Genre Mash-Up Games

I posted this question on the Dragonsfoot forums, but it went over like wet toast there. How many multi-genre RPGs are out there? I don't mean generic RPGs like GURPS or Hero System, but games that have dedicated backgrounds or concepts behind them, like LoC.

Here are the ones I can think of-

• Torg (yay!)
• Rifts (meh)
• Tales from the Floating Vagabond (the heir to the Lords of Creation throne, in my humble opinion)
• Man, Myth & Magic
• Fringeworthy
• Stargate SG-1
• Dr. Who
• Encounter Critical 
• Timeship
• Shadowrun
• Timemaster

There are probably some other really obvious ones, but I'm literally sneaking this in at the eleventh hour before I hit the hay.

Some Thoughts on Building Races in LoC

Unfortunately I won't be able to update a frequently as I have been. Not sure how long this situation is going to last, but it'll be at least two weeks. In the meantime I'll be working on some stuff about demons and hopefully have the background/universe/cosmology worked out for my own currently non-existent game. Plus a boatload of Foes. Speaking of which, here's a really nice write up from Dragonfoot's own Otto von Grunwald on races in LoC. So, without further ado...

Just looking through some stuff I have about Foes...

When building a race of foes (goblins, orcs, saurians, etc...) they are ranked into 3 tiers: Average, Soldier, and Leader with Heroes above these. All 5 stats for any member of each tier are the same value. For example, Average Goblins have an 8 for each stat (Muscle, Stamina, Speed, Mental, and Luck). Soldiers stats are 1.5 times the value of Average foes, and leaders are roughly double those of a soldier.

Again, using goblins as an example, Average=8s, Soldiers=12s, and Leaders=23 for each stat. Their Attack score, Init bonus, etc are then figured from these and XP value is calculated based on the formula given at the front of the foes book. Average members of a race of foes almost never have armor, though soliders and leaders always do with soldiers generally having -2 armor and leaders having slightly better at -3 or -4. Pongoids had the thickest base armor with soldiers having -4ballistic and "Heroes" (No leader tier) having -5ballistic. Pretty tough.

I personally find Foe creation to be a bit of a pain in the ass, so this is definitely gonna come in handy. Thanks again, Herr Grunwald.  

Hopefully I'll see you cats sooner than later, so for now- Adios, mugatos!

Lords of Creation, Summed Up In Two-Thousand and Eleven Words

New Foe: Samurai Cat

The second I saw the Felines entry in the Book of Foes I knew I'd have to write up good ol' Miaowara. I've only read the first book; if he gained any abilities since then I'd be happy to add them, so let me know.

Miaowara Tomokato
ATTACK: 20 x 3
DAMAGE: wpn + 1 (+ 5)
INITIATIVE: + 11
ARMOR: - 4 Regular
LIFE POINTS: 105 (32)
MOVEMENT: 90'
LUCK: 15
NUMBER: 1
EXPERIENCE:  110
POWER: 6

Miaowara has the Acrobatics skill and the first four levels of the Wilderness skill. He also possess the power of Physical Control.

Samurai Armor- As Chain Mail Shirt with a -1 Init Mod.
Samurai Sword
Samurai Bow

I think it's time you and I had a talk...

There's a couple of things I probably should have gotten around to when I started this venture and now's a good a time as any, I reckon. You may have noticed that the first 9 or 10 posts were labeled "NEOPHYTE" all big like that. Basically, that's my way of saying I didn't know sweet f.a. about Lords of Creation and the idea was to "go up in level" every once in a while as I got the hang of things. Then I realized that was kinda stupid so instead I'm just gonna do that once and all the posts that follow will fall under that "level."

I'm an Apprentice now. How about that?

In related news, I'm also going to change the banner with every level so you can all keep tabs on my progress and report it back to your supervisors. They're going to start off all primordial and gradually get, uh...less primordial. Expect the next one in a year or two.

APPRENTICE

Here's the first of what should be a LOT of npcs for Lords of Creation- Octobriana, Queen of the Russian Underground. I won't go into the long, weird history of this character except to say that she first came to my attention in the pages of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, a comic from British writer/artist Bryon Talbot. Anyway, if you already know who she is, cool. If not, you know what to do.

Octobriana

ATTACK: 18x2

DAMAGE: wpn

INITIATIVE: +5

ARMOR: none

LIFE POINTS: 28

MOVEMENT: 70'

LUCK: 13

NUMBER: 1

EXPERIENCE: Yer on yer own, kiddo.

Automatic Rifle-2

Knife-2

Pistol-3

Octobriana has the first four levels of Commando and the first level of Street Criminal. She is, for all intents and purposes, immortal.

