier version of Gila... but ah well. Or just a different big lizard dude. He's not that deep. Or go with a golem type here (altough Monument is already the muscle kind of).

- Renegade would not have been terrible, but he appears a hundred issues too late - In retrospect, I should have made him a character who appeared in the first fifty issues. He officially is where he officially is, and I have already committed that once something is published, it is 'canon' and I won't go back and change it. Canonically, Renegade appears for the first time in issue 143 (unless that's Renegade II... DON'T TEMPT ME FRODO). Although.. my use of the phrase 'took on the role of the Renegade' in his opening text leaves me the opening that this was an existing identity... that maybe his uncle had retired from. Oh man. I'm totally doing that. Renegade I is on the team. Sweeet. This is the Renegade of Meridian. I think my original Renegade when I was in middle school had the moon knight gimmick of getting twice as powerful at night - I might keep that, and have him have two stat blocks (daytime and night time) - with maybe an extra perk at the full moon.

- Someone has to have a head for a skull. That seems like a gimme. That or at least a headless horseman of some kind. Or maybe just a skull that floats around. Head and hand of Vecna. Kid Cranium. The Occipital Protuberance.

Odds and Ends

The introductory adventure using Malamus and adapting Mighty Doc Stalwart #58 is coming along quite nicely. Here's the central image that will be the cover for that issue and adventure. I hope to have it up and published by the weekend - it will be sent to all KS backers as a pdf, but will also be PWYW on DriveThruRPG. My only question is whether or not to include pregenerated characters. I have options: I could just reprint the Young Wardens (since this is kind of how I see a character group like that getting introduced anyway). I don't like the idea that there is an 'official' team that does these things - the 'official' story featured Doc. I could just publish Doc and a few possible allies? Add a few more public domain heroes? Leave the PCs out entirely and encourage the players to use their own characters? I mean, the core rules with all character generation rules are available for free, and I want to encourage people... it's the only thing I'm not sure how to solve yet. There are lots of PD characters that I haven't touched yet - I could create a different set of maybe 8 Public Domain heroes that are a separate thing, but which are a free resource anyone could then draw on when they need a character. I could make 'Public Domain character packs' of maybe 6-8 characters at a time and probably never run out of characters to do this for, but give a lot of support to the game and continue to expand from the characters that were part of the KS. I don't want to take from anything that was already a KS exclusive, so I'll be leaving those PD characters alone.

I also added two links to the comics database, but since that thing is already pretty big, it would be easy for you to miss them if you weren't looking. I've added them both as backup features in Mighty Doc Stalwart #200, seeing that issue in many ways as shared with Simian Prime. I added the Simian Manifesto and the text that would have accompanied a Project: Javelin mission into Simian City. 

Slugfest!

It dawned on me this morning that I have never actually drawn Doc vs. Simian Prime. I mean, I have lots of drawings of Doc, and a few of Simian Prime, but I've never drawn them actually... you know... fighting. So, I took up the challenge and decided to go for the most iconic sort of late 60s slugfest image I could manage. I'm quite pleased with how this has come along. It's going to be the cover to something at some point... here it is in both black and white and color. I even like the black and white version. It's very clean.

An Introductory Adventure

I spent a little more time with the grand comics database for Doc, adding some details from the core rules that had not been in my master document. I think it is all aligned now - as you can see, there are many blank spaces that need to be filled in, and a lot of placeholders where I know who or what may have first appeared, but I'm not exactly sure what the story was that they were involved in. That said, it's a pretty good skeleton of what the history of Doc's adventures have looked like, and it also leaves me with a lot of room to expand, deepen, and enrich the lore. If this was everything, I'd be okay. I think that there are still major storylines and characters who have yet to be introduced, and I'm excited to find those things hidden in my searches through the 'back issue bins' as I explore my imagination.

