First Forte offerings of 2009

A couple of new fiction additions have hit the Forte Universe.

First, there's a Christmas story of sorts, one that takes place in, of all places, Mogadishu. Set in 1990, this tale involves a classic Forte hero teamed with a supporting character from the Forte 2000 era. As not to spoil it, I'll leave it at that, but be sure to check out "A Midnight Clear" on the Forte 2000 page and see the first meeting between Forte past and Forte present.

Also on the F2K page, there's a new story starring Forte 2000's Seahawk and Moonspider. In it, the two heroes, while on a mission, come face-to-face with a shared lifelong dream, and must face it together. Enjoy the not-too-dramatic "Enter the Fanboys" and find out what Seattle's finest do when opportunity comes knocking.

"Why I Love..." - Rainier

I love Forte. That’s pretty obvious, isn’t? You might have noticed all the web pages I’ve built centered on Seattle’s favorite heroes? I love it for a lot of reasons. Being a part of it from the start is one. Helping create it, being there to watch it grow, back when it began as Champions game in a suburb of Sacramento called Roseville. I love that it lasted as long as it did. I love that it carried on after it seemed to be over, and was reborn on the net to live on and on. I love all the grand adventures, the exciting super-hero stories that make up the epic Forte legend.

But like most long-lasting works of popular fiction – like successful TV shows, novel series, big movie franchises, comics – what makes a property stand the test of time and turn into something that touches people’s souls and makes them want to live in its world forever – it works because of its characters. Many a lame property has missed that simple fact, and tried to get by on flash and special effects and plot twists and over-marketing. But for a property to truly become alive, it needs to center on a group of dynamic, breathing, interesting, loveable, identifiable characters. Characters that may look very different from us, and do things and go places we could never imagine, but that we can easily see ourselves in. When we care about what happens to them – when we become them – the connection is made. That’s when we’re part of the story. That’s when the magic happens.

Forte has been flush with amazing characters, from the earliest heroes that started it all to the ones who stepped in and carried on the legend. Oh, yes, the stories have always been amazing. But as Forte creator and gamemaster K.C. Ryan will be quick to tell you (from experience), all the plotting and all the villain-making in the world won’t mean a thing if you don’t have the right characters to make it all come to life.

I’m such a huge fan of Forte because I love ALL the characters – not just my own that have been on the Forte roster through the years. They’ve all got their own unique worldviews, their own style, their own amazing stories to tell. I write as many Forte stories as I do just because I love exploring the characters and watching what they do in a given situation, and how they interact with each other. The stories often practically write themselves, because the characters seem to just take over. Great characters will do that.

I decided to start a new feature on the official Forte blog where I talk about each of the Forte characters, and why I love them so much. As I said, they’re not all mine, so I don’t have all the insight their creators have as to what makes them tick. But like any comic fan, I’ve got my reasons why I love reading about them, and I have my opinions on them. So these won’t be definitive works on the characters – just my reasons for still smiling every time I see a new piece of art of one of them, or go back and read an old Forte update, or read a new Forte story.

I thought instead of jumping back to the beginning, I’d start with one of the latter-day Forte heroes, once of the ones born in online fiction – never part of the original game, but an important part of the ongoing Forte universe.

So let’s start with Rainier.

You can read the origins of “Forte 2000” elsewhere in the ForteUniverse sites (most prominently on the Forte 2000 page), but I’ll sum up here. After the game had ended, living on only in occasionally annual get-together games at gatherings like Comic-Con where some of the old Forte players would gather, I had this thought – what if all the original Forte players, and the GM, were to suddenly be living in the same town again? What if the game started up again, and it was still Forte, but instead of just playing the old familiar characters, the players made all-new heroes for an all-new Forte team? What kind of characters would these be? What character would each player make?