NEOPHYTE 9

Here's the final Class from Lord Fluffy. Other than some very alternate stuff he came up with, that's the last of the new/alternate/whatever rules from Fluffy. He apparently revised and added to these and made the files available on a file sharing site, but they no longer exist. If anyone has them or knows where they might be currently hosted, lemme know. 

Shootist
1. Gun Fu
2. Akimbo
3. Armor Piercer
4. Bullet Bender
5. Magic bullet

Shootists are masters of firearms, archery and distance weapons in general. They are wizards with such weapons and can do amazing things.
Of a note, all powers a shootist may manifest may be used at once (except magic bullet and two fisted mojo) .

Gun Fu:
Distance: As weapon Time: Constant Uses: Constant
You may fire a ranged weapon into close combat without fear of hitting anyone but your intended target. For that matter, you may use guns and crossbows in melee combat, gaining the point blank bonus.
Also, you gain an uncanny awareness with firearms and are able to do things like shoot over your shoulder without looking or fire accurately while sliding down a bannister. This allows you to ignore penalties for darkness or blindness and half penalties for movement with ranged weapons.

Akimbo:
Distance: As weapon Time: 1 Turn + 1 turn per rank of skill in the weapon used Uses: 2/Day
If you are holding a weapon in each hand (thrown weapon, crossbow, flintlock pistol, needler, pistol, etc), you may use either make 1 extra attack on another target (at your normal attack score) or add +4 to hit and do 1.5 damage to one target (round down). Each attack expends a normal amount of ammo from each weapon.
You may use this ability with a normal bow by knocking two arrows, but if making an extra attack, both targets must be in front of you and within 45 degrees of each other.

If you have more than two hands (due to cybernetics or other effects), you may use one gun in each of those hands as well. For each additional weapon, either add one attack or +2 to hit and .5 additional damage.

You may also use the second application with melee weapons. This power has no effect on unarmed attacks.

You may only use Akimbo one way in a given turn, gaining extra attacks or gaining bonuses but not both. If you choose the second, you may only use this bonus on 1 attack in that turn. You may switch between methods on different turns, however. You may, with a high enough Attack, have up to 14 total attacks per turn using this power. You may not have more, regardless of how many arms you have.

Armor Piercer
Distance: As weapon Time: 1 turn Uses: 3/Day
You become aware of chinks in people’s armor and are able to target them with great effectiveness. You may ignore non-magical armor for all ranged attacks for one turn. This has no effect on Dodge or Shields.

Bullet Bender
Distance: See Below Time: 1 turn Uses: 3/Day
You become so in tune with ranged weaponry that you may bend the trajectory of your weapon in ways physics does not approve of normally. As a result, you may, for one turn, ignore a targets Dodge, shields and penalties for cover. This also allows you to effectively double the range of any projectile weapon in your hands.
You may not bend the trajectory more than 90 degrees.

Magic Bullet
Distance: As weapon Time: 1 turn Uses: 2/Day
For a moment, you can make your weapon do impossible things, like hitting numerous targets with a single projectile.
For one attack (not one turn) per use of Magic Bullet, you may do your full damage to a number of targets equal to your power. Also, the bullet is actually magical for that attack and effects targets wearing magic armor.
This attack always uses just one shot from the weapon. It may not be used with automatic fire or akimbo.

NEOPHYTE 8

I'm gonna post two of Lord Fluffy's Powers (or "Classes," as he calls them) this time- Warlord and Martial Mastery.

Warlord (Disciplined)
1. Improvised Armorer
2. Soul Sheath
3. Wall of Steel
4. Sunder
5. Spirit Sword
Warlords are gifted in the use of weaponry and are born to combat.

Improvised Armorer
Range: Self Time: Permanent Uses: Constant
To a warlord, the whole world is one big stockpile. With this ability, they may turn anything into a deadly weapon. If a Warlord uses a random found weapon, they may apply their skills to it as if it were a balanced, well made piece of weaponry. Damage is determined by the GM, but will usually be 1-6 or 1-10. If it fits a skill he has, the weapon is considered to have a skill maximum of 2.

In addition, the skill maximums listed in the weapons chart all go up by one. For instance, a Warlord may apply 7 ranks to his to hit bonus for unarmed, 2 for using a club or up to 6 using a rapier.

Soul Sheath
Range: Self Time: Permanent Uses: Constant
You may bind items to yourself such that they float in a small space outside of time and space, close at hand. The most you can store is about 1 cubic foot, or roughly the size of a two handed sword or shotgun.

Nothing living can be stored in this space. The space is invisible to anyone besides you, though beings with True sight will see a faint outline of the item floating near you. Only one item may be kept in the soul sheath, though if that item contains other items (like a box with many items in it or a gun with bullets in it), that is fine.
Putting an item in or out takes an action. This cannot be hurried. The item is only accessible by you and if you die (permanently) it is lost forever. If you fall unconscious, the item will remain hidden.

