Shining Aquas' Creation Workshop - Eldritch Horror Edition!

By Shining Aquas, in General Discussion

scarface was a fictional character? news to me.

i don't think you're doing anyone a favor. this eldritch board isn't exactly full of new players who are interested in experimenting with game design in a, how can i put this... silly manner.

i hope you can see why you've gotten the response you have, as it seems perverse to tamper with what a lot of players love, and even for a game like Eldritch, which isn't exactly dead, there's a lot of dedication that goes into playing it consistently and wanting good, well themed, balanced, and rich game design to expand upon it.

i'm not entirely on one side of the issue, as a person who loves the Chaosium games and books, i feel like, yes.. there should be a good amount of intellectuals, but not every character ever built was a doctor, exhibitionist, professor or librarian. some are bull headed, shoot first, or maybe even homeless street rats and people thrown into the chaos of the mythos.

i think you're getting your creativity confused with a nagging purpose that many others share your tastes. i don't hate anime or league of legends, but i don't want it in my game. sure i can just ignore it, as i have for the past few weeks, but i'm tired of seeing this thread on here. i appreciate you doing something you love, but it's gotten to the point where i feel you're now trying to shove it down people's throats who don't want to taste it by offering something you don't even want to do. you've effectively turned a pet project close to your heart into something worse than any of the negativity in the comments.

don't think it's just the theme.. as much as i love Soakman, i hate most the custom investigators that he created, with exception to the little kid, Edmund i believe, which personally i like very much. call me a purist or what have you, or maybe i prefer a nice somewhat boring persona, as it reflects the every day character being thrown into something more vast and unforgiving as one could ever imagine. i don't even like the new characters from Mansions of Madness..

maybe draw inspiration not from other people, not from media, not from video games and tv shows.. draw it from your own *very creative mind.

perhaps, Jonah Rogers, the collector, who is a procurer of strange artifacts, or Lucille Monroe, a night nurse at St. Marys.

just make **** up, honestly, keep it thematic sure, but keep it relevant, keep it balanced, and keep it fun.

you're definitely creative, no doubt about it.. create, don't copy.

On 06/03/2017 at 8:43 PM, Shining Aquas said:

Also, if a character you want has lots of different iterations (Batman, for example) , tell me which one you have in mind.

I would really love to see your Batman (Dark Knight version).

However please be aware that I would never play custom content ( I am too addicted to submitting stats).

So only if you have the time to spare to satisfy my curiosity, I just want to see it.

I've seen some backfire to your uploads. I just want to say although i would never use any anime themed investigators in my eldritch horror games, don't listen to the critics. Its not worth it. Extra content should be allowed to share, if not here find some other place. There is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't exist. I recommend uploading your stuff on boardgamegeek, maybe people are more understanding there. It's a disgrace that someone gets angry about your work. At least you try to do something for the community and thanks for that.

I would want an Aleister Crowley investigator like someone suggested in a earlier post and i'd like to do some parody and fun characters too. I actually want to create some of my friends and myself for a themed rounds. We had that for Arkham Horror too and it was a blast.

I'm looking into making some sort of plugin for Strange Eons but i'm not a programmer or plugin dev, but i have a few friends who know their way around such things and i guess we might be able to create something.
I would only do a very basic one were it would be possible to edit: Investigators, AO and the cards used only. I'll see what can be done and come back here with that too. If I manage to build something i'll make sure it goes around boardgamegeek too. But no promises!

I'd be glad about some tips for well balanced characters too. If anyone has something to share.
A few ideas would be:
-An action that makes one lose sanity to travel to specific points for Aleister for example, places where he was in his life probably. he would probably start with a spell and a clue token.
-For my character i thought about allowing to spend sanity to pay up for items from the reserve. (no action in mind yet). My Character would probably start with a book or something.
-For my girlfriend maybe something that relates to her as a dentist, if someone has a suggestion.
-I'd also like to do a Tintin / Captain Haddock set of Investigators.

I also have a few ideas for cards like Opium Addiction which i think would fit in nicely to the era for example.
And a few prolog cards involving events in the WWII and stuff like Nazi Occultism or Hitler as some sort of Mask of Nyarlathotep (but i'll probably wait for the next expansion for that one).
I also need some kind of prolog that combines all the sideboards for use in a single game.

