Brilliant Gameologists Forum
Play Like You Have To! => The Kitchen Sink => : kevin_video January 18, 2010, 06:01:10 AM
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And then some. They don't all have to be heroes per se, but definitely famous people. I'm looking to do a reincarnation campaign where the players are reincarnated heroes from the past who have to try and help rebuild humanity well after the apocalypse has occurred.
I've been working on it for a couple of weeks, and I've had to tweak it somewhat, but I'm looking for more heroes and villains that anyone could suggest for me. Women and mage suggestions would be awesome. I'll list what I have so far. And yes, they are where they are for a reason. I've researched many people, and it was quite surprising that some people who I thought were villains, turned out to actually be heroes in their own right. Imagine that.
The one's with a slash (/) mark means that they're of the same era, or they were considered partners (you'd choose one and get the other if you had Leadership from D&D). If they're in brackets it's because those people were based off of real people that existed in history. As for Roman and Greek mythology, lore and legends always start somewhere so I'm allowing those as well. Granted some I'm just not sure of. Like anything from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Nemo and Dorian Gray shouldn't exist, but they have lore around them, and Gray even has an item in the D&D books so I'm allowing him.
The players are going to choose for themselves who they want, but it'd be nice if I had suggestions for them to pick from. And you can never have too many villains.
Heroes
King Arthur/Merlin
Alexander the Great
Robin Hood/any of the Merry Men
Zorro (William Lamport)
Sherlock Holmes (Dr. Joseph Bell)
Joan of Arc
Hercules
Jason of the Argonauts
Houdini the Illusionist
Billy the Kid
William Wallace
Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday
Leonidas
Odysseus
Villains
Atilla the Hun
Rasputin
Napolean
Genghis Khan
Vlad "The Impaler" Tepes III
Jack the Ripper
Leatherface and Norman Bates (Ed Gain)
Jesse James
Elizabeth Bathory
Dorian Gray
Professor James Moriarty (Adam Worth)
Al Capone
Bonnie and Clyde
Adolph Hitler
Ivan the Terrible
Caligula
Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy
Idi Amin Dada
Pol Pot
Catherine de' Medici
Locusta/Agrippina the Younger
Medea
Emperor Nero
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You have Hitler, but no Stalin (http://dsss.be/hitler-vs-stalin/)?
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You have Hitler, but no Stalin (http://dsss.be/hitler-vs-stalin/)?
I've heard about him, but the information I've found on him doesn't say a whole lot, and is more vague than informative so I just left him out.
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No Achilles?
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No Achilles?
Well, if I allowed Jason, then everyone from Greek mythology (including those from the series Class of the Titans) would be allowed, but how do you create him? That was my issue. Same thing for Samson who was as strong as Hercules so long as he had long hair. Again, how would you build him? I only put down people who I knew it would be fairly easy to build. I'll accept others who'll be more difficult, but a head's up as to how you'd create them would be great too.
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Well, if you take a step back from the legend(that is to say, go with what a 'realistic' Achilles could have), hes simply a damned good fighter under the auspices of high Damage Reduction.
The ankle thing critted him, went through his DR and then the wound went septic.
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Well, if you take a step back from the legend(that is to say, go with what a 'realistic' Achilles could have), hes simply a damned good fighter under the auspices of high Damage Reduction.
The ankle thing critted him, went through his DR and then the wound went septic.
Again, how do you add DR to a character without being epic, or wearing adamantine?
But I guess that makes sense. I always just thought it to be that his ankle was the only thing that didn't have DR. Like a kink in the armour.
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Apply the quasilycantrope template?
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He wouldn't need much more than 10, really, considering the people Achilles spent most of his time fighting, 10 points would make him swordproof against anyone from level 1-4, and by having a decent AC, he could similarly prevent higher level opponents from Power Attacking him effectively. Cause of death? He got hit by a fully power attacked spear that managed to crit, punching clean through his DR.
The dip in the Styx could have, for example, bestowed a permanent Stoneskin effect on him, with no maximum damage limit. Or make use of the Abyssal Heritor feats(though not recommended, since some of them are quite disfiguring) to grant DR.