I posed this question via email, and the others of the original four – Kaye, Jeff and Tim – answered the call and played my supposition game with me. We all made new heroes, the ones we’d want to play if this thing really happened. The resulting characters were just so good, and so perfect together, I just couldn’t let things stop there. The Forte 2000 site was born from those four, and I wrote the origin story, taking the characters my friends had created – and taking over (borrowing with respect) K.C.’s Forte world and re-igniting the legend. A new Forte for a new millennium! From that origin tale grew the dozens of stories you can now read on the Forte 2000 site, ones that continue to expand the Forte timeline.

Tim came up with a hero named Rainier. We both had the same theme in mind for our characters (quite accidentally), making them very Seattle-centric. Where I created Seahawk (not believing that K.C. had run a game in Seattle for all those years and never thought to use that name for a villain, at least), Tim went with Seattle’s local Mt. Rainier as a starting point. He envisioned a giant rock hero, one with volcanic powers. But instead of making him some brainless hulk, he decided to make him very brainy – an archeology grad student with an emphasis in native American history and myth. He wanted some kind of local tribal myth involved – some item that gave this grad student (Davis Alexander) his powers. From that idea, Tim drew up what Rainier would look like. And then he left the rest to me. As Tim and I have been working as a writer/artist team for many years, that’s a familiar pattern for us.

I loved the idea, and had a couple of wrinkles to add to it. I decided he came from a very rich family in Washington, but he really cared nothing for the family money. This wasn’t some I-hate-my-evil-rich-parents kind of thing, which has been done to death. He was just obsessed with knowledge and history, and that was his life’s calling. He didn’t care about the family business – he didn’t despise it, it just wasn’t for him. And his parents, happy to see their son finding his own path, supported him in this choice. They had worked hard to make sure he’d have those kinds of choices in his life, and though not always understanding where his head was at, they were proud of him and encouraged him. I took a little twist on this from a documentary called “Born Rich”, which included a wealthy family that didn’t want their son to ever have to work. In the case of the Alexanders, they just wanted their son to have the life he wanted without his dreams being shackled by financial need. So their (very) brainy son got to follow his brain.

I figured that his brain led him to a fascination with the local indigenous peoples in Washington, a subject that fascinated him from his youth. This led him to his eventual double-major in anthropology and archeology, with his particular area of expertise being religious life of the local tribes. I imagined this become an obsession in his life.

But as this was a super-hero “game”, I needed to focus, first, on the hero origin. Tim had wanted some kind of Native American legend involved. Not being THAT good of a researcher, I decided to create my own. I wanted it centered on Mt. Rainier in Washington, to go with the character’s name. I did research the mountain, and found that its original name, given by the peoples of the land, was Ta-co-bet (it was renamed Mt. Rainier by whitey). I ran with that idea, and created a local legend that the Creator carved a spirit being from that mountain that came forth in times of need to defend the local tribes. As the legend went, a particularly nasty British captain showed up with his ship and tried to enslave the locals, only to be routed by this spirit (called Ta-co-bet, after the mountain). He later returned with three witches, who used their black arts to bind the defender spirit and trap it inside a coal urn that was buried deep within the mountain. There it remained until Davis Alexander discovered it while doing some field work for his grad program, following this mostly-ignored legend. Upon finding the urn, he was overwhelmed by a compulsion to smash it against the wall, and when he did so, the spirit was released and inhabited him, turning him into the giant rocky being that could shoot lava from its hands. So, hey, super-hero right? Uh…no. Once Davis finished freaking out, and realized he could change back, he told no one of this, and didn’t quite know what to do with this information. He was no hero. He was a scholar. And now that he had validated one of his theories – tracking the legend of Ta-co-bet, one that his fellow academics scoffed at – he couldn’t tell anyone about it because of what had happened to him.

