Technohol 13: Marvel Super Heroes RPG (Classic & Saga) Material
Thursday, November 15, 2018
(posted November 9th, 2018)
Well hi there!
You've reached Technohol 13, an online repository for all of my works related to numerous super-heroic role-playing games! Oddly enough, very little of this involves the thousands of original characters I've crafted for these games, so much as an inordinate amount of mental investment into the intellectual property (read: characters) created by others. Ah well, the best laid plans, etc.
Anyhow. In the event that you're wondering what I've been up to since I last updated this space, that being on the 9th of October, I have mainly been working on my GI Joe character reference. In the last month, I've completed the fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds through the 1987 rosters of GI Joe and Cobra personnel and equipment, and almost wrapped up the seventh, as well!
For those of you not well-versed in my personal, countless neuroses, that means that I've Condensed and Modernized six GI Joe operatives and three GI Joe vehicles from this era, and added four new descriptions of Cobra operatives, and three of their vehicles. I like to think this is a pretty good round of progress, as I've knocked out a lot of the work that this year needs.
For one thing, save for the Future Fortress, all of this years' Battle Force 2000 folks and stuff are done, as are all of the Renegades - unless you count the animated version of Lt. Falcon. On the Cobra side, I've added Big Boa, the Air Skiff, Zanzibar, the Sea Ray, the Sea Slugs, the Mamba, and the Gyro-Vipers to the site, and my very next update will sort out this years' Dreadnok gear.
On top of that, I've added a rather bizarre description of Teshub, lord of the Hurrian deities, to the Myths and Legends portion of the site. I didn't originally intend to cover any of those folks, but as it turns out they seemed to be odd neighbors of the Anunnaki, and their myths regularly borrowed the heavy hitters from that pantheon. Furthermore, it seemed that Teshub was also, in another incarnation, Tishpak.
Tishpak is an obscure, underworld deity, who was nonetheless quite popular in a few city-states back in the day, once he'd overthrown Ninazu there. He was famous for killing a giant monster, one of Tiamat's lingering beasts, which is kind of Teshub's thing, as well. He downed no less than three world-crushing beasts in his day, which might be why historians think they're the same guy.
So, I did my best to make their two mythologies work together, and that's why you can now find Teshub, who runs his own pantheon but is most definitely an Anunnaki, in the Myths and Legends reference. I also put together a new entreaty spell dedicated to him, Bashmu, which involves the safe summoning of one of Teshub's creatures, a Bashmu, to do one's bidding. Well, safe unless they get killed!
I suppose all of the spells I wrote in this round of additions to the Entreaty Spells documents involved drawing forth critters from elsewhere, now that I think of it. Bashmu, as described, Ophidia, which includes summoning serpents as an option, Quid Pro Quo, allowing one to draw forth etemmu from the underworld, and Threescore Pestilence, which borrows Namtar's nanodemonic plague beasts.
The gist here is that, recognizing this, I'll have to make sure the next round of entreaty spells for the Entreaty Spells documents don't do much the same, unless it's absolutely fitting. I was going to do something like Bashmu for Gishzida, but... now I shouldn't. After all, his critters, the mushkhusshu (I think?) are kind of like the Laserbeak of Mesopotamian leadership, and should probably be invoked elsewhere.
I already have one spell in mind for one god, but I'm not about to cover him for a long time, so I may just shelve that for the time being, and keep pounding away at the GI Joes and Cobras that demand attention. That's primarily the plan for November: to move things along until I have completed my tenth cycle through their respective rosters, which should almost wrap up both. Save for a few surprises.
Given the time and/or the inclination, I may also add the thirteenth god to this, the thirteenth Technohol. Primarily, I'm looking at Gishzida, who is the son of Ninazu and shares several serpentine characteristics that both his father and Teshub possess, but I might hit Nungal if I finally get around the mental roadblock I've got regarding her. Either that or one of Ereshkigal's husbands (but not Enlil - not yet).
Per the norm, you can see how things progress by staying tuned here - or, at least, checking the site's Facebook page. I still have one of those, and still update it when I hit a major milestone here on the 13. I don't spam all over it, despite what Facebook would like me to do to you guys, so that's another resource if you want the latest Technoholic news. Like it using the link below, today!
Like itttttt, we're one short of a hundred of those!
In other news, my stewardship of the Gaming Nerds ᴙ Us site continues. I have definitely sorted out the Russian spammer issue, as well as the problems I was having with the site not allowing people to upload their own forum avatars. The latter problem crept in during a server move GoDaddy inflicted on my sites, since the one the 13 and its associated sites were on failed... miserably! But the site's usable once more.
So if you want to participate in the reborn Nerds community, head on over there, at least once you're done here. I've only seen two folks enlist thus far, but then the word apparently hasn't got out yet. Heck, people seem to keep linking to the temporary download site its creator built instead of the one I'm hosting here. You know, under the actual domain for the site. Sigh. But what can you do?
Antisocial Media!
What Now?
I've added plenty to the 13 of late, including Big Boa, the Air Skiff, Zanzibar, the Sea Ray, Sea Slugs, Teshub, the Mamba, Gyro-Vipers, Ninazu, the WOLF, Ice-Vipers, the Buzz Boar, Techno-Vipers, WORMS, Battle Android Troopers (BATs), the Air Chariot, the Stun, Motor-Vipers, Namtar, Strato-Vipers, the Firebat, AVACs, Air-Vipers, the Hydro-Sled, Vipers, Ereshkigal, Ninlil, and the Infinity Gems!