Theres also Barbarian, for a lesser, if not very significant amount of DR, and going Warblade for Stone Dragon manuevers too allows for the legend of invulnerability.
Also, you need Circe for a villain, it's traditional to put heroes into pig form every now and then. :D
Other options could have maybe Cuchuainn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%BA_Chulainn), Gilgamesh(oldest hero in the first book ever, lol), The Monkey King (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Wukong), a whole crapton from Romance of the Three Kingdoms...
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The mineral warrior template adds DR 8/adamantine for LA +1. Leave off all the other crap that goes with it, and that could make for a decent Achilles... in a world that doesn't have adamantine. :P
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Apply the quasilycantrope template?
The mineral warrior template adds DR 8/adamantine for LA +1. Leave off all the other crap that goes with it, and that could make for a decent Achilles... in a world that doesn't have adamantine. :P
Where'd you guys find that?
@ veekie -- 10 points of what? Stats? DR? He could have had DR 10/magic and been hit by someone with a magic weapon. That could have happened.
Where's Styx?
Isn't Circe a god though? And baleful polymorph would be quite the evil spell to use.
I'm torn on Gilgamesh. Up until a little while ago I always thought he was the biggest douche of a warlord ever. That's exactly how they portrayed him in a lot of series, but it turns out he was actually a hero. Like, wow. How can you get that so wrong? So I have no idea. Again, the Monkey King would be hard to consider. I guess he could be a were-ape, or something. Not sure. I did say that I would allow mythology since every legend is born from something, but Romance of the Three Kingdoms? That'd be interesting, to say the least. Never heard of Cuchainn. Have to look up that one with the link you've given.
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Quasilycantrope is on the wizards.com website, and gives DR 10/silver, and the ability to look slightly more like a specific animal than normal. LA+1
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Apply the quasilycantrope template?
The mineral warrior template adds DR 8/adamantine for LA +1. Leave off all the other crap that goes with it, and that could make for a decent Achilles... in a world that doesn't have adamantine. :P
Where'd you guys find that?
Underdark book.
Where's Styx?
It was the river that flowed through/into the Greek underworld. Google it.
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King Arthur, you say?
Look no further (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5925.msg195850#msg195850). ;)
Also, Cu Chulainn (sp?) should totally be on that list.
Gilgamesh too. Not sure where he belongs, though... I'm going to tentatively go with 'hero', but only because he was the protagonist. :p
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+1 on Cuchulain and Gilgamesh
Honestly, I think you're being unnecessarily restrictive in your approach. If I were so inclined to do such a campaign, I'd probably open it up to my players, w/ a list as some guidance, and let them bring me the info about the reincarnated heroes they want to play, they should be willing to pitch them. Also, since you're willing to say that these are the "real world" versions of mythical characters, things don't have to literally track the mythology. There are, as people have suggested, several ways to build an Achilles who is resistant to damage (and, again, that's sort of the player's problem ...), but even if you just gave him an astronomical AC or something the people would probably feel like he was invincible; viz. the flawed film "Troy."
Also, I'm not sure how I'd approach the strong hero/villain dichotomy. These characters, especially the older you go, are almost always flawed and often tragic heroes, but (1) they are heroes nonetheless and (2) they are interesting. Achilles is an almost unimaginable douche, Lancelot touches off a conflict that essentially rekindles a civil war and an age of darkness that they just recently got out of, Hercules strangles his wife and child (under supernatural influence, but the Greeks were less understanding about that sort of thing), Alexander might have murdered his own father, and so on. Moreover, a lot of them operate in a foreign morality -- I played a mythic Greece game, and there it's ok to rape, murder, and enslave people, but being rude to a host is a crime worthy of divine punishment. Go figure.
Which is all to say that I could totally see someone playing the reincarnation of Genghis Khan or Rasputin as a hero, perhaps a flawed (e.g., overly ambitious, temper).
Oh, and I'd suggest Tamerlane (also called Timur) as a great villain, and one a bit less famous than the others.
Btw, this sort of reminds me as a more epic version of "Riverworld," if you're familiar w/ it.
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Watch the movie Mongol and you can easily see Ghengis Khan as a hero. ;)
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It was the river that flowed through/into the Greek underworld. Google it.