Wall of Steel
Range: Self Time: 1 turn per 2 Power Uses: 3/day
You are so quick with melee weapons that you may use them to deflect attacks. While using wall of steel, you may use your skill in a melee weapon that you are holding as if it were Dodge. This is effective against both melee and ranged attacks and the bonus stacks with your normal Dodge skill (still maxing out at -20).

Note, wood weapons work against regular damage. Metal will protect from regular and ballistic. Energy weapons protect against those two and Energy. Magical attacks are not effected unless you are using a magic weapon.

Sunder
Range: Self Time: 1 turn Uses: 1/Day
You may charge yourself and one melee weapon (or unarmed attacks) with might, such that your attacks with it become nigh unstoppable. You may ignore Dodge and non-magical armor for 1 turn. If you lose the weapon during that turn, you may use unarmed attacks but the weapon instantly reverts back to normal.

Spirit Sword
Range: Self Time: 1 Turn/Power Uses: 3/Day
You may draw from within yourself a weapon that is made of your will and essence. It may take on the form of any melee weapon, but always has a skill of 5, a damage of 3-18+2 and is considered magical for purposes of armor. If you are disarmed during while using this weapon, it instantly dissolves and reappears in your hands.

Martial Mastery
1. Rice Paper Walk
2. Chi Blast
3. Look of the Master
4. Deadly Palm
5. Dim Mak
Rice Paper Walk
Range: Self Time: 1 turn for every 2 Power Uses: 2/Day
While this power is in effect, the Martial Master may move with blinding speed. The character’s Dodge is doubled for the duration. If the character has no Dodge skill, he gains Dodge 2 for the duration.

Also during this time, the character’s ability to move becomes much more impressive. They may leap up to 4 times their height, gain an extra 20’ of movement (leaving no footprints) and may balance on a bent bamboo tree or on the top of a flagpole and similar feats with a successful Athletics roll.

Chi Blast
Range: 25’ +25’ for every rank of Unarmed Time: Instantaneous Uses: 1/Day
The Martial Master may focus his power into a blast of energy. This allows him to make an unarmed attack on a foe at a distance. The attack is made normally and does damage as if it were a normal unarmed attack, +1d6 for every 5 Power the Martial Master has, rounded up. The attack is visible and appears as a bright ray of energy coming from his hands.

Look of the Master
Range: Self Time: 1 turn per power Uses: 2/Day
The Martial Master is so calm in himself that he may end fights before they with just his Chi. When activated, any Reaction rolls made during the duration of the power because of the Martial Master or his party are at +1 for every 2 power the Martial Master has.
During fights, a use of this power may also be used to force a morale roll on the part of the foes, modified as above. This power has no effect on creatures that are of a greater power than the user or that would not normally make morale rolls.

Deadly Palm
Range: Touch Time: 1 Attack Uses: 2/Day
A Martial Master with this ability may make an attack, focusing his power into a devastating strike.
Deadly Palm attacks ignore armor (except magic) and Dodge. It also adds 1 point of damage for every points of Power the Martial Master has. In addition, if the target is less than twice the Martial Master’s weight (estimated), then they must make a luck roll or be propelled 2-16 feet backward and fall down.

Dim Mak
Range: Touch Time: See Below Uses: 1/day
The Death Touch. Using this attack, a Martial Master makes an unarmed attack normally. If it connects, it does no damage, but the target must make a luck roll. If they fail, they die within 1 year (the actual point is decided by the Martial Master).

The martial master must make skin to skin contact (at least no thicker covering than cloth) to make this attack. It has no effect on creatures that are magically reanimated, already dead or have no internal organs. It has no effect on robots, but will effect androids and cyborgs. It also has no effect on creatures with a Personal Force than the Martial Artist’s by at least one half (i.e. if the Martial Artist has a Personal Force of 40, others with a Personal Force of 60 or greater are unaffected.)
If the recipient of the Dim Mak is not killed instantly, there is rumored to be an alchemical cure. Some cruel Martial Masters have learned it, it’s said, and kept victims enslaved for years by setting them up to die and curing them if they obey.

NEOPHYTE 7

Lord Fluffy Strikes Again-

Chronomancy (Magical)
1. 1 Second ahead
2. Prophecy
3. Slow the Sands
4. Split the Odds
5. Time Travel

1 Second Ahead
Range: Self Time: Permanent Uses: Constant
Your perception is always projected both in the present moment and one second ahead. This comes as an impression of things that are about to happen, though not an actual vision of them. This results in a +2 to initiative and to luck rolls.