So an origin had formed, one that would lead up to his reluctant hero debut in the first Forte 2000 story. That’s very much how I saw him, as someone who had no aspirations of being a hero. There was still something missing though, and he wasn’t quite clear to me, personality-wise. I’d decided that we should do actor casting for Forte 2000, as we had done with fun results in my APEX game. One day while sitting around thinking about Rainier, it hit me – I saw Michael Shanks, or, specifically, the character of Daniel Jackson from Stargate: SG1. There was my Davis Alexander. The minute I had that in my head, the character started really coming to life. Quirky. A bit nerdy. Socially awkward. Not much of a sense of humor (and therefore often the butt of jokes of others). Someone brilliant and fascinated with history and other cultures. Every hero team needs its smart guy. Rainier became that guy for the new Forte team. A genius, a diplomat, someone to fill the role that Vanguard had played in the previous Forte incarnation (uh, except maybe the diplomat part…). He’s that character in the comics who explains all the ancient writings on the temple walls, who figures out what the alien being is trying to communicate and stops it from blowing up the city. And he’s the one that keeps the level head when everyone else wants to start punching, who sees the big picture and becomes the voice of both reason and morality on the team.

I added a few extra quirks to him just to mix things up and keep him from getting too one-dimensional. I decided he had a thing for motorcycles – building and riding them. And with his family’s money, he’s got quite a collection, I figure. I decided he liked chess, and also that he was a bit of a chess celebrity as a child. I decided he needed a bit of an artistic side as well, and made him an accomplished photographer and (nod to his creator Tim here) an artist – both skills he uses mostly in his archeology work. And I pegged his worldview. He doesn’t just profess, I decided, but lives a respect for all men, no matter what culture or race or religion. He became a guy I liked very much – even without the super-powers.

But as for the powers, he did have to start using those to get on a Forte team, so I wrote his first experiences with that into the three-part origin story of the new century’s Forte team. One of the main pieces of that tale involved the existence of a lost race of mystic peoples living below the waters of Washington. His search for yet another legend considered crazy by most dragged him into an all-out inter-dimensional invasion, and into the path of three other local heroes. It was here that he met Seahawk, Tinker and Max, and had to join with them to stop what was coming. Which he didn’t QUITE succeed in, since the invasion of the Karrigon did happen, but using his still-new abilities, he fought with these heroes to turn it back. And he used his brain and cultural skills as well, speaking passionately to this Karrigon’s brother race – the Cassians (that undersea race mentioned before) – and convincing them to join the side of humanity and help save Seattle (and the Earth). There was my definition, in the first arc, of his role on the team. He would be the one who always found that third alternative, who helped them think their way around situations, always thinking outside the box. And he would have an unshakeable moral compass that always pointed to the right thing to do, even if the other thing might be easier.

His earliest appearances, in the stories “31 Flavors” and “The Keys” showcased his “butt of everyone’s jokes” thing nicely. “Flavors” was a good humiliation moment, and a chance for him—having fallen off a building into an ice cream truck—to reflect on how strange his life had become. “The Keys”, with the new team’s first day alone at the classic Forte base (the final vote of trust from the old team, once the new team had earned it), showed him not hanging out and watching football with the other guys, but obsessed with reading through the Forte archives and finding out all the different hidden civilizations they had encountered, and their time travel adventures, and musing over the idea that the world should know all this stuff, but that maybe the world wasn’t ready to know it (a thought that goes against his basic beliefs, but something that he, now, as a part of the exclusive and secretive super society, has to deal with). And I like his consternation that no one else seemed to care about the race of plant people living beneath Seattle.

But something was missing with Rainier, and I knew it, though I couldn’t initially put my finger on it. I found it when I decided that my fondness and fascination for the former Forte heroine Moondancer—mostly due to my never being around when the character was played, so she was such a nice mystery to me—meant that I wanted to bring her into “modern” Forte continuity. The minute I decided that she and Rainier were going to hook up, I struck gold. Here was someone completely different from Davis Alexander in every way—angry, impulsive, unpredictable, violent—and that totally spelled stormy romance drama for me. I introduced her into “current” (at the time) Forte 2000 continuity, but established that this wasn’t the first time she’d been around. I decided there was a history we missed in early (unwritten) Forte 2000 issues, where the two of them hooked up and started a very heated on again/off again romance. And with her being Moondancer, I decided it was very physical, very sexual. Which was something really unexpected for Rainier. Like so many seemingly doomed relationships I’ve seen happen in life, it was something that became an addiction for him. Logically, this was not the woman that fit into his studious, logical life—but the connection between them became too strong. I think part of the initial heat was his “fetish” with all things Native American – and here was the embodiment of that (and someone who really put the “body” in “embodiment”). And this was also something new in his life, this very carnal kind of physical, intense relationship, and that became part of the addiction, too. Bringing her into things added a number of layers to him, and their relationship let me explore more things about him, and the nature of such irrational but powerful attractions. I was unexpectedly pleased to see that bookish Davis was “getting some” with one of the hottest women on the Forte Earth. She gave him the emotion he was missing, the messy humanity vacant from his sane existence. It just worked, and worked great. And one of their earlier, happier moments of their relationship – told in flashback in the tale “Pastels” – really made me love the two of them together, and let Davis be a very different person that we’d become used to.