I've been hanging around this site WAY too long. I took "dip in Styx" as meaning the same as "a dip in fighter".
Yeah I know about Khan being the good guy too. It's so hard to make villains when they're not even villains. And chances are there'll be players wanting to be LE or something like that. I won't say no, but it would take away from my villainy side. Just means more minions.
As for me being restrictive, Unbeliever, I'm not. I'm asking honestly how you'd put those in. I'm not about to have the players walk blindly into these character write ups, even if they want them. I'm looking at the help as guides. If they have trouble, I want to be able to help them out of it. Also, starting characters will be lvl 5 as that's when they'll be "awakened" from their normal lives.
The villains who are absolute villains, will be the ones that you know full well are loony psychos. When you kill in cold blood to satisfy your own lusts, or vanity, that's evil. That's not LN or CN. And anyone who's played a LN character knows you can be as much of a douche as you want and get away with it because that's how they can be played.
I'll have to look up Timur. I've heard a friend suggest that person as well.
Can't say I've heard of Riverworld, no.
And no, not using Saber as the King Arthur. :P He's already been written up in an official book, but as an NPC from Dragonlance (Expert 16/Noble 4). The Excalibur in the link does look better though. A holy sword that does HOLY DAMAGE makes sense. I don't know their artifact version doesn't have that. The scabbard's pretty cool though. Oh, and his lance and shield.
I'll be either designing, or using pre-written artifacts for everyone.
And I can't Google a link on Quasi Lycanthrope. Wizards isn't searchable anymore.
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It's here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040721a
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It's here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040721a
Wow, that's nuts. I think DR 10/silver is actually worth the LA, but the flavor seems pretty dumb...
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Thanks to an episode of classic Spider-Man, I'm adding in Black Beard. The executioner of France was also there, but he didn't actually have a name, so hmm. Funny that Khan was also there, but I don't know who the women in red was. Maybe that queen who killed virgins to make herself young? Jack the Ripper was pretty easy to spot.
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Circe is a witch, though depending on the source she may be X% god, considering how those old gods went around having sex with everything that moves and some things that don't.
Theres also Qin Shi Huang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang) though hes not so much PC material, given his famed deeds. Not a nice guy. You could also adapt the Eight Immortals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_immortals), they may technically be deities, but before ascension, were pretty much adventurers, and acting pretty much like a superpowered party post ascension.
Wayland Smith (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_Smith), not all of them have to be combat oriented. Perseus, Beowolf...goddamn thats a lot of heroes, even just tapping popular mythology.
Gilgamesh too. Not sure where he belongs, though... I'm going to tentatively go with 'hero', but only because he was the protagonist. :p
Giant dick crossing the land maybe, but that describes most D&D style adventurers...wait...
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Hmm. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with having a smithy on the team if someone wanted to be one.
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What about that Satyr guy who was (thought he was) better at music than Apollo and got smote for his trouble? Yeah, I guess it's a stretch. :P
Some guys from norse mythology maybe but then, aren't most of those gods anyway?
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Some guys from norse mythology maybe but then, aren't most of those gods anyway?
Probably. I'm looking more for heroes and villains. I'm sure the players will try to get a god or two past me.
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What about that Satyr guy who was (thought he was) better at music than Apollo and got smote for his trouble? Yeah, I guess it's a stretch. :P
How about Arachne? The original Spider, pissed off Athena by being better than her at weaving.
As for the Norse, they have quite a lot of non-divine heroes, but none I can recall clearly offhand.
Sigurd?
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Kind of looking for less supernatural villains, but considering I've been told that a vampire Vlad Tepes and a lich Rasputin would be more "fun" to pit against the PCs, I'll consider it.
Sigurd?
You know, I always thought he was a demi-god, but I guess not. He's got a few different names too.
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John Wilkes Booth?
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Simo Häyhä? :D Hey, Rasputin died 1916. Simo was active during WW II. Only 30-odd years of difference, there.
We may need more of a definition on what constitutes an "ancient" hero, here.
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Simo Häyhä? :D
As long as hes not AGAINST the PCs..getting nailed from out of nowhere by a sniper you can't find...