I also see several storylines that are going to adapt nicely into adventures. At present, I conceptualize adventures at around 8-10 pages - the cover of the comic, one or two samples of interior art (probably not full pages, but panels from throughout), a one-page overview of the storyline as it appeared (with historical context and all that good stuff), and an adventure broken into three acts with frame/cut scenes that help to shape the whole. While issue #1 would seem to be the most reasonable start, I'm actually leaning towards the first appearance of Malamus the Magma King in issue #58. This could break nicely into a first encounter in the northern streets of Meridian where Malamus' legions have risen from the earth to 'counter attack' the people who have been disturbing his caves. After a short battle, the Magmen would retreat, having made their point - continued hostility will bring even more damage. In a cut scene, we could learn that a company has been doing illegal sonic testing and drilling in the northern mountains, disturbing Malamus. In Act 2, the heroes could attempt to intercept a Project Javelin task force (maybe led by Prototype) that has been sent to destroy Malamus and crush his small empire. In Act 3, they go to his volcano and try to negotiate a peace agreement that will get Project Javelin to stand down and bring at least a temporary peace. 

This would set in motion a lot of different elements of the comic, and introduce an organization that does unethical stuff that could be an ongoing background threat. Doc himself could either be present for the mission, or the idea is that he is always on some other mission but acts as a resource for the heroes via telecom. He could phone in with suggestions or send some help, but he just happens to be on the moon, or fighting tsunamis in Japan, or helping rescue people from Mr. Everest, or whatever.

For longer storylines, I could adapt them as multiple parts, doing smaller campaign arcs (war of the demigods), or I could find linked issues across continuity and release them as a cohesive story (the various stories having to do with Doc's secret lab being taken over, crashed into the ocean, and ultimately used as an undersea base). Staying with the idea of adapting the existing comics history gives me a nice framework to stay within, and really defines what these adventures will look like.

A GL Swipe Because I Did

I've been actually chilling a bit on Facebook, just joining groups so that my feed is full of 80s comic goodness and supers RPG stuff. I can now just jump on and scroll through the most awesome stuff and spend time in the same world of Stalwart '85, which is groovy. I ended up joining a Green Lantern group just because of this image, and then I had to swipe it and create a variation for Bronze Beacon, because I just loved it so much. No idea who the artist is, but I love the style. Here's the original with my unapologitic adaptation.

Edit: I found the source - fan art. Wanted to give the dude the credit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/comments/qq9osk/fan_art_just_finished_reading_new_frontier_and/

On Staying in My Sand Box

I keep instinctively looking at ways to 'expand' the game for Stalwart '85. I keep thinking of what I want to do 'next', or how to move the game/story/world 'forward' in some way. I keep wanting to make new 'main characters' to pick up pieces of the narrative and carry them in other directions. I originally planned last summer to hand over the reigns from Doc to Skye, and to start to tell her story instead.

But Doc always comes back into the picture. I started play testing the Cataclysm Across the Cosmos this week, and realized that it's not that story unless Doc is there. Doc is the center of gravity for the whole thing. 

In the last few days, I've been scrolling through some old scans online of Marvel 2-in-1, thinking it would be cool to have a character like the Thing who could go around and team up with other heroes to expand the world. Oh. I already have him. He's Doc. He's already doing that.

In fact, he's been doing it for 264 issues as of the time Stalwart '85 comes out. 

It always comes back to Doc. That's the future - it's the past. I was thinking about how to develop adventures for the game, and realized that I have a database going of great adventure ideas in seed form - I have re-organized this a bit and posted it so you can see the living database, but the answers are all right there. I should be publishing adventures for the game, but they can be rooted in adapting the existing 264 comics. The game is set in April of 1985. It's a fixed point in time. I can now spend my time going back and filling in as many gaps as possible. It's a bit of a strange creative enterprise for me - my job is to spend my time going through the 'back issue' bins, organizing things and adding to them. I don't have to generate 'new content' - I can just spend my time building up the catalog of what already exists as of April 1985. That should keep me busy enough. This is the entire sand box I have to play in. I can stay within these walls and never run out of things to work on - if you figure an average Doc story was 16 pages, and there are 264 of those, that's over 4,000 pages I haven't figured out yet. I think that's enough to work with. 

Plus, the whole idea of the game itself is that you're with me in April of good old '85. You bought the game, you own some comics, and you're itching to start your own game set in this world. You have no idea what storylines or continuity or strangeness is ahead, and you start building a game based on the comics you have. As you go, you hit conventions or comic shops or mail order and start to fill in your back issue collection. My job now is to help you do it.