I got to carry this along during her return as the Anubis stories began. As I mentioned in backstory, their last parting had been a bad one, with Moondancer being her usual self-destructive self that pushes everyone away. This time, instead of just fighting with and storming out on Davis, she screwed things up with the whole team, and even got into a fist fight with Tinker. The fact that Dyna Girl and Tinker both hated her was an obvious thing, but I liked adding the twist (I’ve seen this in my life with friends and their relationships) that even though she was a psycho and was, to his teammates, bad for Davis, the gals knew they couldn’t speak badly about her around him. Her return was a twist, though. During this break, she’d had a moment of clarity during a visionquest, and came back a new person, trying hard to make amends and become a better human being. Davis, being hurt, didn’t trust her at first, but she allowed him space and took the time to prove herself. Over the course of these issues, I got them back together as he slowly started to believe that she’d changed, and her change even finally won over Dyna Girl, who came to believe the transformation was real and gave her another shot. The destructive Moondancer/Rainier relationship blossomed, finally, into admitted love, culminating in the (I think) really beautiful scene in the “Interlude” story. Ah, finally. Happiness.

And then, of course, I killed her.

Heh heh heh.

This was one of my favorite Rainier moments, during that final battle in Forte 2000 #148. Separated from the fallen Forte team (who were stuck in Chicago), he had to stand with Moondancer against a godlike villain, Anubis, a villain who had just taken out two hero teams. I got to pull out all the stops on Rainier. He used his brains, trying to reason with the villain, first. When they failed, he had to go to the fists, and they fell into an EPIC battle that destroyed the UNCLE building. Everything he’d learned in two years of being a super-hero came into play. It was one of the favorite fights I’ve ever written, and he got to fight it with his true love at his side. But when Anubis finally took him out, Moondancer was left alone. And this was the moment where she came full circle – both as a person, and in her love for him. With Tinker, from Chicago, screaming over the radio for her to get away, Moondancer refused to leave the man she loved alone, and faced an impossible battle, knowing it would be the end of her. She fought bravely (I actually got choked up writing her big fight with him), and there was even a glimmer of hope, but in the end, the result was never in question. Just as Rainier was started to come to, he saw the woman he loved killed before his eyes, her lifeless body thrown to the street in front of him. Here was another defining moment for him in his reaction. He didn’t think of vengeance. He didn’t fight on. All he could see was his lost love as he cradled her there in his arms. Phantasm would have thrown himself at the villain and gone out fighting, unable to contain his rage. Same with Dr. Jackal. Seahawk. Many others. But all Rainier saw was loss. He’s not a man of violence. And yet, thrust into this violent life against his will, he’d just lost his one true love to it. His immobilization, culminating in his finally screaming his agony to the sky after Anubis’ easy departure, felt so right that it seemed to be writing itself. As for the changes this loss will have on him, what it will do to him as a person, and a hero? Sadly, that’s got to wait for me to EVER get back to finishing the tale. There will be repercussions. Trust me. A man cannot survive something like that and walk away unchanged. There’s darkness on the way.