I'm really looking for a balanced gameplay, even things that are potentially weaker than the standard actions maybe to enhance further difficulty.
Anyway ideas would be welcome.

On 30-1-2018 at 7:33 AM, Gipsy5 said:

And a few prolog cards involving events in the WWII and stuff like Nazi Occultism or Hitler as some sort of Mask of Nyarlathotep (but i'll probably wait for the next expansion for that one).

Seems more the Indiana Jones era than the Arkham Horror Files era.

1 hour ago, cheapmate said:

Seems more the Indiana Jones era than the Arkham Horror Files era.

Good idea i'll do a Indiana Jones one too then. Who gives a ****? I can even create a Freddy Kruger character if I feel like it! Your comment leads to nothing else then to push the latest point made. you don't give good input, you just flame someones idea. Why do you even bother writing something instead of helping the community build up something? your argument is total garbage and leads to nothing. WWII era started with the great depression which was in 1929 btw. and i guess 20 years are totally fine for a bit of playroom. I mean WWII is even mentioned a few times in the Call of Cthulhu RPG books... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression you can inform yourself a bit instead of spamming the forum with nonsense. <_<

Anyway for those who are interested in something more constructive. A friend and I started with developing the Strange Eons 3 Plugin for Eldritch Horror . My friend finished reading the documentation today. We'll start working on it tomorrow. We plan on doing a German and an English version. If anyone can link us good templates for the Ancient Ones it would be really nice. The ones we found were not too good.

On 1/31/2018 at 12:33 PM, Gipsy5 said:

Good idea i'll do a Indiana Jones one too then. Who gives a ****? I can even create a Freddy Kruger character if I feel like it! Your comment leads to nothing else then to push the latest point made. you don't give good input, you just flame someones idea. Why do you even bother writing something instead of helping the community build up something? your argument is total garbage and leads to nothing. WWII era started with the great depression which was in 1929 btw. and i guess 20 years are totally fine for a bit of playroom. I mean WWII is even mentioned a few times in the Call of Cthulhu RPG books... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression you can inform yourself a bit instead of spamming the forum with nonsense. <_<

Anyway for those who are interested in something more constructive. A friend and I started with developing the Strange Eons 3 Plugin for Eldritch Horror . My friend finished reading the documentation today. We'll start working on it tomorrow. We plan on doing a German and an English version. If anyone can link us good templates for the Ancient Ones it would be really nice. The ones we found were not too good.

Good luck! I have my own set that I have made as far as custom investigators. It's exciting that you're working on a strange eons plugin. I love it when dedicated fans come together to create custom content.

I'm familiar with Shining Aquas work from Arkham Horror, and while I would not use it for thematic reasons (I don't like mixing established genres), I'm glad to see him/her continue to expand and produce. It would be nice if there was a sub-forum for these sorts of ventures though.

Edited by Soakman
15 hours ago, Soakman said:

It would be nice if there was a sub-forum for these sorts of ventures though.

It keeps puzzling me.
There is a subforum for Arkham Horror. I find it hard believe that no one at FFG got the idea that EH could also have one. So it was a decision that it wouldn't be created.

Or maybe I'm giving FFG too much credit. It sometimes takes them ages to upload a rulebook. It would only be consistent that we have to wait eons for a subforum.

3 hours ago, tsuma534 said:

It keeps puzzling me.
There is a subforum for Arkham Horror. I find it hard believe that no one at FFG got the idea that EH could also have one. So it was a decision that it wouldn't be created.

Or maybe I'm giving FFG too much credit. It sometimes takes them ages to upload a rulebook. It would only be consistent that we have to wait eons for a subforum.

To be fair, I haven't requested one or anything. I'm not sure if that's something you can or should do. But yes, all of the Arkham Files games are ripe for custom content which also gives a boost to the game's longevity. :wacko:

It seemed a nobrainer to me but maybe they do need someone to actually ask them.

Nicole: I love the idea of customizing your own investigators. I have wished before that I had the talent and tools to do just that. Your work is creative Shining Aquas. The anime style seems out of place for EH, but there is nothing wrong with it since you are the one making the content, you should be able to make something you like.

Edited by NICOLIAN

This thread has got me thinking. A dangerous pastime, I know...