Cataclysm Act 2

Letting my mind marinate on Crisis on Infinite Earths for a day gave me an idea for how to manage Act 2 of the Cataclysm Across the Cosmos. I had originally planned to 'write out' some of the heaviest hitters - once Stardust the Super Wizard gets involved, he's able to go toe-to-toe with Kid Eternity, so he kind of imbalances things. However, if I involve him indirectly, he could be an important player in the story, and end up having long-term consequences thereafter. This is one thing I'd like to incorporate - that the events of Cataclsym could potentially matter to your own game world (if you go that way).

Here's the elevator pitch for Act 2, assuming the elevator has like seven stops and the door keeps ignoring the 'door shut' button you keep smashing...

The actions of Kid Eternity on the ocean's surface (as he draws the sunken U-Boat to the surface where he can face his final fate), have disturbed the earth's core, and are destabilizing it. Doctor Haunt has called Stardust to compensate; Stardust is channeling cosmic energy, siphoning off the destabilized energy from the core that is shattering the world. Kid Eternity has summoned a bunch of villains and sent them to kill Stardust. So, the idea is that Stardust spends the whole Act drawing power from the core while a group of heroes tries to keep the swarming villains from killing him off.

- If he soaks D12+6 points per round, he's going to average 12 points per round; if he rolls average, he can soak 120 points in one minute - that's ten rounds. As long as he can keep siphoning energy, he should be okay. He has no access to his SP - he's using all of them to maintain this stunt.

- If Stardust soaks 100 points within 1 minute, he stabilizes the core and is able to go on to his next task, flying off to keep the moon from crashing to earth. He will spend the rest of the adventure using cosmic energy to push the moon around the earth. 

- Each time Stardust is felled, the core is replenished 2d10 points, and Stardust has to get back to soaking as soon as he's back up.

- Here's the kicker - if Stardust is actually defeated, then bad stuff happens. The 'big bad' is that Stardust himself is annihilated - his essence gets drawn into the core, and ultimately pulled into the next world that the heroes will inhabit. In effect, this puts the 'power cosmic' of the PD universe on the board for someone in the next world to capture, fight over, inherit, or reckon with. It becomes a big loose end for the GM to use in their adventures going forward. You could decide to have Stardust reborn a la Gandalf, or you could have another new character take on the identity. 

On another note, I'm starting to conceptualize Cataclysm as a hybrid comic book/adventure in a single package. I'm liking the idea of drawing the cut scenes and introductory passages, and then nesting the Acts between. Moving it from two things - part of a comic and a separate adventure - and into an interactive comic book seems a bit more on brand, and sets it apart a bit. The image above would not have been in the comic (since I was only going to draw part of Act 1), but if I end up drawing a page or two of each act as an introduction, it might feel more cohesive... I'll keep tinkering with it.  

Humble Beginnings

Recovering from chemotherapy is a lot of time just... kinda sitting. I had a radiation treatment last week that required me to minimize how much activity I was doing, and to avoid exercise... so. Yeah. A lot of sitting around. Energy has been relatively low, but the last few days I've started to bounce back, and I keep thinking of things to keep my occupied. I worked on the adventure for Cataclysm yesterday and did some reading this morning to try and get into the zone for that a little more, but I also started something else...

We'll see if this comes to fruition, but throughout high school, I had this massive poster of the Marvel Universe on my bedroom wall. I stared at that thing for hours and hours, considering all of the characters and imagining what it would be like to have a universe that big. Then, I flipped through my copy of S85 and realized - it's pretty good-sized. I mean, I have almost a hundred characters. I figured it would be really nice to have a huge poster that has all of my Doc characters in one place. It would take me a long time to finish, but it's something I can do during days and times where I just need to zone out and have something to doodle on. It would be a cool to have a big poster of 'my characters'. So... here's the anchor for the middle of the poster - Doc.
 