Other highlights have included the very fun “R.C.D.G.” short story, where Dyna Girl is innocently (yeah, right) torturing him over the fact that he, the one so obsessed with cultures and peoples, DIDN’T get to go out into space and meet dozens of alien races like her. I loved the girls talking him into being teleported into the apartment of the dudes who were crank calling the Forte hotline in “Hotline 3: 976-FORTE”, reluctantly putting the fear of god into him, and the classic scene where he orders the dudes to go to college. He had another great “joke butt” moment in the “Stakeout” story, a tale that’s special to me because it has all eight Forte heroes in it (that’s happened so rarely, since Seahawk had been absent during the whole Anubis epic), and shows his tired annoyance/patience with Seahawk. Rainier is just fun to write. I like him because he’s so logical, so emotionally together, so “ask questions first”. That kind of worldview speaks to my nature, and makes me want to aspire to be more like him. He’s a very unconventional super-hero in almost every way, and I love what he brings to the team dynamic because of it.

There’s still much to come for Rainier. We have yet to explore his childhood and his family, and I can’t wait to find out what life growing up as an Alexander was like. In the course of the timeline he’s gone from grad student to college professor, and I definitely want to explore that more, and see what he’s like with his students. And very importantly, I want to explore his bigger story – the Ta-co-bet part of him, the otherwise quiet spirit, manifesting as his powers, that will slowly start to feed him more visions and lead him down what I hope will be a path of great stories of tribal mystery and ancient evils. I’m far from done with Rainier, and in some ways feel like I’ve just begun. I can only hope that Forte fans love him as much as I do, and are looking forward as much as me to seeing what surprises he’s still got in store for us.

To learn more about Rainier, be sure to check out his character page on the Forte 2000 site (where you’ll also find his gallery), and, of course, dive into the all the Forte 2000 adventures!

Forte Update for June '08!

What’s new in the world of Forte this summer?

Most of the additions are Forte 2000-related this time around. Let’s start with the F2K Gallery, since art’s always the most fun! We’ve got all color shots this round, and all from two different returning artists – Kevin J. West and Dennis Martin Willman. First, Kevin West continues his Forte 2000 team head-shots (I’m working to collect ‘em all) with shots of Dyna Girl and Rainier. Next, Mr. Willman jumps in with a big grab bag of colorful Forte awesomeness. First, “The Dark Lord Anubis” gives us a look at the full headmask look of one of Forte’s greatest villains. Next, “The Plotting of Erebus” shows us a scene of the mystic menace called Erebus with villainous thoughts of Phantashia on his mind. “Mr. Dusk” is a moody shot of Nicholas Ares’ mysterious right-hand man. “Dyna Girl” rather speaks for itself, a gorgeous look at F2K’s petite powerhouse. There’s a beautiful shot of “Savannah”, the tragic villainess who’s appeared in a couple of F2K tales. And there’s the amazing photo-quality “Seahawk” shot, designed, in the artist’s words, to look like it came from “Seahawk: The Movie”. Perhaps the most completely mind-blowing addition is this stunning (and suitable for framing, for crying out loud) shot of a trio of F2K bad girls – “Prowler, Toast and Blue Dragon”. And we have an eye-popping shot of “Bobby McMillan”, otherwise known as Max, but out of costume and in suit and tie. And speaking of out of costume, we round things out with one simply called “Cincoflex in Repose”. As you can see, Mr. Willman didn’t just hit it out of the park with this collection, but didn’t even seem to know the park was there. Enjoy.

On the Forte 2000 story front, the origin tale of Seahawk continues in “Seahawk: Number Zero (Part Two)”. When we last left the story, we were back in 1999, in a time before the new Forte team formed when Seahawk had just gotten started as a new Seattle solo hero. In this chapter, we pick up where that left off, but we also take a further leap back to 1998, to a time before Jared Banks even became Seahawk, to look in on his first meeting with someone who would come to play a big part in his (and Forte’s) future. Don’t miss this chapter filled with intrigue, emotion, suspense and action! The pre-history of Forte 2000 continues!