I agree that just dropping anime-style art and characters into Eldritch seems a little odd--though fair play to anyone who likes it.

On the other hand, how about creating investigators who are inspired by characters from other properties?

As someone upthread said, it would be strange to drop Luke Skywalker into Eldritch. But it could be fun to invent a 1920s character inspired by him.

Let's see... we could have Lucas 'Skydiver' Williams*, an ace biplane pilot who won his nickname during the First World War when he destroyed an enemy command strongpoint with a lucky hit. During the war he discovered an ancient sword and found a connection to a mysterious force or power that grants him amazing martial-arts abilities. Now he's mixed up in a complicated adventure with a cocky international smuggler and a courageous Atlantean princess...

*I hope I don't have to explain where I got these names from

Or how about... Ryu Soramura**, a Japanese youth raised in exile in the Tunisian desert. One day he meets a madman who turns out to be his uncle. He learns that his father was a famous samurai, but when the Emperor Meiji came to power he abolished the old samurai class--including a secret order dedicated to protecting humanity from the Mythos. Given his father's legendary katana, Ryu must travel to Tokyo and track down his father's supposed killer, the traitorous samurai-sorcerer known as the Dark Invader. Or something.

** lit. 'sky-village' as I was in a hurry and couldn't think of a good way to translate 'skywalker'

EDIT: The timeline would need a bit of fudging, as the Meiji Restoration is probably a little too far in the past. Maybe change 'father' to 'grandfather' or 'ancestor'.

You can do the same with any character, really. Even with anime. Just need to find a 1920s portrait for them in Western-style artwork, or a photograph.

One of my favourite 90s animes is the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series. Now you might not think a show about giant robots and Godzilla-sized monsters is well suited to Eldritch Horror adaptation. But with a little imagination...

ZEITGEIST is a secretive Japanese-German government organisation that defends the world against the ravages of the gigantic burrowing cthonians, which threaten Japan with earthquakes and tsunamis. Using a combination of alien superscience and forbidden sorcery, it dispatches brave volunteers in special psychic 'dive suits' into the Earth's mantle. There they assume huge astrally projected bodies to battle the cthonians before they can rise to devastate human cities. Unfortunately, only teenagers who have manifested psychokinetic powers at puberty are suitable for the job. And they're badly traumatised by the experience. Their commander, Captain Julia Mitsuishi,*** knows that ZEITGEIST hushed up the truth about the Tunguska meteorite some years ago... but she doesn't know that (spoilers!) the very organisation she works for is itself the tool of an Illuminati-style cabal with its own dark schemes in mind...

***Names taken from the German and Japanese voice actors for the anime character Misato Katsuragi

OK, that one might be pushing it a little, but still.

The possibilities are endless! And, at least for me, coming up with a version of a character that makes sense in the setting (more or less) is a lot more fun than just dropping James Bond or Ned Stark into the game unchanged.

I don't want to thread-jack, though, so I'll stop there and leave it as a suggestion. ;)

Edited by Zen Shrugs

Nicole: Ian and I were inspired by ShiningAquas to try making our own investigators for EH. Here is just one of the 7 we created so far. ^_^ It has been a lot of fun working on them.

Ian: Pretty cool, eh? Would you believe that for a game set in the roaring twenties, they didn't have a single supermodel? Quite the travesty. :P So we made one. She's an intelligent supermodel, which enables her to actually use the Glamours. We think she looks awesome and are excited to try her out. What do you think?

1315470167_lulufront.png.e0ad5b79a5780d34ddb86a970dd68179.png

I tried to upload the back but the forum only allowed for a limited amount of MB and it is not allowing me to upload the back of the sheet now. Does anyone know how I can get around this?

We tried lowering the size through making it a jpeg, but since we are now only allowed to upload "0.49" mb (nothing), even after deleting this upload in an edit, we still couldn't upload anything else (we then undid our deletion). Does it refresh every day? If so, how would you upload multiple pictures as many other members have done when showcasing their work? Why is there even a limit?

Edited by NICOLIAN

Do you still have the templates to make custom stuff with?

While I appreciate the creativity involved in developing these anime-styled investigators, I will not be using them because they don't fit thematically in the type of EH game that I enjoy. Thanks for sharing them however.