[HoE] RE: A lot of the topics

[Katze217@aol.com]

Hi folks,
it has become mighty quiet in here. So I just thought I could comment on some
of the stuff 
that has been going on in the last days.

Soe here are my two cents or rather my "Groschen" :

a) The Templar Orders 
I think that the distinction of Templars is a very good ideas and after some
discussions 
with John Hopler about Junkers, it seems that Pinnacle is aiming to do
something like that 
for all "character types". 
The Orders of the Rose, Sword and Shield are very similar to the distinctions
used in
the Dragonlance - novels done by Weis and Hickman some years ago, there might
be a 
copyright on there... And the Templars are certainly no Solamnic Knights.

Being a german role-player you sooner or later stumble across the Templars and
that's
why I know about them : the Templars were a religious order of knights in the
Dark Ages.
But unlike many of the other knightly orders of that time that did not loose
track of 
worldly concerns (they had become extremly rich through money lending) and in
their travels
to the Holy Land they also acquired a large amount of occult and scientififc
knowledge
(as the Arabs were the "World or at least European Leaders" in these fields at
that time)
and they had no trouble making use of it to further their goals as well as the
church's.

The Dissollution of the Templars was a purely political by the Pope as he was
pressured by
several Nobles all across Europe who owed the Templars big time. As they were
declared
heretical the monastries as well as their other holdings were raided and
plundered by
other knightly orders as well as the nobility.

There have always been rumors that the Templar Marshals and Grand Masters had
just gone into 
hiding and remain up to this day to protect the church's interest (as they
perceive it) with
every means at their disposal (yes, this does include magic and modern fire-
arms).

One of the most important things for the templars were the pyramid of power
(which is also
used by the Freemasons) and might be incorporated in the design of the HoE
Templar as well.

b) The Great Road Wars
Doing a GRW thing for HoE is in my opinion certainly a great idea, as this
might be an easy 
method to publish a quite a few miniatures as well as giving the posses as
well as the 
Marshal's more of a visual three-dimensional view of the characters appearing
in HoE.
I am bit biased as I just love minis and table-top games.

c) Vampires - the movie 
I saw it as well before it got published in the US as it was shown at the
Fantasy Fil Fest.
We were told that it still hadn't been published in the US due to the fact
that no distributor
had been found who was willing to take it. I liked it very much although I
think that some 
guts - checks would have made the whole scenario much more interesting, the
Hunters were just
too cool in the face of such a supernatural horror for my taste.

d) Leftovers -
when I had finally received my package deal after some serious delay (no
offense meant),
i got a free copy of Leftovers as well and I would like to thank PEG for it in
this way. 
The adventure appears to be really good (but I haven't played it with my
players yet, as
they are involved in wild chase through the Waste after a Dark Junker). 

e) Junkers -
Shane told some time ago that some of the stuff for Junkers was cut out of HoE
as there just
wasn't enough space to fit it all in. I have spoken to John Hopler and he will
start working
on it in one or two weeks, so we will see some serious rule changes early next
year.
Junkers are my favorite "character - type" and therefore I wrote about 40
pages or so of 
source-material for one of my players which is keeping him satisfied until
"Here cometh the 
Junkman" comes out.

f) alternate settings -
setting HoE in Germany would be extremely difficult, as most of Europe is just
too densely 
populated to such a "western" feeling which I deem essential to the whole HoE
setting.

Sorry, guys to have babbled on for so long,

Marshal Oleary