Spending Some Time in the Source Material

I spent some time going through my comic collection in the last month or two, sorting things and selling some older books on EBay. My collection includes Crisis on Infinite Earths #2-12; I am missing issue 1 for some reason (no idea if I ever owned it). This morning, I read through four or five issues and skimmed the rest and... wow. It's a lot. The pacing is really, really (really) fast, and worlds are just constantly getting wiped out. I get that it's the point, and I guess I'd have to put myself back in 1985 to appreciate the emotional weight of watching these worlds that you've read for decades get wiped out, but it's just a LOT. That, and a lot of it is redundant; I feel like it's the same emotional beats repeatedly, watching this hopeless battle play out. 

I'm saying I didn't love it. I was kinda hoping to be more impressed and inspired by it than I was. I understand that 2025 me is a bit more discriminating than 1985 me, but still. 40 years is a bit of time, and I obviously know a bit more about storytelling and pacing and those sorts of things than I did in middle school (you'd hope). All that said, it felt reading it more like an event than a story. It was trying to be a story, but it knew that it was an event. I recently sold the complete run of Secret Wars (same era) on EBay, and had paged through that as well before shipping it off - it wasn't quite this compressed. Secret Wars had a more manageable cast (of course), and a smaller scope, so it gets a pass for having to accomplish less with the same amount of room. It had more breathing space to tell a story.

I was expecting to get more I could beg/borrow/steal for Cataclysm Across the Cosmos, but it really didn't give me a lot. However, it did help me to decide that I'm going to go ahead and layer the Public Domain characters into my own world as well (and you can layer them into yours. Feel free). Ever since I moved backward from the 21st century to the 1980s as my default setting, I've known a few things are going to happen in Doc's future - one of these is that Echo City eventually becomes the main city of the game world. In previous iterations of the game, Meridian falls entirely during an alien invasion and becomes a toxic wasteland. I don't think I want to go there anymore, but I do like the idea that Echo City is directly impacted by the Cataclysm; the city is completely changed by the Cataclsym, its entire history and character changed. It's the more 'pulp' city anyway, and these characters largely have a pulp background, so just making it into a giant pulp action comics playground seems like a decent way to go. If Meridian is Metropolis (Doc's city, first and foremost), then Echo City becomes more like Marvel's NYC where everyone else just happens to be... and a place where I can maybe establish the next great team of heroes that includes a mix of my own original characters and PD characters as I've re-imagined them.

TL; DR

Let's be honest, I don't know if you really really want to read my six pages of playtest notes so far... but if you do, you do. I mean, it's a pretty comprehensive overview of building the Cataclysm Across the Cosmos so far. I'll summarize below:

I set up the first encounter, which ended up being 8 heroes against Gorgo. The heroes won after three rounds, but almost everyone suffered being felled once, and two characters were felled twice before they were able to drop Gorgo once. I was going to have the battle last for three drops of Gorgo, but I got to see what I wanted to from it, and was able to justify having Doc throw him out to sea story-wise, so it's all good. I had to ret-con the story as I went (no Doc at first, then added Doc), but it was no big deal.

I made a few adjustments on the fly, the biggest one being that a successful hit by a superhero against any foe deals at least 1 hit point. Gorgo's invulnerable of 10 against heroes averaging D12 damage meant that it was very unlikely he was going to suffer damage even if the hero rolled pretty well. Once I upgraded to 'all successful attacks deal at least 1 hp even if they don't', the fight sped up a little bit, and they were able to slowly wear Gorgo down. The complications I added at the beginning of the sequence also helped a bit to mix it up from a straight up fight to some strategy and something to do other than punch the villain. 

I went back and forth a bit on SP, but have realized that I have to limit SPs to the 'main character(s)' only or these battles are going to be quick. If all eight heroes had access to their SPs, they'd all be stunting immediately, doing all sorts of crazy stuff and ripping through Gorgo. Because only Gorgo and Doc had access to SP, it made the fight feel more comic-booky and less gamey, if that makes sense. I don't want it to feel like you're playing a tactical game; I want it to feel like you got dropped into the middle of a comic battle as they happen. In the big comic battles, a lot of characters get regulated to the background, doing their 'default' attack while a few others take center stage. The way I've set up SP here emulates that pretty well.