And just for something, as they (over)say, completely different, the Forte 2000 page proudly presents the Forte 2000 Soundtrack! There have been a group of songs that have been inspirations for Forte 2000 stories and characters for some time, but finally that collection has been put together and posted up on iTunes. If you have iTunes, you can click on any of the songs, right off the Flash display on this page, and sample them (or even buy them). Or just use the text on the page itself to check out the song list (where there are notes on the usage of each track) and pluck those songs from whatever other MP3 outlet you use. Either way, we hope you enjoy some of the sounds that inspire the adventures of Forte, and hope they’ll increase your enjoyment of these stories, too.

But on the non-F2K-front, there’s a brand new Forte Universe page that’s just gone up! This awesome new addition is called “K.C. Ryan’s Forte Universe”, a page dedicated to the non-Forte stories of the hero universe Forte inhabits—written by the universe’s creator himself! Here you can currently check out recently-written tales of Captain Thunder, Angel Flight and Hornet, but can also jump into the brand-new Justice Squadron story called “The Rule of Law”. This page will be the home base of K.C.’s continuing tales of these other beloved heroes, and soon will add the adventures of The Four Aces and the Enforcers. Keep checking back for more!

And we’ll see you next time.

New for February in the Forte Universe

Got some new goodies up at the Forte Universe for y'all.

First, there's some new art on the Forte 2000 Gallery. Check out Dyna Girl and Nightsable shots from newcomer Jason Pyke. And there's a Seahawk from illustrator Andy Fish, and a stylish Nightsable by his partner, Veronica Hebard. A couple of gallery favorites return as the dynamic T.G. Sangalang gives us his rendition of Moondancer, and the always-stunning David Enciso brings a Forte 2000 villain to life...Masterpiece (whose first and only appearance thus far has been in the story "Stakeout". Based on this look, I think we need to see more of her (though there's not a whole lot more of her to see...).

And we have tales. On the Forte 2000 Adventures page, we jump back in time (like it's 1999) to a pre-F2K story involving Seahawk. We meet him here for the first time, get to know his life, and get a look at what was happening in Seattle just a few months before the fated new foursome joined up and re-started the Forte legend. "Seahawk: Number Zero (Part One)" begins the tale of Seahawk's first adventure, one that lays the groundwork the latter-day Forte tales to come.

Over at the Forte Expanded Universe page, there's an exciting multi-part milestone tale, written by Forte founder K.C. Ryan himself, called "The Last Hornet Story". In the era of the Forte world before there was a Forte, a mysterious and driven heroine with an amazing family legacy hunted a sinister, dark semi-government agency called CHESS. Now, over two decades later, the final showdown between Hornet and CHESS reaches its explosive conclusion in the nation's capital, with ramifications that could spell the end of Forte...and the downfall of a the greatest country on Earth. Do not miss this dramatic, star-studded epic steeped in Forte-world history, and heralding the end of one of its first heroine's saga.

More to come. Keep checking the 'Verse!

Forte Universe Highlights

So much to see on all the Forte Universe sites! How’s a person supposed to know where to start?

Well, thought I’d make a few suggestions and point out a few highlights for those new to the F-Verse.

While the original Forte campaign has all the history, most of that history isn’t online yet. The bulk of the Forte material you’ll find is on the Forte 2000 site, since that “sequel campaign” was born on the web and all its content is on the page. That site contains the most graphically fun page in the Forte Universe, the Forte 2000 Gallery. That’s a great place to start, since there’s no reading involved. Just LOTS of art to check out! Note that it’s broken down into three sections – Character Art, Issue Covers and Wallpapers. Character Art contains all the art we’ve had gone for the characters (and you’ll find many of classic Forte characters there as well as the new ones, and it’s broken down by artist. So be sure to scroll all the way down to see it all). Also in there there’s an easy-to-miss link to a page called the Eryck Webb Art – Other gallery. Eryck is the most prolific F2K artist, and has done dozen of works, but not all for Forte 2000. He’s also done art and design work for other Forte world characters and teams, and some non-Forte stuff (like ConTinuum and Omniverse). This gallery collects those works as well. The Issue Covers page is fun, as it turns existing art into Forte 2000 comic book covers. And give the Wallpapers section a peek, too, and catch some neat desktop candy, most design by Aaron Storck.