Prophecy
Range: Self Time: Instantaneous Uses: 2/Day
You may use this ability to predict a few moments into the future. As a result, you can get the most likely outcome to one question per use of the ability. An acceptable question would be “What happens if I press this button” or “If I accuse the ambassador of treason, what will happen?” Bad questions would include things like “am I going to win this fight?” or “Is the ambassador a traitor?”

Prophecy cannot predict the results of more random occurances, like coin flips (or anything that involves a die roll). It can predict the outcome if you are successful or if you are unsuccessful, though each of these would constitute a single use.

Slow the Sands
Range: 100’ Time: 1 Turn Uses: 2/day
You may slow the relative time around one person or object to cause it to move ½ as quickly than normal. The target must make a luck roll (modified by your Luck minus their luck, min 0). If successful, they loses one attack on their next turn, take a -1 to their initiative and lose 10’ on their movement. If they fail, they lose ½ of their attacks, have ½ their initiative bonus (round down) and ½ their movement rate.

Split the Odds
Range: Self Time: 1 turn per 2 power Uses : 2/day
You may call on the aid of versions of yourself in nearby potential timelines. The copies are under the control of the player and are identical to the person they are copying (minus this ability), including any equipment. The user gains 1 copy for each full 5 power they have. Each copy may act independently of the others.

If any of the copies takes damage, it is divided between all copies and the original (note: this means that catastrophic damage, like jumping into a volcano or hugging a nuclear weapon, will kill all the copies and the original). At the end of the effect, the copies (along with any equipment they had on them, even if they are not holding it) disappear.

While you may use this ability twice per day, you may not use more than one use of this ability at a time.

Time Travel
Range: See Below Time:1 Turn Uses: 1/Day
You may transport yourself and up to 10 people within a 10' radius to another point in time in the dimension you're currently in. If attempting to transport someone unwillingly, they receive a luck roll.
Time travel is not as precise as the Temporal Travel Power. How close to the exact moment you arrive depends on how far you're attempting to transport. Within 1-10 turns if travelling less than a week, 1-10 days if traveling up to a month, 1-6 weeks if travelling up to a few years, within 1-3 months if traveling up to a decade, 1-10 years if traveling over a few centuries, 1-3 decades if traveling over a millennium.
The GM may wish to limit your ability to cross your own timeline.
Once in the new time, you are there until you use another ability, device or other means to travel back.

The Time Travel power was meant to complete the trifecta of powers that includes Teleportation and Dimension Walking. The nearest I can tell, the bonus you're supposed to get with those powers (as opposed to the Level powers that let you do the same thing) is that you can take other people with you and that it doesn't take a random number of rounds to activate.

LoC Quote of the Day

"Ownership of a Psychokiller is highly illegal."

NEOPHYTE 6

From Lord Fluffy, a new Power/Class: Attunement

Attunement (Futuristic)
1. Focused Mind
2. Metabolic Control
3. Physical Augmentation
4. Longevity
5. Total Recall

Attuners are capable of focusing their mind to control their body in remarkable ways. Similar to Somatron, Attunement is mind over matter and concentrating your will to push yourself past your normal limits.

Focused Mind
Distance: Self Time: See Below Uses: 3/Day
By becoming more aware of your own thoughts and feelings, you make yourself harder to control. Any time a luck roll would be required to paralyze, stun or control you (via Hypnosis, Persuasion, Possession or damage from weapons like a Electroglove) , if you fail your luck roll you may use this ability to make another luck roll as if your luck were +10. You may only make one reroll per failed roll. Also, you may ignore critical failures on the re-roll.

Alternately, you may expend one use of this ability to give yourself a +20% bonus on any one skill attempt. This has no effect on combat skills. You must already possess the skill.

Halt Metabolism
Distance: Self Time: 1 day per power point Uses: See below
You may deny your body sleep, food and water for a number days at a time. You also are more resistant to the elements, such that you could survive in the arctic in a light jacket or in the desert during the noon day sun. On the downside, during this period of active topor, you’ll be at -2 to initiative and you can only heal at half your normal rate. Once this ability fades, you will be hungry and tired (and at -1 to initiative for each day your metabolism was halted until you eat and sleep,) but will need no more food or rest than you would normally. You may not enter into a state of halted metabolism again for the number of days you were in it. You may release the state early if you wish.

If you are poisoned during this time (or if you activate Halt Metabolism in the same turn), the poison will have no effect until the power fades. At that time, any poisons in your system must be dealt with at once, one by one. If you are administered anti-venom or some similar counter agent before you release the state, they take effect simultaneously, counteracting each other.

Physical Augmentation
Distance: Self Time: 1 turn per point of Power Uses: 1/day
This allows a character to temporarily add 20 their Muscle, Speed or Stamina for the duration of the effect by willfully pumping massive amounts of adrenaline into their system. Their Physical, Damage, Attacks and/or Init is recalculated for the new number.