It was nice to crack out the dice and actually play Stalwart '85 again - it's been a few weeks since I actually played the game. I'm adding the Google Doc to the resources for Stalwart '85 in case people want to read through all this - I expect to continue it as I go. 

Unlikely Team Up

I keep wanting to start an actual play experience for Stalwart '85 that actually goes on for a while - I don't know if I'd actually want to do videos or anything, but I'd like to have an actual play that I use to keep the game growing organically. I mean, my home solo campaign I guess. I keep going back and forth between making new characters (I did just roll up Novus Null a few days ago...), but then I go back to the characters from the core rules. I have kept trying to think of the pair of heroes that might go together the best, and this morning I decided to try something else - who are two heroes I'd never think of putting together, and what would happen? Or, which two heroes would I most like to solo play with, and is there some way I could justify putting them in a partnership?

Sure! Zealot has always been a solitary figure to me - he's not much of a team player, and he's quite obsessive, so that doesn't lend itself to the buddy system. Conversely, Bronze Beacon is still relatively inexperienced, and so she doesn't bring a lot of confidence to a partnership. Yet, somehow, it seems like these two might end up being a decent fit together. So, I did a new drawing of them together, and was thinking that I could put them in Echo City (since that city is largely undeveloped), and set my campaign there. Doc could always pop in, but it would mostly be these two. 

I need some kind of hook that keeps them together for a bit, and a 'big bad' with some kind of plan in the background to get things rolling, but I think that this partnership might not be a bad place to start...

Slowly Delving my Megadungeon

I'm actually doing the thing I wanted to do... letting my Moridis' Halls Megadungeon sort of just organically grow over time. I've now played through eight sessions, and my characters are closing in on level 2. I've been logging the actual play as I've done it, and you can read it here if you really want to...

this morning they ended up killing a dragon that I thought they had no chance against after a series of unexpected events put them into a position where they kind of had no choice. It was fun to watch the social dynamics I'd set up for a section of the dungeon play out in a way I never would have expected when I created it. I was forced to react to the situation as it played out, and I was very lucky that my heroes were wearing some stolen garb so they could frame cultists for Mordis for killing a dwarf from a clan they might want to ultimately be friendly with... oopsies. I keep updating both this actual play thread and the megadungeon, and the link is over to the left under resources for Tales of the Splintered Realm.

In the interim, I've also started a map of level 2. I'm thinking that this thing has three levels proper. I threw down the grid and created all of the hook points to level 1, then started to drop in section of dungeons as I created them, starting to frame out connective tissue. I have only a few of the hook points back to the first level defined, and most of the rest I have some thinking to do. 

Felt Like Rolling Up a Character

Decided to crack out the Stalwart ‘85 rulebook and roll up a character for the halibut.

I’m going to play a super-tier character. Let’s start with D10+5 four times… 6, 14, 10, 14. Very good. I end up with D6, D12, D10, D12.

6 gifts

29 ESP

32 Fly

54 Melee

66 Phasing

68 Precognition

75 Resist (Null Energy)

This guy already feels a little Martian Manhunter / Vision-ish. The Latin word for New is ‘Novus’ - I don’t mind that, although I’m thinking he’s from the Null Zone but is actually a ‘good creature’ born there. He’s a rejected ‘creation’ of Hazaaek the Null Fiend. The D6 has to go in either Mind or Reflex, and I think I’ll let that end up in Reflex and pop the D10 in Mind.

Novus Null

Super Hero (D10); Hits 22; Move 30’ (fly 500’);

Might D12 (6); Mind D10 (5); Power D12 (6); Reflex D6 (3)

I will take Monstrous since he still looks like a Null Fiend of sorts. 

To draw him, I went back to one of my concept drawings for Hazaaek and re-did it - so visually he is descended from Hazaaek on my end.

I am back to the idea of making Project Javelin (or at least a splinter research arm) the ‘bad guy’ for the campaign, and an Amanda Waller type the mastermind. If she’s a high-ranking Javelin operative who just happens to be pushing the boundaries of what she can get away with, she’s got the full resources of Project Javelin at her command, which makes her a capable threat. Not sure why I defaulted to ‘her’ here, but Amanda Waller is a pretty iconic character, so I guess I’m looking to emulate her in some meaningful way. 