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Got a player who wants to be Braveheart's William Wallace. The only problem is the armour. Is there's an armoured kilt?
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Just reflavor it.
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Just reflavor it.
As what, from what? I thought there was one though. And it'd probably be torso. I'd allow hide armour anyways.
And another player is wondering if Conan was real. I'm sure he's based off of something, but I can't find any references saying so.
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John Wilkes Booth?
Epic.
Sigmund is the hero of the Volsunga Saga, Siegfried (Sigurd) his son was the Dragon Slayer. Both of them were not sired by gods, though Völsung (Sigmund's father) is the great grandson of the All Father. Sigmund's mother was a giantess.
Jason and other Greek heroes are sired by deities, demi-deities, and other mythological beings.
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I just learned that Hercules is more than possible since he was actually based on an actual Hercules who was considered the strongest man in the country at the time. Also, Spartacus is real.
Too bad Conan and Xena aren't. Had a couple of players consider them.
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Got a player who wants to be Braveheart's William Wallace. The only problem is the armour. Is there's an armoured kilt?
Maybe easier (http://willyloman.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/william-wallace.jpg) than you'd think. (http://www.worldtour-of-scotland.com/tour/images-tour/2108-wallace-statue.jpg)
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Got a player who wants to be Braveheart's William Wallace. The only problem is the armour. Is there's an armoured kilt?
Maybe easier (http://willyloman.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/william-wallace.jpg) than you'd think. (http://www.worldtour-of-scotland.com/tour/images-tour/2108-wallace-statue.jpg)
Well I recognize the chainmail across his arms, the sword (longsword or bastard sword?) and heavy shield (wooden with steel over it?) not so much. Or maybe he's got more than just the chainmail.
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I know that Hercules is based off of the Greek Hero Herakles. Out of curiosities sake, where did you find that he was real?
Arthur and Merlin are just Romantic heroes from stories during the High/Late Mediaeval Ages.
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I know that Hercules is based off of the Greek Hero Herakles. Out of curiosities sake, where did you find that he was real?
Arthur and Merlin are just Romantic heroes from stories during the High/Late Mediaeval Ages.
It was on AskJeeves. I happened upon it when I was looking up Xena, who was just based on the Amazon warriors in general, but actually one person.
Yeah, I can't find much on them either other than the Arthur movie where Merlin was a druid witch doctor, which was said to be the true story of Arthur and his knights.
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It was on AskJeeves. I happened upon it when I was looking up Xena, who was just based on the Amazon warriors in general, but actually one person.
Yeah, I can't find much on them either other than the Arthur movie where Merlin was a druid witch doctor, which was said to be the true story of Arthur and his knights.
Well, there were two 'King Arthur's that people debate. One was in the 5thish century, the other the 10th. Neither had round tables. The story and the telling suggests that it was based on a chivalric King of the time (probably not Arthur) and the romanticized idea of courtly life. So many people know about Arthur and believe in him that he might as well be real.
I looked over the article and there is no citing. The hole in his argument, or as he puts it 'scholars argument', is that he wasn't a god. There was (and is) a Cult of Herakles http://books.google.ca/books?id=kFl_DgN73UUC&pg=PA379&dq=cult+of+heracles+book&ei=zQ5ZS9rRHZv2MfH42OwM&client=firefox-a&cd=1#v=onepage&q=cult%20of%20heracles%20book&f=false (http://books.google.ca/books?id=kFl_DgN73UUC&pg=PA379&dq=cult+of+heracles+book&ei=zQ5ZS9rRHZv2MfH42OwM&client=firefox-a&cd=1#v=onepage&q=cult%20of%20heracles%20book&f=false).
Wait... people still use Ask Jeeves?
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Wait... people still use Ask Jeeves?
If they have a question they do.
And there's actually a third Arthur debate that's been told of, and was even made into a series (Fate/stay night). That Arthur was actually a girl who pretended to be a boy because no nation would accept a female king to lead them.
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If they have a question they do.
And there's actually a third Arthur debate that's been told of, and was even made into a series (Fate/stay night). That Arthur was actually a girl who pretended to be a boy because no nation would accept a female king to lead them.
