Slayers
RAINING BLOOD, FROM A LACERATED SKY! This is HERESY! Wrong Slayer, numbnuts.
The Slayers is an animu about a sorceress and her adventuring party of murderhobos. The Slayers traces it roots back to the 80's with some short stories where rumors hold were based on some Japanese dude's AD&D games (though in all likelihood it was Sword World). Those short stories got converted into comics, then later into animu, in series, minis series and movie formats.
The main character is an absurdly overpowered sorceress Lina Inverse and her companions. In the series this is the idiot Gourry, the chimera Zelgadis and the princess Ameila. In the second season there is another shrine maiden Sylphiel and in the third season the dragon priestess Filia. In the movies her companion is the battleslut Naga the white serpent (notable for her huge tits and annoying laughter). One cannot speak of Slayers without mentioning Xelloss, the mysterious priest. Son of the demon-goddess of beasts and most powerful demon outside the ranks of the demon-gods, he is a trickster, a liar and fiercely loyal to his mother's plans. The anime looks and feels like a dream version of Dungeons and Dragons, without the LAWL RANDUM Chaotic Neutral players, the jackasses and the rule lawyers.
Through the series there were a collection of interesting villains that any DM should learn from, either from what to do, or what not to do. Rezo the Red Priest, a multiclassed priest/sorcerer, the BBEG from the first season is a prime example of a character who was once lawful-good, but due to circumstances had to walk the path that leads directly to lawful-evil. As it turns out his body contained a fragment of the demon-god of fire/king of the demon-gods. A clone of him reappears in season 2, this incarnation seeks only to destroy the heroes to prove he is more powerful than the original, a pretty good example of neutral evil. Another sorcerer villain shows up in season two, Halcyform, a man who sold his soul to the mazoku for immortality. Again he's a sympathetic villain who will stop at nothing to resurrect his dead wife. Sad problem is, without the interference of Hellmaster Phibrizzo (demon god of death) or Lord of Nightmares, all deaths are final in the Slayers-verse. Season two also introduces Demon Dragon King Gaav, a rebellious demon-god who, due to a rebellion in the past, had his form locked into that of a human. He wears a badass anachronistic gold trench coat. Later in the season a string-pulling Phibrizzo shows up in the form of a shota, Lina goes into god-mode (summoning the Lord of Nightmares into herself) to kill him. The third season introduces a new part of the world to explore, and what's the first they find? That's right, Gaav's head lackey and gay lover Valgaav waiting to get revenge! He has aligned himself with lesser gods from an adjacent material world. Well, suffice it to say, there is a happy ending.
Introduced in season 2 is an interesting foil for Gourry; Zangulus a mercenary obsessed with proving he is more powerful than the mindless oaf. Using a magic sword and near equal fighting skill he holds his own, and shows to be useful to the heroes now and again, but never stealing the spotlight. A good example of how a DMPC can be used in a game without actually hurting the game.
Slayers and Gaming
Guardians of Order has, on two occasions, failed to make a good RPG out of the license. First was a series of three splatbooks for their BESM tristat game, each book represents a single season of the series. These books did nothing a veteran gamemaster couldn't already do. But they did present playable stats of all of the main characters from the season they covered. Their second failure was the Slayers d20 book, which was one of many hanger-ons to the d20 OGL. Unlike most copycats though, this system did try to rebalance the classes, but ended up making a shit-ton of crap, such as the man-at-arms, shrine-maiden and sorcerer classes. One good feature was its innovative magic system; it allowed a caster to know a level dependent number of spell level worth of spells. This was also capped in that there wasn't a spells per day system, but instead a caster roll based on the arcana skill.
Gallery
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BESM Slayers, book 1
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BESM Slayers NEXT, book 2
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BESM Slayers TRY, book 3
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It's pretty much like that.
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4e tries to be like this
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Not to be confused with this pile of faggotry.