Maybe go with a female version of the Stalwart Sentinel - she’s an AI-powered android that has been given a mission to investigate ways to use ‘non-humans’ for superhuman interdiction. In effect, every ‘creature’ being studied here has, by some loophole or another, been declared ‘not human’, and therefore subject to experimentation. This could be aliens, outsiders, constructs… lots of options.

My first thought was to make this start with a prison break that then becomes the character on the run… which could work. However, I could instead go all in on one of my favorite movies, Shawshank Redemption, and have the entire story set in the prison, where he’s working from within to undermine it and investigate it. 

This gets closer to a dungeon crawl for Stalwart ‘85, and gives me a justification to stat out a full research facility. There’d be lots of opportunities for conflict (other prisoners, guard uprisings, new arrivals, testing powers in danger rooms - all that sort of stuff).

I’m trying to decide on a remote location to place this:

The dark side of the moon. This has its benefits.

Bottom of the ocean.

Inside a volcano.

Near the earth’s core?

Remote mountain range.

I kind of like putting this inside the volcanic mountains north of Meridian. It actually ends up being within an hour of the city, yet remote enough that nobody would ever know it’s there. Malamus the Magma King cannot be too pleased to be sharing one of his deeper volcanoes with such interlopers, but him and his posse invading the complex at some point could be an interesting plot hook.

I also like that there are lots of windows - the prisoners are well aware that they are surrounded on all sides by thick magma that burns at 1500 degrees, so ‘sneaking out’ is probably a very bad idea.

He's definitely got the whole Martian Manhunter vibe going; I could see him being a key part of building the next iteration of the Victory Legion.

More Randomness

There's no one big thing, so here's the small stuff that sort of all adds up...

I'm now a week removed from chemotherapy treatment #3. The side effect is just being super tired. I thought I had recovered after a few days, but the reality is that I'm still sleeping over half the day - I eat dinner and go right to bed every night, and often take another nap during the day at some point. Pain is almost nil, and there is no nausea to speak of, so I feel like I'm getting off pretty well so far. 

I had three different commission requests all come in within about a day, so I spent a large part of yesterday getting those done and sent out. It felt very good to get a few more things off the checklist for wrapping up Stalwart '85. I also did the formatting and posted a link for the softcover rules. If you did not back the KS but wanted a print edition, now you can get it.

I've been tinkering with the Halls of Moridis and doing an actual play for Tales of the Splintered Realm with some old-school characters. A 'session' is typically about an hour of me fumbling through an encounter or two and adding the write-up to the Halls. I'm taking a very casual approach to it. Something to busy my mind for a bit, I guess. I have permanent links for those things over on the left side...

Been listening to a LOT of the Decemberists. Good stuff. They have such a deep catalog, I have lots of rabbit trails to explore through Youtube. "The Tain" is kind of an obsession right now.

Flippin' the Script

Now that I have a firmer idea of how Daggerford is set up, and how it is settled into the nearby environs, I realized that the map of Moridis' Halls would work much better if I flipped it east to west, so that the sewer entrances were in the southwest corner, and the more remote entrances could be northeast of the town proper. I cleaned up the map just a smidge, inverted all of my concealed and secret door markings, and went back to an unkeyed master to work from. I had about a third of this stocked, and now I'm back to the drawing board (almost literally), but it's okay. I have some other ideas for things I'd like to do with some of these areas anyay, and I want to make the dungeon a bit more robust in general. This entire section was really the living and working areas of the D'Ro, with some of their upper prison pens, offices, and minor facilities. Their more experimental, magical shenanigans were on the second level, so while I an hint at such things filtering up from below, much of this is a straight-up dungeon crawl largely populated by undead and vermin that have wandered in from above. The D'Ro themeselves have largely relegated their mad works to levels 2-3, generally abandoning this area. However, I do know that at least three young dragons, all considered too weak by their mother Moridis, have been cast aside into these upper halls. All three have motivation to either get into their mother's good graces or at least muck up her projects, so all three could provide role-play and interactivity beyond waiting for heroes to kill them and loot their lairs.  