If the character is wounded and ups their Stamina, they may gain life points as if they had healed for a day immediately; this does not count against or take the place of their normal healing for the day. They also gain 20+2d10 temporary Life points. These life points are deducted first when the character is damaged. When the duration ends, the points go away.

Longevity: As in the skill Futuristic, except the character gains 50 permanent life points (instead of the random amount).

Total Recall: As in the skill Futuristic, except you also gain +20 Mental, permanently (with the corresponding boost in Power).

Notes: This power/class was developed because I thought it was strange that Longevity and Total Recall were skills and fit better as powers. As LoC allows for random people to have powers for no apparent reason, however, this is likely one that future folk would have access to.

Chronomancy (Magical)
1. 1 Second ahead
2. Prophecy
3. Slow the Sands
4. Split the Odds
5. Time Travel

1 Second Ahead
Range: Self Time: Permanent Uses: Constant
Your perception is always projected both in the present moment and one second ahead. This comes as an impression of things that are about to happen, though not an actual vision of them. This results in a +2 to initiative and to luck rolls.

Prophecy
Range: Self Time: Instantaneous Uses: 2/Day
You may use this ability to predict a few moments into the future. As a result, you can get the most likely outcome to one question per use of the ability. An acceptable question would be “What happens if I press this button” or “If I accuse the ambassador of treason, what will happen?” Bad questions would include things like “am I going to win this fight?” or “Is the abmbassador a traitor?”

Prophecy cannot predict the results of more random occurances, like coin flips (or anything that involves a die roll). It can predict the outcome if you are successful or if you are unsuccessful, though each of these would constitute a single use.

Slow the Sands
Range: 100’ Time: 1 Turn Uses: 2/day
You may slow the relative time around one person or object to cause it to move ½ as quickly than normal. The target must make a luck roll (modified by your Luck minus their luck, min 0). If successful, they loses one attack on their next turn, take a -1 to their initiative and lose 10’ on their movement. If they fail, they lose ½ of their attacks, have ½ their initiative bonus (round down) and ½ their movement rate.

Split the Odds
Range: Self Time: 1 turn per 2 power Uses : 2/day
You may call on the aid of versions of yourself in nearby potential timelines. The copies are under the control of the player and are identical to the person they are copying (minus this abilitiy), including any equipment. The user gains 1 copy for each full 5 power they have. Each copy may act independently of the others.

If any of the copies takes damage, it is divided between all copies and the original (note: this means that catastrophic damage, like jumping into a volcano or hugging a nuclear weapon, will kill all the copies and the original). At the end of the effect, the copies (along with any equipment they had on them, even if they are not holding it) disappear.

While you may use this ability twice per day, you may not use more than one use of this ability at a time.

Time Travel
Range: See Below Time:1 Turn Uses: 1/Day
You may transport yourself and up to 10 people within a 10' radius to another point in time in the dimension you're currently in. If attempting to transport someone unwillingly, they receive a luck roll.
Time travel is not as precise as the Temporal Travel Power. How close to the exact moment you arrive depends on how far you're attempting to transport. Within 1-10 turns if travelling less than a week, 1-10 days if traveling up to a month, 1-6 weeks if travelling up to a few years, within 1-3 months if traveling up to a decade, 1-10 years if traveling over a few centuries, 1-3 decades if traveling over a millennium.
The GM may wish to limit your ability to cross your own timeline.
Once in the new time, you are there until you use another ability, device or other means to travel back. 

NEOPHYTE 5

More Fluff-

Some other notes on modifications:

I forgot to add "Zero Gravity" to the list of athletic skills. The last two skills in the Futuristic branch (Longevity and Total Recall) are becoming part of a new power set.

There are three powers that you get at three successive levels, the names of which are escaping me, but they allow you to look across space, time and dimensions. Because of rampant potential for abuse, I'm planning on replacing this with:

Spacial Awareness: You always have an understanding of how far above or below ground you are and relative north. You also have a better sense of how stable the world your on is. Earthquakes and natural disasters don't come as a surprise to you and you can tell if they are natural or manufactured. You may also occasionally recieve visions from other parts of the world.
Temporal Awareness: You always know what day, time and year it is. You also know if you are in your own time line or a splinter. You can tell how stable the time line is and gauge how much your actions will effect the stability of said time line. You may recieve visions from across time.
Dimensional Awareness: You always understand if you are in your own dimension or in a parallel world. You also have a sense of how stable the world is and, if it's ruled by a particular Lord of Creation, you know who that is. You also recognize other on the path of Lord of Creation just by looking a them. Visions from across dimensions may happen from time to time.

These are basically abilities that are meant to make people plot gimps if need be, but I like it more than actively looking across the barriers so that players don't try to scout every room they're about to walk into or look into the future every 30 seconds.

