Monsterpocalypse Gets Big

In game new, this is big! An announcement has been made that Monsterpocalypse is in the works for adaptation to the big screen by Dreamworks!

For those who don't know, Monsterpocalypse is a strategy miniature board game produced by Privateer Press in which players control giant monsters and their allies in a battle to destroy their enemies in the middle of a city. Rather like an american version of a japanese kaiju movie. There's even a Voltron expansion.

John August is in negotiations to write the adaption, and Dreamworks has approached Tim Burton to direct. If they can get these two signed on there is no doubt that, as I said before, this is going to be big!

Uruk

A friend of mine recently decided to run a Rifts game to which Bekka and I were invited. For those of you who don't know, Rifts is a pen and paper RPG, published by Palladium Books, that is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which the end was brought about by the surging of the world's Ley Lines and an explosion of magic. In this setting, you can play pretty much anything you want too, and our GM is letting us use pretty much any of the source books, so I was having a bit of difficulty deciding what to play. When I used to play Rifts years ago, my go to character type was a Psi-Stalker but I really didn't feel like it this time around.

The answer came when Bekka said she wanted to play an Unseelie type fey obsessed with getting people to endenture themselves to her, and another player said they wanted to make a version of one of the Nightmare Bears from the TMNT game. This started me thinking along fairy-tale lines which, for some reason, got me thinking about an old Thor villain called Ulik. Ulik was the strongest and later King of the Rock Trolls in the Marvel Comics universe. Basically, he's a rather vicious wall of muscle, or a hand-to-hand combat Tank.

So, using the Rifts conversion for Heroes Unlimited, I came up with my own version of him that I'm calling Uruk in honor of the Uruk-hai orcs from the Lord of the Rings. Basically, I've decided to make him simply one of a similarly powerful race that had been enslaved by a psionic race similar to Mindflayers without the bodies. Uruk would have been a young gladiator who, when offered the opportunity to free his people by Bekka's character in return for his lifelong servitude to her, took it. She would have then provided, by some means, a device which blocked psionics within a hundred mile radius, allowing Uruks tribe to rise up and overthrow there captors. Of course, he would not know that only that city was saved as she had already taken him to another realm. Vicious from his upbringing, and caring only for his race and his own oath, I see Uruk basically as a super-strong super-tough mafia thug type of character; a refreshing change of pace from the strategists and mentors I have been playing for a while now.

Introductions

As a long-time gamer involved in all sorts of games (from boardgames, to role-playing games, to CCG's, to computer and video games, to tabletop war-games), I've decided to set up this blog as a place to discuss the various goings on in the gaming world in general and my gaming life in particular.

Today I'd like to talk a little bit about Superhero City, and my character Blackthorn. For those of you who don't know, Superhero City is a free Facebook game in which you make a hero and click through adventures and battles. It has a great avatar creator and the battles are animated (if a bit cheesy and random), and there is a league system with which you can create or join a superhero team for group battles.

My hero, Blackthorn, has the following background:

A young man named Ulysses stumbled upon a titanic clash between a great hero and a terrible demonic entity. Enthralled, he watched rather than fleeing the scene, and as the hero drove his blade into the demon's chest, it exploded... Ulysses lay unnoticed for days, pinned to a tree by one of the demon's barbs sticking through his chest, its arcane energies keeping him alive as it slowly dissolved itself into his body, changing him into something new... Finally freed and quickly realizing that he was no longer human, he began to call himself "Blackthorn" in memory of the shard that had so changed him, and disgusted with both the demon's malice and hero's apparent indifference, decided to become a mercenary instead of fighting for good or evil. Eventually, he founded The Wolf Legion as a way to organize other super powered mercenaries like himself.

Now in the game, you basically get to use all the power that you get, and that can be rather random. So for Role-playing purposes, I've decided to go with a number of powers equal to the character's level divided by ten, rounded down, plus one. So in Blackthorn's case, with his level of 54, he would have six powers. From those available to him, I've chosen:

Hover: Like other heroes before you, your ability to jump extends into true, if tenuous, flight as you realize that you can stay in the air for longer and longer periods of time.

Infravision: Your ability to see into other parts of the light spectrum lets you more easily pinpoint where your enemy is, and more easily avoid them.

Umbral Form: Your body darkens and becomes less substantial, allowing you to hide in the shadows and become more difficult to attack.

Shadow Hoax: Conjure a shadow figure of yourself to wildly harass your foe. While this image cannot do any damage, it can and does confuse and obstruct your foe's senses.

Superstrength: You can feel power coursing through you, and you feel able to lift heavier objects and hit harder. Your strength is far beyond that of an ordinary human.

Bat Summoning: You can summon a horde of vicious bats to mercilessly assault your enemies.