I really, really love Duel of Ages II. It scratches my Heroscape, BattleLore and adventure games itches (including Wrath of Ashardalon, Runebound, and Return of the Heroes) simultaneously. I love it so much that I went out and spent tonight printing out the DOA I keys revamped for DOA II (handily found in the files section of the DOA II page).
So I've been thinking also about new characters, especially with the character generation kit offered by the Worldspanner folks (big kudos to them for doing this!). I want to focus on female and non-white characters; pulling from mythology (like that of the various mythos in Africa, or going to Inuit stories, etc) seems like a good way to do this, mostly because mythology is a strength of mine to some extent.
To that end, here are some of my character ideas. They're really in the preliminary stage, so I'm not ready to enter them into the Variant forums, but I'm just brainstorming here.
First of all, I want to bring a vampire couple into DOA II. They won't be sparklepires, but raw scary terrifying monsters in human form. Some of the powers will be based on the Esenweins from Heroscape; for instance, Lady ToBeNamed could offer stats increase for Lord ToBeNamed as long as she was on the board. Both could drain life from their victims when they wound them (which means they need lower armor, I think, to balance that out). And both could suffer heartbreak of some kind (decrease in stats or wounds added) when the other died. They would be on the same character card, but would otherwise be two different characters, like Daylight and Dusk.
Second of all, I want to bring in Victorian era female heroes. People like Mina Harker, Irene Adler, etc... need to do more research in this area, obviously. Basically a League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen. This is actually inspired by an upcoming book by Lavie Tidhar.
Thirdly, I want to bring in characters from African, Inuit, and Vietnamese mythology. I'm going to need to think even harder about this. Especially African mythology; there's so much of it.
Meanwhile, DOA is on my brain. DOA DOA DOA DOA DOA DOA DOA DOA
So I've been thinking also about new characters, especially with the character generation kit offered by the Worldspanner folks (big kudos to them for doing this!). I want to focus on female and non-white characters; pulling from mythology (like that of the various mythos in Africa, or going to Inuit stories, etc) seems like a good way to do this, mostly because mythology is a strength of mine to some extent.
To that end, here are some of my character ideas. They're really in the preliminary stage, so I'm not ready to enter them into the Variant forums, but I'm just brainstorming here.
First of all, I want to bring a vampire couple into DOA II. They won't be sparklepires, but raw scary terrifying monsters in human form. Some of the powers will be based on the Esenweins from Heroscape; for instance, Lady ToBeNamed could offer stats increase for Lord ToBeNamed as long as she was on the board. Both could drain life from their victims when they wound them (which means they need lower armor, I think, to balance that out). And both could suffer heartbreak of some kind (decrease in stats or wounds added) when the other died. They would be on the same character card, but would otherwise be two different characters, like Daylight and Dusk.
Second of all, I want to bring in Victorian era female heroes. People like Mina Harker, Irene Adler, etc... need to do more research in this area, obviously. Basically a League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen. This is actually inspired by an upcoming book by Lavie Tidhar.
Thirdly, I want to bring in characters from African, Inuit, and Vietnamese mythology. I'm going to need to think even harder about this. Especially African mythology; there's so much of it.
Meanwhile, DOA is on my brain. DOA DOA DOA DOA DOA DOA DOA DOA