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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crothian" data-source="post: 1987422" data-attributes="member: 232">my review:Luminous    It seems that I’ve been doing a few reviews on books that answer question.  In this case the question is where did I come from?  It covers background material for Mutants and Masterminds.  Backgrounds for super heroes at least the idea of where their power comes from has always been important.  Whether they are the rich millionaire, alien, or mad scientist just knowing that bit of info really helps to define a character.      Luminous is a book in the first appearance line from Blue Devil Games.  It is a fifty five page PDF made for the Mutants and Mastermind super hero game.  The PDF has nice art and a good lay out.  It is nicely book marked as well.      The strength of the book is covering some common and not so common super hero backgrounds.  The backgrounds are designed like feats but usually give a lot more depth and definition to the character.  A good background explains what drives the hero, why he behaves as he does, and what powers he has and why.  Each of those is given some good detail and through that detail many different character ideas spring forth.      The book starts with the alien background.  Of course alien is not really specific enough so they break it down into smaller groups like the Alien Champion, the intergalactic officer, the last of the species, planetary explorer and others.  Each one talks about what campaign it would be best for, powers, feats, skills, weakness, and other factors that are common within the archetype.  And of course there is the origin feat.  The feats are nicely balanced and serve as a good way to bring in some rule and role playing elements into the same thing.  Luminous is presented as the NPC example for this section.  He is an alien champion and a four armed purple bear.  He has a nice background and full stats written up as power level 10 hero.  There is a villain option to get use out of him in that regard as well.    The next section of backgrounds is the mutation ones.  They are presented just like the alien ones with options like Beast Blood, Experimental Subject, mutant rebel, runaway mutant, and others.  There is also an NPC for this called Wretch.      The other three arch types that get covered are Mystical, super science, and training.  Each has specific origin examples like above and NPCs that are fully fleshed out and easy to use.      Backgrounds are an important part of the super character.  It does not really matter if they are hero, villain, or somewhere in between; they all come from somewhere.  It adds a nice option to the regular rules making them fit together with no problems.</blockquote>

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