Now that is interesting. Never heard of that, I'll check up on it. Thanks!
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If they have a question they do.
And there's actually a third Arthur debate that's been told of, and was even made into a series (Fate/stay night). That Arthur was actually a girl who pretended to be a boy because no nation would accept a female king to lead them.
Now that is interesting. Never heard of that, I'll check up on it. Thanks!
Well, I should probably revise that. Fate/stay night is more than just a King Arthur story. It's actually the anime (as well as Class of the Titans) that helped me create this idea for a campaign. So while there's King Arthur background, it's not just about Arthur.
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Well if you know Fate/Stay Night, you've should at least know Cuchuliann, since hes kinda Lancer(though I suppose that wasn't so obvious in the anime, the upcoming Unlimited Blade Works movie should fix that). His mythic spear is actually a hell lot more painful to get hit by than the anime version, even if it didn't have a 1 mile blast radius. And his famed berserk fury, the Warp Spasm is kinda freaky.
Spoilered for size
[spoiler]
The Gáe Bulg had to be made ready for use on a stream and cast from the fork of the toes. It entered a man's body with a single wound, like a javelin, then opened into thirty barbs. Only by cutting away the flesh could it be taken from that man's body.
They were fighting in a ford, and Ferdiad had the upper hand; Cúchulainn's charioteer, Láeg, floated the Gáe Bulg down the stream to his master, who cast it into Ferdiad's body, piercing the warrior's armor and "coursing through the highways and byways of his body so that every single joint filled with barbs." Needless to say, Ferdiad died soon after.[/spoiler]
[spoiler] The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front... On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless knob as big as the head of a month-old child... he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn't probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek. His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared, his lungs and his liver flapped in his mouth and throat, his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram's fleece reached his mouth from his throat... The hair of his head twisted like the tange of a red thornbush stuck in a gap; if a royal apple tree with all its kingly fruit were shaken above him, scarce an apple would reach the ground but each would be spiked on a bristle of his hair as it stood up on his scalp with rage.[/spoiler]
Though if you had Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table would fit in nicely, Lancelot, Gawain, etc, etc, as well as the other characters, Mordred, Morgana Le Fay. It's one of those legends with a lot of starring casts, and if you had conflicts with timelines(e.g. the 5 century gap between Arthurs) simply make the later one the first's reincarnation.
And one final thought, if you're making use of D&D, you actually need to power most of the heroes up. High level characters are head and shoulders above most of the things that some mythological gods can do, much less heroes.
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And one final thought, if you're making use of D&D, you actually need to power most of the heroes up. High level characters are head and shoulders above most of the things that some mythological gods can do, much less heroes.
This. Hercules killed a hydra. Just one. And almost died doing it, if memory serves me. I forget how many heads it had, but Hydra CRs run from a lowly 4 (one head) to a middle-of-the-road 11 (twelve heads). And I'm pretty sure it had less than ten heads when it started out.
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Well considering hes doing it effectively solo(with a nonheroic companion), without magic equipment...
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Well considering hes doing it effectively solo(with a nonheroic companion), without magic equipment...
VoP Monk? Maybe he was low enough level that it was actually still worth something. :lol
Or maybe he fudged the dice.
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VoP Monk? Maybe he was low enough level that it was actually still worth something. :lol
Or maybe he fudged the dice.[/quote]
Took me a second to realize VoP stood for Vow of Poverty. It's too early in the morning. :embarrassed
I was talking to a friend of mine last night who suggested that a good character to have would be this one female she heard about who took over as general and helped load the cannons when her husband fell in battle. She'd make an excellent Marshal character. Now if only either of us knew her name. I know of who she was speaking of, but not clue on the name.
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Other characters to throw in the pot, Daedalus(and possibly Icarus, though being famous for being an idiot...).
Well considering hes doing it effectively solo(with a nonheroic companion), without magic equipment...
VoP Monk? Maybe he was low enough level that it was actually still worth something. :lol
Or maybe he fudged the dice.
He probably had something analogous to VoP, comes with being the son of Zeus. Being able to strangle snakes in the cradle means VoP level raw stats.
Actually, make that every big time hero in history.