Nope, not Sparta. At least not the last time I checked.
Hopefully, if you've been following along with this little blog of mine, you've also been keeping tabs on the Gaming Security Agency, devoted to whatever aspects of gaming the rather broad stable of authors feel like gabbing about.
If so, then I hope you've been enjoying the Heroes on Demand series, something I started on a bit of a lark way back in the early days of the GSA, and has apparently become one of the sites' running features. Truthfully, I was really hoping other people would be contributing ready-to-play PCs from a variety of different systems, as there's not really any way I can cover ever RPG out there, either because I don't have the books (most versions of D&D) or simply don't have the interest (Pathfinder and White Wolf's offerings)
Lately though, I've taken to adapting characters that have been seeing actual play in the games I'm in. The process actually started off with Estevan Ramirez do Soldano del Castillo, a Castillian duelist, which was released along with my review of the long-defunct 7th Seas RPG on "Talk Like A Pirate" Day appropriately enough. I had meant to also have an actual pirate character, but I got a bit too wrapped in trying to find a good image for Estevan to get said pirate built.
The next Hero on Demand that had seen actual play was my proto-Ranger Branden, a Dalelands Warden that was published quite appropriately on December 14th, the day that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hit theaters. Depending on responses from the rest of my Saturday play group, I may be using their characters as Heroes on Demand submissions, particularly the two Hobbit PCs as they were quite entertaining.
A couple weeks later, I do the same with bringing a couple characters from the Dresden Files psuedo-campaign I'm in, starting off with a fellow gamer's PC, one Jessie Armstrong, a modern day Amazon that's been described at the table as being "Karrin Murphy with an extra foot of height and super-powers," particularly after she almost literally turned a ghoul into a pretzel (in the first session no less!), to the point we debated having her change one of her aspects to "Cute Bruiser."
And this week, I keep up the from-table-to-article parade, this time putting my own PC up for grabs. To be honest, Danny Copperfield has been a lot of fun to play, not only for the fact of being a badass wizard (not quite up to Harry Dresden levels of badassery, but then who is?) but just that I can be rewarded in-game for being an irreverent smart-ass, something I tend to do with most of my characters anyway. To say nothing of the sheer versatility of the magic system that Evil Hat put together for this RPG... honestly, Danny is the first spellcaster that I've truly enjoyed playing, as the way magic works in the Dresden Files RPG is so incredibly open and freeform that the only real limit on what a spellcaster can do in this game is your imagination. Hell, one of the campaign's comedy gold moments was Danny creating an impromptu spell to send him hurtling through the air away from Mayantec-wannabe villains (after snagging the special knife they needed to complete their crazy end-of-Western-civilization-as-we-know-it ritual), complete with the classic Goofy Holler as he went zipping away to a not-quite-so-soft-landing after soaring several blocks through open air. Or taking a page from Gandalf the Grey's playbook and making himself seem a hell of a lot more impressive than his usual twentysomething self would be to a group of mobsters? Then there's turning a Red Court Vampire into charbroiled gibbles and bits with a super-concentrated blast of eldtrich flame after being openly mocked by said RCV; his buddies (all thralls) were a lot less gung-ho after their ring leader went ka-blooey. Not as hilariously cool as impaling a vampire with a guided frozen turkey missile, but having the GM (female, if it matters) describing the reactions of the thralls at being spattered with steaming bits of their ex-master still brings a collective grin to the group's face.
So for future Heroes on Demand articles? Not sure yet, though I've got a couple more in the pipeline, including a White Court Vampire who doubles as a rock star and a chivalrous young knight, just to name a couple. I will say that this series has been quite entertaining, as it forces me to come up with a variety of different concepts as well as a chance to explore how those concepts might come together into the form of a playable character. I've not yet heard of any of these characters have actually been used in peoples' games, which would be cool in and of itself, but one can always hope.
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