NEOPHYTE 4

Here's my first Lords of Creation character. I'm pretty sure I did this correctly.

Oswald Lee, Robot (LHO R-Series 004-003)

MUSCLE: 19    Damage: 2
SPEED: 11        Initiative: 2
STAMINA: 7        Healing: 1
MENTAL: 14        Powers: 2
LUCK: 5        Roll (+5): 6
Total: 56        Force: 6

Character Abilities-
Dimensional Sight

Money: 200

Equipment:
Binoculars 50
Flashlight 5
Gas Mask 15
Knife 10
Rope (100') 20

Move: 60'/turn

Physical: 13

Title: Neophyte

Armor: None

LP: 11
XP: 0

Weapon    Attack     Damage

Rifle          15           2-12

Skills
Combat-2 (Rifle)
Engineer-2
Espionage-2

"Oswald Lee" is the third of four Lee Harvey Oswald robots intended for use in Russia (thus the 'R' designation.) Having escaped termination at the hands of Marina Prusakova (nee Oswald) in the Soviet Union, the Oswald robot made his way back to the United States, eventually taking up residence in Puerto Rico (taking the not-so-clever nom de guerre Oswald Lee) where he makes his living as a rifle instructor.

NEOPHYTE 3

Still more from Lord Fluffy. 

I like the LoC Powers system (Reminds me a little of White Wolf's system; for a bit, I thought about porting the whole thing over). The one power I never liked was Cyborg. The reason was that it really didn't fit with any of the other powers in the system. Why do you need to pay for it? Why can't you get them just by paying for it. So I'm dropping out cyborg. I'm adding a few more.

Also, the Wizard set has Animal Control, which is a cool power, but it never felt like it worked exactly with the rest of them. And there's more cool animal based stuff one could put in the system, so I decided to add this:

Wizard.
1. Light (the 2-5 powers are the same).

Range: See Below Time: See Below Uses: 3 /day

The wizard may create light in one of three ways.
Orb: You may make a floating ball of light that will illuminate a 50’ radius. The light is soft and not hard to look at. The light lasts for 10 minutes per Power of the Wizard. The light is warm to the touch, but does no harm. The Wizard may extinguish the light at will.
Beam: You may cast a light in one direction for 100’ feet, as if you had a flashlight in the palm of your hand. Used this way, the light lasts for 1 minute per Power.
Flash: Alternately, a Wizard may discharge the light in one bright flash, blinding an opponent for 1-3turns. The target may make a luck roll to avoid this effect. This is similar to the effect from Photon Ray; a person who is immune to Photon Ray is also immune to this flash.

Animal Control gets moved to a different Class: Beast Master
Beast Mastery
1. Animal Speech
2. Animal Control
3. Familiar
4. Call to the Wild
5. Aspect of the Beast

Animal Speech
Range: The sound of your voice Time: Constant Uses: Constant

You may speak the language of animals and unintelligent beasts and monsters. While this doesn’t give you any control over them or make the conversation particularly interesting, you can use the skills in the Smooth Talker profession to influence them.

Animal Control
See Wizard in the Rule Book

Familiar
Range: One animal Time: Until the animal is released or killed Uses: Special, see below

You may bond one animal to you so strongly that you share an essence. The animal’s Mental stat increases by 1 for every 3 Power you have (round down). The animal will be self aware and will be loyal unto death to you. You may, at will, see through the animals eyes and communicate with it as if you had Telepathy.
If the Familiar is mistreated, it may attempt to break free of its master’s control. Also, it has a will of its own and may have different ideas about how to go about things than its master does.
If you activate the abilities Invisibility, Halt Metabolism, Physical Augmentation, Physical Control, Dermal Armor, Rice Paper Walk or Magic Armor, you may have your Familiar gain the same benefits as you.
You may release the familiar at any time. If you do, you may make another animal your familiar after waiting one week for the bond to completely fade. If your familiar is killed, you must make a luck roll or be stunned for 2-18 turns. If you lose a familiar this way, you may not gain another one for a month.

NOTE: The powers Halt Metabolism, Physical Augmentation and Rice Paper Walk are part of new powers I'd written up.

Call to the Wild
Range: 1 mile radius Time: 1 turn per power Uses: 2/day

The Beast Master may call to his side a number of animals. The animals have to already be present in the environment. They arrive in 1-3 turns (even if this exceeds their normal movement rate) and this does not count against the time for which they will stay.
The summoned animals must be of one type. The number that appears is the same as if you encountered the animal in the wild (i.e. Summoning wolves would bring forth 2-16 wolves). The animals will follow all reasonable commands, including fighting but not to the point of suicide. When the duration ends, the animals will return to wherever they were before. Animals summoned in this way may be further controlled by Animal Mastery or Familiar.
In addition, a Beast Master with this power has a general idea of the number and strength of the animal life within the radius of this effect and what types there are. For instance, a Beast Master could tell there were big cats in the area, but not if they were Lions or Tigers until they arrived.