The New(est) Delvers of Daggerford

I went round-n-round in the old noggin about how to approach my actual play experience for the Halls of Moridis, and in the process went back through my actual plays and lots of notes for dungeon delving for the last few years (on and off). I decided to wipe the slate clean and start all over with a brand-spanking new group of adventurers, using the Tales of the Splintered Realm rules, although with an old-school edge - I went straight up 2d6 for all stats (organize as desired), and ended up with some deeply flawed characters. These are NOT heroes in any meaningful sense, but are literally a group of losers that a noble-minded elf has pulled together. I like that I spent all of their money, and she had thirty pieces of silver left - she has used this to pay off the debts of the other three (they appeared to her in dreams telling her to investigate the Halls of Moridis), and she has assembled her rag-tag coaltion. I mean, Sloth couldn't even afford armor, and most of them have CHA that gives a penalty. This is an old-school sort of group, and I couldn't love them any more.

Also, I have officially crossed a line as a game designer. For decades, I have repeated a process. I will get a few years past a game that I've written, pull it out, decide to play it for a while, start to immediately see where I could improve it, and start tinkering. Before long, I'm no longer playing the game, but instead working on the next edition. I don't think there will be another edition of Tales of the Splintered Realm. It's 'perfect' as it is. As I've been leafing through it, I've been pleasantly surprised, again and again, at how clean and sharp it is. For a moment, I had a pang of something akin to regret that I put friars in there instead of clerics (the only 'revolutionary' change), but then I watched the first half of Rogue One the other day, and realized that the church of the game world better aligns with that ethos - the true adherents of the faith are not armored clerics in churches, they are wild men like John the Baptist wandering the wilderness declaring that the true faith is not dead. Temples are often relics of the past or have been overcome by grifters and charlatans. The choice of character classes reflects this reality. You can easily build a 'cleric' or 'paladin', but the game is correct as it is. I was also astounded that I'd managed to get over 120 monsters in there - I started to think about how this game could use a larger bestiary, and then realized it didn't really need one - the vast majority of the classic monsters are represented and it's a great cross-section. I could literally play with just these rules forever... and I guess I just might.  

I did cheat JUST a bit and swap out Vessa's archer talent for two weapons in her Warden build - it's a minor swap, and I just have to accept she is no longer an official warden, but is a house-ruled variant... a mark of shame forevermore.

I'm looking forward to playing around with these four... 

Some Random Thoughts

I finished round three of chemotherapy yesterday, so that was something. I have three more rounds to go before we move into a 'maintenance' phase, and they're going to give me a rotation of radiation therapy directly on the tumor pressing against my spine for good measure in the interim, but I have a little time off. I was WIPED the last two days, but after a lot of sleep and figuring out how to manage my diet to rebound quicker, I'm feeling pretty spry today. I managed to update some links on the old blog here to make things a little more up-to-date and easy to access; a lot of my links were to previous iterations of Stalwart, and it made sense to at least have the first visit with the blog be with current stuff. I've got a FAQ, a dedicated post for S85, and a post about my other games that sort of summarizes all things in a bit of a handier fashion. At least I hope it is.

One thing I've been doing is organizing my Facebook feeds and following some things - I mean, there are some cool communities out there that I just had no idea about, and it's fun to reminisce about my favorite eras of professional wrestling and comics and gaming. One thing that jumped out at me was how much, in my wrestling fandom of the late 80s, I never really appreciated 'enhancement talent' (or 'jobbers'). It got me thinking that comics has its own tier of jobbers and enhancement talent, and that Stalwart '85 could use more of that. I have about 4 different illustrations I did when putting together Stalwart '85 that I never used because they ultimately came across as half-baked minor villains not worth the bother. A collection of several of these expert-level, one-trick villains might be a good first issue of "The Stalwart Phile" if I can get around to getting that going. I've got lots of ideas for it, so there's no good reason not to do it, and to keep pumping out content for Stalwart '85. I mean, I could do 20 or so of those and then collect them into a complete volume. Not a bad way to think about adding to the game over time.