On the Forte 2000 Adventures page, there are many tales to read. And they’re chronologically numbered, so of course, I’d advise that you just start with the one with the red “1” next to it and just go in order! But, if you’re lacking that kind of time…here’s a few suggestions. If you want to see how it all began, I’d recommend trying the origin story contained in Forte 2000 #1, #2 and #3. I think it’s a pretty exciting read. Just keep in mind it’s written in “game update”, not prose, style. A faster read is “The Keys”, a fiction piece taking place during the early adventures of the new team, one where they’re hanging out at the original Forte base. No combat involved in this one, just a fun character story. If you want character stuff AND action, and have time for some reading, I’d advise “The Storm” (parts one and two), a dramatic and suspenseful tale that takes place right at the end of the first era of Forte 2000 (before the new characters joined up). I wrote that one to feel like a big TV show season finale. I think you’ll really enjoy the “Hotline” series of stories. These are written in an unusual format – in phone call transcript format. So it’s all dialogue, which makes them nice and quick to read, and they’re a lot of fun (and surprisingly touching in some parts). Try to first one, and if you like it and want to see what comes next, the link to the next story is right at the bottom. Find out for yourself what happens when an average dude gets his hands on the phone number for a secret hero base. I also highly recommend “Family Matters”, one of Aaron Strock’s Dyna Girl-centered tales, but one that brings in all kinds of Forte world elements, with the new Forte characters and the old, Forte NPCs, Forte world guest-stars, and puts them all together in an action-packed Seattle adventure.

Over on the Forte ’05 page, you’ll find a handful of Forte stories set in 2005, mostly centering on original Forte characters. Most are prose, but I’d advise you try out one that, like the “Hotline” stories, is written differently. “The Dr. Jackal Interview” is the transcript of a radio interview with the Forte founding member, and gives you a nice little summary of Forte history. I think it’s a fun read, and the page that got built to house it (made to look like the web site of Import, the super-heroine/web radio diva of the Forte universe) is fun to look at. So tune in!

On the Forte Expanded Universe Page, a pretty quick and fun read is “A Hangover Far, Far Away”, starring original Forte hero Anvil and current Forte heroine Dyna Girl. In space. If you’re wondering why they’re in space, you can get the backstory first by reading "Forte Chronicles #1: Into the Realm”, which is the adventure that takes place before this story. “Hangover” is another zero-combat character tale that I think you’ll enjoy.

And if you REALLY have some time on your hands, head on over the Forge page and read the origin story – chapters one, two, three and four. This story is a novella, really, but turned out, I think, really well. Here, you follow the origins of a new hero team, every step of the way, and then get into all the many details that go into starting one. Rich in Forte history (five of the six characters are former Forte heroes, with one new hero thrown into the mix to shake things up), this tale lays the groundwork for the adventures to come, the tales of the first Forte spinoff team and the newest hero team in the Forte universe. If you can make it all the way through, I promise you an entertaining ride.

As for the Forte.com page, I can just say, I general, that you should just go there and start poking around. The page itself is a work of fiction – it’s meant to simulate what the actual Forte computer system looks like, so it lets you feel like a real Forte hero, logging in. There’s all kind of stuff to check out, but obviously, since it’s NOT the real Forte site, some buttons and links don’t work. But some do…so try everything! There may be an Easter egg there for you! Or, to make things easier, you can use any of the “help” buttons on each page to give you the “real world” facts on that page (like, what works and what doesn’t, or a little piece of pertinent Forte trivia). I’d advise trying the one (currently) working message board thread there (“Poker in the Rear”), for a fast, fun read. And also try the “Links” page and scroll through all the fictional Forte world web sites out there (and a few real ones mixed in). The whole thing’s designed to give you a feel for what it’s like to live in the Forte universe – and to be a part of Forte.

The Forte Online Chronology is a helpful tool, as it lists all the Forte tales from all the pages in chronological order (though not the classic Forte updates from the Forte Prime page yet – I want to get all of them online before including them). So if you want to get through EVERYthing in the Forte online universe, this is your roadmap (with handy links) for how to do it.