Aspect of the Beast
Range: Personal Time: 1 turn/power Uses: 2/Day

The Beast Master has become so attuned to the wild that he may now evoke some aspect of the beast in his body. This does not allow him to turn into an animal (like with Shapeshift) but does allow him to grow claws, fangs with poison sacks, wings, thick fur, plates, blubber... any one advantage of the animal kingdom.
If the adaptation may be used for combat, it does 2-16 points of damage and may be used as if the Beast Master had a skill of 10. If it grants movement like swimming or flying or even a cheetah’s legs, the Beast Master may move at double his normal movement rate. If it’s armor, the armor may grant up to -8 protection. Any other effects are up to the GM’s discretion.

NEOPHYTE 2

More from Lord Fluffy-

Unless otherwise noted, the skills listed function like they do in the book, even if they are now associated with a different profession. If they are noted with a number, that's the minimum rank you need in the profession to take it.

Athletics: Acrobatics, Running (for long distances), Skating, Swimming, Parachuting, Diving
Computer: Operation, Programming (2), Security (3), Robotics (4) AI(5)
Construction: (Replaces Building) Carpentry, Stonemason, Metalworking (2), Plastics, Exotic Materials (2)
Diplomacy: Etiquette, Fashion, Haggling, Bureaucracy, Leadership(3), Heraldry (can be used to determine command structure and battlefield signals as well)
Engineer: Mechanical, Electronic, Computer (prereq: Electronic), Robotic (3), Nuclear(3), Civil, Acoustics, Vehicular, Miniaturization, Energy Systems (5), Weapons, Armor, Steam
Espionage: Stealth, Shadowing, Forgery, Codes, Lock picking (includes safecracking), Pick pocketing, Disguise, Vehicle Theft, Investigation
Medical: Diagnostics, First Aid (helps to stabilize dying characters), General Practice (2), Pharmacology (2), Forensics (3) Genetics (4), Surgery (4)
Occult Knowledge:(Replaces Magical) Arcane Languages, Arcane Artifacts (For identifying magical items), Cryptozoology (for special monster knowledge), Secret Societies, Powers (Including powers of LoC's), Alchemy (4) (for making potions and one-use items), Magical Detection(4), Wards(5) (Formerly Magical Protection), Rituals(5) (For making permanent magical objects as well as other nifty spell work)
Physical Sciences: Chemistry, Physics, Astrophysics, Biology, Quantum Physics(4) (For knowledge about teleporters and time machines)
Pilot: Riding (Horses, Chariots), Land Vehicles - Small (Race Cars), Land Vehicles - Large (Tanks), Watercraft - Small (speedboats), Watercraft - Large (Yachts, Frigates), Hovercraft (2), Aircraft (3), Personal Flight (2) (Flying brooms, Wingsuits, Jetpacks), Power Armor, Remote Piloting, Spacecraft (4), Exotic (5) (Time Machines)
Smooth Talker: Bluffing, Intimidation, Infiltration, Seduction, Bribery, Taunt (gives negatives in combat to opponents)
Social Sciences: History, Sociology, Archaeology, Theology, Parapsychology, Psychology
Theatrics: Costuming, Performance, Slight of Hand, Escape Artist, Distraction (Can keep a foe focused on you or away from something), Ventriloquism, Illusion Creating (4)
Wilderness: Navigation, Tracking, Survival, Trapping, Butchering/Tanning

Aptitudes:
Animal Handling: Requires Riding, Biology, Veterinary or Theatrics.
Communications: Espionage or Engineer
Connections (Profession): Gives 1 contact and allows you go plug into social networks associated with the chosen profession. Can be taken multiple times.
Cooking: Requires Outdoorsman, Diplomacy or Engineering
Demolitions: Builder (3) or Engineer (3)
Magical/Futuristic: Bought once for each Profession. Negates the penalty for working in an alien environment
Fast Draw (Weapon): Allows you to draw one type of weapon without having to take an action.
Interfacing: If interfaced with a vehicle or other non-weapon item via plugs, you don't have to take an action to maintain control of or use the item.
Sniper: Half penalties for Extreme Range. Opens up another Range category, up to 2.5 the normal distance at -10 to hit.
Tactics: Allows you to add 1 to your group initiative rolls for each member of the party.

Combat Skills:

Rather than weapon specific skills, I decided to go with broad categories. You can still only apple to hit bonuses up to the skill of the weapon as listed on the chart (which I'm working on expanding). You may apply up to double the skill rating of the weapon to damage.