I'm so happy to see the positive reception Stalwart '85 is getting as people get their hands on the print books. I was super happy with how they came out, and I'm glad to see that people generally share my enthusiasm. Every time I see a tag that someone posted a pic of their book, it gives me warm fuzzies.

I go back and forth (and back... and forth) about how I want to build the Halls of Moridis megadungeon for both Hack'D and TSR. Ultimately, it's a product for both, so I can build it simultaneously for both. I had planned to start it over with a new group of heroes (and I rolled them up), but then I thought maybe I'd take the characters I'd already been using for Hack'D and just come up with their comparable stats in TSR and keep going where I was. That seems like the better option - I liked those characters (they were based on the inside front cover of the Basic '81 rules - my favorite D+D image ever), so I could just keep going with them. Seems like I have some old notes to dig through and find...

My LEGO room is in full bloom. I've been able to track down a few sets I wanted, I've had many given as gifts (thanks to those who have sent those my way - much appreciated), and I've even gone through and pulled out some of my 10+ year old instruction books and cobbled together sets from way back in the day (I did the AT-ST from 2007 last week). It's a great room to just hang out in. I have all sorts of my old comics bagged and boarded on the walls, and I'm surrounded by nerd stuff. It's a glorious space in my basement.

For a guy who is battling 'terminal cancer', I'm actually doing quite well. I never know what tomorrow may bring, but I'm hopeful that I can still put this mother f-er into remission at some point, and squeeze another few years out of this body that kind of wants to quit on me.

Thanks for all of the support and good vibes. It's all been deeply appreciated.

Stalwart '85 FAQ

Some Questions People Have Pondered...

Q: How does stun work?

A: Stun means that you cannot act at all for the duration of stun, which may be in actions, rounds, or even longer periods of time. All actions against you are successful unless a 1 is rolled.

Q: Could you clarify action management?

A: It is generally an either/or proposition. As a character at tier D10, you can either take 2 actions at full strength, or 5 actions at a -1 downshift of dice. You can be at your best for a few actions, or water yourself down and spread yourself a little thin. It really comes down to the strategy of one foe where you want to concentrate attacks, or a number of lesser foes (or a time when you need to add some movement to your action management that round).

Q: If my character is attacking someone who's taken an Actively Defending action, my guy takes a -1 die shift - and that includes the Tier die?

A: Yes. This defaults to the same rules as listed under 2.4 on page 9.

Q: Can I stack impervious and invulnerable?

A: No. other defensive gifts (like resist) will stack, but I always saw impervious/invulnerable as either/or.

House Rules: Here are some rules I've been using to keep things keeping on...

Any 'super hero' (however you choose to define that - I'm going with expert tier or better) is able to deal, minimally, 1 point of damage with any successful attack. While you are still bulletproof against mooks firing their D6 pistols, the young archer apprentice with the D8 bow still has a chance of piercing your defenses every attack. I'm limiting this that any side or secondary effects requiring you to deal damage are not triggered unless you actually roll 1 or more points; this freebie point does not bring any automatic benefits with it, and is just an attaboy to keep at it. A superhero who hits another superhero in combat does something, even if it's quite minimal. 

My Other Games

My Other RPG Projects

	Hack’D & Slash'D $1 PDF Fantasy RPG using D12   Resources: * The H&S Living Companion * Halls of Moridis Living Megadungeon
Tales of the Splintered Realm $.2.95 PDF Fantasy RPG using the OGL Resources: * The Halls of Moridis - a Living Megadungeon * New Delvers of Daggerford Actual Play Report
	Shards of Tomorrow $2.95 PDF   Sci-fi RPG using the OGL
The Stalwart Age $2.95 PDF Superhero RPG using the OGL Resources: The Stalwart Age Blog is a semi-retired resource including background and character stat blocks.
	Cupcake Scouts the RPG (2E) $2.95 PDF An RPG of Friendship, Baking, and Monster Staking
Michael T. Desing’s Army Ants '81 PWYW PDF A simple military RPG… with bugs Resources: * Comic Book Volume 1 PWYW * Comic Book Volume 2 PWYW