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Showing posts with label FANTASY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FANTASY. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

A handful of webcomics to share.

As I've mentioned before A Voyage Into the Fantastic is meant to be more than just an RPG blog, its also a general fantasy/whatever the Hell I'm interested in blog. So here are a few webcomics I'm into, in order of which I know best. So let's start off with...

Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Fogilo

 Romance, adventure, mad science and talking cat emperors, welcome to the world of Girl Genius. Our heroine is Agatha Heterodyne, Spark and last known heir to house Heterodyne. Her adventure begins with Agatha under the assumed name of Agatha Clay and raised by her loving if mute, the comic can explain this a lot better than I can, step-parents Adam and Lilith Clay, blissfully unaware of her Heterodyne heritage and true nature as a Spark, basically an inborn mad scientist/engineer.

 Agatha's adventures take her across the continent of Europa, evading the clutches of Baron Wolfgang Wulfenbach, the well intended if ruthless and morally ambiguous supreme ruler/tyrant of all Europa, amassing a small army of loyal and worshipful lackeys and gets entangled in a love triangle with the Baron's dashing if hotheaded son Gilgamesh and Tarvek Sturmvoraus, the charming and unfailingly polite if duplicitous prince and distaff descendant of the Storm King of old. Agatha does not find their fighting over her to be romantic, just aggravating. She even sets out to awaken Castle Heterodyne, hopefully without it killing her to show its affection.


The Adventures of Dr. McNinja by Christopher Hastings and Anthony Clark
 First off, the main character is a doctor and a ninja, it only gets weirder from there. His receptionist and nurse is a female gorilla named Judy, who is capable of understanding multiple human languages, both spoken and written, but is incapable of speaking those languages. Which is due to the fact that she's a gorilla, with normal gorilla vocal cords, but she does know sign language. If only the good Dr. McNinja knew sign language too. Alas he doesn't, so they are forced to communicate with spoken English (on Dr. McNinja's part) and written responses. They manage pretty well.

Over the years the good Dr. McNinja has assembled a larger team around himself, including his own Bot Wonder, a 12 year old velociraptor riding gunslining bandito named Gordito Delgado. Together, Dr. McNinja, Gordito and his late father's gang of dinosaur riding banditos avenged the senior Delgado's murder. As a result young Gordito became the good doctor's sidekick and formed an especially close bond with Dr. MiNinja's pet velociraptor, Yoshi, now Gorditio's trusty and loyal steed. I feel like mentioning that Gordito's sheer will and determination to act like a real man and hunt down his father's murderer caused the 12 year old to grow a full, bushy mustache.

Over the years our hero has faced many deadly foes, from the unscrupulous clown and fast food mogul Donald McBonald over copyright infringement, to war against the corrupted German ninja Franz Rayner to end his program of artificially created ninja foot soldiers, clashing against Dracula within the Prince of Darkness's secret moonbase to his ongoing conflict with King Radical. But Dr. McNinja is more than just a fighter and often times killer. Like any good medical doctor he's also a healer.

It was none other Dr. McNinja who discovered the cure to Paul Bunyan Disease, a horrific disease that transforms children into 20 foot tall giants with jet black hair, full beards, flannel clothing and a berzerker's rage against all trees with desire to fell them all with their giant axes. The giant axes that just pop into existence along with the disease's other symptoms, including giant blue oxen to themselves. The disease's onset presents with the projectile vomiting of maple syrup. I've just about explained Dr. McNinja right now and it makes just as much sense in context. Oh, Dr. McNinja learned much of what he knows of medicine from Ben Franklin's clone. I'm officially done with this.



Atomic Robo by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener

 The year was 1923 and Nikola Tesla was hard at work building a manlike creature of steel, glass and wires. It was like a son to him, Tesla's legacy and last great gift to the world. That was the day Atomic Robo was born. He battled Nazis and other enemies of humanity and world peace, as well as Doctor Dinosaur and other foes of intelligence and basic reasoning skills. His heroic career sees Atomic Robo fighting giant monsters, fellow robots, Doctor Dinosaur, rogue Soviet Generals and his long time adversary Thomas Alva Edison, who despises Robo for being a creation of Tesla's. In all, Atomic Robo is a two-fisted robotic pulp hero, with a list of friends and allies that include the hereditary British spies called the Sparrows, zen gunslinger Jack Tarot and the late astrophysicist Carl Sagan.


Kill Six Billion Demons by Abbadon (not the author's real name, I think)
This honestly is the webcomic in this post I know the least about. I get that it's about a normal young woman who finds herself in a magical world of gods, demons and angels and forced to fight to survive and explore the strange realm she's lost in. It features major battles involving sorcery, raw supernatural might and martial skill. Perfect inspiration for a high power campaign.


Friday, May 20, 2016

Some thoughts on magitech, part 1.

What is magitech you say? First magictech (or magitek if you prefer) is a portmanteau of magic and technology. Now since this is a fantasy blog it's safe to assume that everyone here knows magic and technology are, though I do feel like giving a more in-depth description of what technology means. Technology is the practical application of science/knowledge. So if you had a world in which magic exists, that means it could be observed, examined and studied, and with observation, examination and study can ultimately come application. If you really want to get pedantic any deliberate use of magic could count as magitech by this definition. That's all I have to say on the topic for now. There's more for when I can post it.

Monday, February 15, 2016

(A little bit of this and a little of that) Segment based initiative and some other combat rules. Here we go again.

Initiative: Who Goes First?

Let's start things off with one of the most contentious topics in role playing games. Not alignment, which for the most part is only a thing in D&D, Palladium and the 'World games. I'm not even talking about encumbrance. No, I'm talking about the real most controversial topic in most if not all RPGs. I'm talking about initiative, what others have called the Kobayashi Maru of D&D.

Friday, January 22, 2016

(BECM mash up) A really ill-advised idea of mine, wound thresholds.

One of the things I've noticed about D&D in general is that damage doesn't really matter until the last few hit points. Now I know that's just fine with a lot of people, but I feel I can do better. At the very least make it a bit more complex. A lot of it is borrowed from SWSE (Star Wars Saga Edition) and Iron Saga as well as the Vitality/Wounds system with 5e's short and long rest mechanics and some d20 conditions.

Damage Threshold

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Wrestling with Giants

No jokes about bigger boats please. We've had enough of them already.
There comes a time in D&D and many other fantasy role playing games when the heroes, such as they are, the players control end up fighting against some sort of large/giant beast or monster. An earthshaking creature of immense size with nigh impenetrable scales or hide. Yet in Dungeons & Dragons, especially OD&D and BECMI, treats fights against giant creatures the same as fights against tiny little pissant weakling kobalds and goblins. I see this as a bug and not a feature.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

The Voyage Begins

"Something hidden. Go and find it.
Go and look behind the Ranges —
Something lost behind the Ranges.
Lost and waiting for you. Go!"

— "The Explorer", Rudyard Kipling
 
Adventure, excitement and exploration. In my opinion these are among the major cornerstones of fantasy, horror and science fiction. In fact much of fiction has journeying into the unknown or the unraveling of mystery as a main focus. But fantasy and science fiction also deals with the acceptance, or at least acknowledgment, of the strange and weird.
 
For the most part I expect this to be a fantasy RPG blog, not exclusively old or new school by any means, just what I find interesting. I'll include some house rules, homebrew and attempts at world building too. That's not counting making and posting characters. In addition I'll discuss my D&D/fantasy RPG inspirations, ranging from books to TV shows, movies and video games.
 
With all this in mind I present to you A Voyage Into the Fantastic.