The weapon categories are: Unarmed, Melee –Small, Melee -1handed, Melee 2 handed, Melee –Flexible, Thrown, Pistol -Ballistic, Pistol -Energy, Pistol -Other, Rifle -Ballistic, Rifle -Energy, Rifle-other, Heavy Weapon –Portable, Heavy Weapon –Fixed, and Autofire.

In addition, I'm adding the skills Dodge and Shield. This is because I decided armor and shields reduce damage equal to their rating, not the chance to hit.

Dodge works like armor did in the book, reducing the chance to hit you. You can take it up to 10. Armor your wearing may limit the amount of dodge skill you can use.

Shields give you a passive bonus equal to your skill, up to the protection of the shield. If you win initiative, you add the shields bonus as well. It can go up to 5.

Neither damage reduction from armor or to hit penalties from Dodge can be higher than 20.

Aiming: Aiming is declared before you fire for the round. You can take a -1 to -5 penalty on your initiative and get an equal bonus to your to hit roll for the round on all attacks at a single target. Alternately, you can spend the entire round aiming and gain a bonus equal to 5 plus the number of attacks you gave up. While aiming, you can't move or dodge.

Working on rules for disarming, stunning (which will be an effect of critical hits), expanded weapons tables, and specifics for cybernetics.

Lastly: New powers and classes.

Lords of Creation-OMEGAKRON

"1984 saw the release of 'OMEGAKRON', the third and final album by Lords of Creation and the follow-up to 1983's 'The Yeti Sanction.' Due to poor distribution the album was only available in the Gulf Coast region and the upper Midwest. This, in addition to canceled tour dates and the death of keyboardist Kivi Nikulainen lead to the band's eventual break up later that year."- Hit Parader, Aug 1989

NEOPHYTE

I'm new to Lords of Creation, so I don't have too much to say about it right now other than that I happen to think it's a pretty snazzy game. For now, I'm going to just copy and paste whatever information I can find about it on the web here and see if some sort of structure arises out of it.

The following comes from a guy calling himself "Lord Fluffy" who posted some interesting stuff for the game on Dragonsfoot then apparently vanished into thin air. Eventually I'll repost all his stuff here.

"Like many other games of the era, LoC starts with completely random stat generation. It balances this out just little by making buying stat points more expensive the higher up you go in level, so lower level/lower stated characters have some chance to catch up to higher level ones. But still, the random thing leaves something to be desired.

Second, you have the whole universe as your oyster, but the rules as written only cover human beings becoming LoC's. So what I decided to do was set up character creation thus:

Humans start with 70 points to spread amongst stats (this number was picked partially because it's what the sample character had and partially because it's a good number for 5 stats). No stat higher than 20. They also start with their Stamina +10 points, but will roll randomly thereafter. The humans in question can be from any sort of setting (Archaic, Contemporary, Futuristic, Magical or Parallel Universe).

Now, for other races, I picked a few that would still be humanoid (and fit into the pre-gen adventures better) but still would allow for some variety. They start off with 60 points to spread out amongst stats and 10 + Stamina life points. They also each get a perk for not being human:

Elf: 1 power from Beast Master (new power set), Wizard (Modified power set) or Sorcerer. Also, they start with one rank of Wilderness profession (Light Elf), One Rank of Occult Knowledge (Dark Elf, new profession, replaces Magical) or the ability to breath under water (Sea Elf). Stamina can't be higher than 10.
Dwarf: 1 power from Adept or Sorceror. Starting speed no higher than 10. One rank of Engineer or Construction.
Android: An artificially created human. Starting Mental no higher than 10. No need to eat or breathe and 10 additional life points. One rank in Profession Computer or Engineer.
Cyborg: Max starting luck of 10. One rank in the Computer Profession or a Combat skill. One basic cybernetic enhancement: Leg, Arm, Eyes (with 2 options) or a 6 slot Interfaceplug/Skillchip port with two skill chips (Cyborg is not a power as I'm running it)

Second: Professions and skills

I like the system well enough as it stands, but I hate the progressions. There's no reason a forgery artist needs to be a safecracker first. And some of the skills are a little outdated to stand on their own (Morse code?). I also didn't like that professional connections were a skill, especially since you could have a connection in the Espionage field who was a doctor, but you couldn't have a Medical connection. So, I proposed this:

Instead of a strict 5 step progression, you can select one skill from a list for each rank you have in a profession. Professions still top out at 5, though if a profession has more skills than that, you can still buy skills afterward.

Some skills are more complicated than others and can only be taken at certain ranks.

In addition to skills, there are aptitudes. These are sort of cross class skills. They are bought like skills but they don't add ranks to a profession. Most of them are linked to a profession and use that profession's rank for skill rolls if need be. If an aptitude connects up with more than one profession, use the highest one.

To come: A revised Profession/Skill/Aptitude list and changes to combat."