And as a reminder, new Forte stuff is generally added to coincide with new issues of the Clobberin’ Times Online, so you’ll mostly see new material being posted bi-monthly. The exception is Forte art, which usually gets added to the F2K Gallery as soon as it’s received, so always feel free to drop in there and see if there’s something new (and the new stuff is always posted at the top of the page in the “Most Recent Additions” area).

So if you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll step into the Forte Universe and browse around, try out a few of the tales, learn some of the history, and enjoy twenty years of super-heroic adventure along with us. Welcome!

Happy 20th, Forte

Twenty years ago today, four guys sat down at a dining room table in Roseville, California, to start a Champions game together. Three weeks later, a gal joined up with them, and all the pieces of the legend that would come to be known as "Forte" fell into place. And two decades later, it's still going on. In new forms, but with the same creative spirit, the same long-lived friendships, and the same old magic.

On this historic date, we have some new additions to the ForteUniverse sites to celebrate the occasion. First, Forte Prime has been updated to now include the first seventy-five Forte "issues", having added twenty-five more to the list. These new ones are where things really started getting good, issues that ushered in the second era of Forte, with new heroes, new villains, new tales and new surprises. I'd advise checking them out for yourself.

Also, to help us all look back on the past two decades of friendship amongst the Forte creators, we've added a special "Twenty Years of Forte" photo gallery. Prepare for good times, bad haircuts, questionable fashion choices and a fifth of a century of the lives of one group of grateful friends.

And the characters, like their creators, get a chance to look back at the road behind them in a story simply titled "20", one that takes place on the eve of the anniversary in the Forte world, and stars every living Forte hero. Find out how it's being celebrated, experience the memories and emotions of a band of selfless defenders who have saved the world, and the universe, together for so long, and be there with them to commemorate the milestone.

I had started a very large retrospective on the last twenty years of the Forte experience, which I'd planned to post up here, but it got TOO big and I wasn't able to finish it in time for the anniversary. Soon, once I finish it all, I'll be posting it here in several parts for your reading pleasure. The tale of Forte is the tale of all of us who've been a part of it, and I hope you'll enjoy reading it.

I've said what I needed to say to my Forte friends via email already, but once more here I'll simply say thank you to them all. We did good, guys. Like (most) of our characters, we all managed to make it this far. And along the way, we've created something we couldn't have imagined, together, and have had laughter and tears, good times and trying ones, and can look back it all with pride, a bit of awe, a few appropriate head-shakes, and a smile. Thanks to K.C., to Jeff, to Tim, to Kaye, to Kevin, to Randy, to Jim K., to Jim M., to Andrea, to Logan, to Ben, to Adam, to Aaron. All heroes of Forte. All friends for a lifetime.

Happy anniversary, Forte.

Mike

New at the Forte Universe - October

Here's what's been added to the Forte Universe site this time around.

First, I added and changed some character art on the index page, so feel free to check that out. I mentioned Forte Prime already, where those first 50 issues are up. Most of the content centers around the 20th anniversary. "Forte Forever", the 20th anniversary game, has a full write-up now on the Forte Expanded Universe page. Oh, and there's also a photo gallery up showing the events of the big Forte 20th Seattle weekend where the game was run.

I decided to take a look in on what's happening in the Forte world itself for the team's 20th year celebration, and you can get some of these details at the Forte.com site by checking out the latest additions to the Calendar and Message Board pages. And there's a special page that's been added (hasn't actually been linked up to any of the sites yet. I have to figure out where to put it...) off the Forte Museum page (there isn't an actual Forte Museum page at this time, so it's a 1-page mock-up), where you can find out the big media events happening in Seattle for the big Forte20 Week.

And a few new pieces have been added to the Forte 2000 Art Gallery as well, including the Forte20 group shot by Sean Harrington you saw in the previous post, three new works by Garrett Blair (Tinker, Passport and Serenade) and a Dyna Girl by Greg Moutafis.

The official 20th is coming up on November 5th. Wow. We're really old.