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Mayfairstivus Day 3 – Elemental Firestorm

Welcome back for the third day of Mayfairstivus, the nine day celebration of Mayfair Games’ DC Heroes Role-Playing Game! Today we’ll be looking at role-playing statistics for the Elemental Firestorm.

DC HEROES ROLE-PLAYING GAME – SECOND EDITION – 1989

When the second edition of Mayfair’s DC Heroes RPG was released in 1989, Firestorm had only recently transformed into his Elemental incarnation.  The character was still developing and his abilities had not been fully explored.  The first two editions of the RPG came with collections of character cards that included statistics.  Below you’ll find the Elemental Firestorm character card (front and back) included in the 1989 edition of the DC Heroes RPG.   I really wish they’d asked Tom Mandrake to do the card art, or at least borrow some stock image of Firestorm that Mandrake had done.  While this drawing isn’t terrible, it doesn’t do justice to Mandrake’s gorgeous look.  These statistics were based upon what was known of the character at the time.  Interesting to note that below they incorrectly included Martin Stein as one of the Alter-Egos.

Firestorm from 1989 Mayfair DC Heroes Role-playing Game

Firestorm from 1989 Mayfair DC Heroes Role-playing Game

DC HEROES ROLE-PLAYING GAME NEWSLETTER – SUMMER 1990

Mayfair Games mailed to subscribers a quarterly newsletter on the DC Heroes RPG featuring updates and promos for upcoming products.  These newsletters were super-cool and I was fortunate enough to obtain five editions of this newsletter.  The Summer 1990 edition published a follow-up to The Elemental War that included updated statistics for each of DC’s Elementals.  You can see below Firestorm’s statistics and abilities had been expanded as compared to the character card above.  As the character continued to evolve, Mayfair did their best to keep pace with his stats.

Mayfair DC Heroes Role-Playing Game Newsletter - Elementals with Firestorm, Red Tornado, Naiad, and Swamp Thing

WHO’S WHO IN THE DC UNIVERSE ROLE-PLAYING SUPPLEMENT #3 – 1993

By 1993, Firestorm was a footnote at DC Comics.  His monthly series had ended and the character had been banished to another part of the universe.  He received a wicked-cool Who’s Who entry in 1991 and a companion Who’s Who entry from Mayfair for the RPG in 1993.  At this point the character had been completely fleshed out and Mayfair was finishing their third edition rules, therefore these statistics were about as accurate as you were going to get.  It’s worth noting that this version is the Martin Stein Elemental Firestorm.

Firestorm from 1993 Mayfair DC Heroes Role-playing Game Who's Who Supplement

MAYFAIRSTIVUS

Don’t forget, the Mayfairstivus celebration continues at the following blogs!  Be sure to check them out throughout the Mayfairstivus celebration (Dec. 1-9).  Also, I’d like to send a quick shout-out to Tom Hartley.  Tom inadvertently created the Mayfairstivus holiday by selling his second edition DC Heroes RPG box set to Frank Lee Delano (the mastermind behind the Mayfairstivus crossover event).  Thanks Tom!

We’re taking a break on Saturday and Sunday.  Our Mayfairstivus coverage will resume on Monday!  Come back then when we look at the one and only Firestorm RPG module!

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8 Comments

  1. Firestormfan89 says:

    There was a Firestorm RPG module? I never even heard of it! Now I feel like a little kid waiting to open a present on Mayfairstivus morning. I’ll never get to sleep sunday night.

  2. Frank says:

    There was a Mayfair newsletter? You know how you sometimes have that dumbfoundedness that combines shock and immediate acceptance of the obvious? Yeah.

    The Elemental Firestorm card is kind of funky and in places looks to have been inked with a Sharpie (hello big Starfire hair,) but I think this is actually one of my favorites. It’s kind of like Bill Sienkiewicz by way of Tom Morgan, and very of its time.

  3. Chocotaco says:

    Firestorm being physically stronger than Swamp Thing makes absolutely no sense to me.

  4. Shag says:

    Thanks for all the comments!

    @Firestormfan89 – You seriously crack me up! I appreciate your comments a lot!

    @Frank – The newsletters were pretty cool. I was impressed that Mayfair continued to support the product with the newsletters. Good description of the drawing being a Sienkiewicz/Morgan look.

    @Chocotaco – I guess the strength stat doesn’t bother me. I’m not even sure how you measure that. What really matters is their elemental power level. Swamp Thing exceeds Firestorm’s power ranks in the elemental powers. Given this system was exponential, Swamp Thing’s elemental powers were WAY more powerful than Firestorms. I’m cool with that.

  5. Chocotaco says:

    If I remember correctly, each increment of a stat in strength was the equivalent of being twice as strong, so a 4 was twice as strong as a 3; therefore, Firestorm’s value of 9 meant he was 4 times stronger than Swamp Thing’s 7.

    I haven’t read the rules in over a decade, though, so I very well may not be remembering them right.

  6. Firestormfan89 says:

    @Chocotaco – That’s how I remember the rules too. I last gm’ed a couple years ago so it’s a little fresher in my memory but you got it right.

  7. libra113 says:

    I remember thoes newsletters, got them for YEARS when I was running the game.

    I remember one time they had a deal where they sent a corrected stat box (somehow Superman’s got overlayed on someone else’s write up) and you were instructed to cut it out and tape it over the other one with scotch tape (yep, I did that).

    I also recall the one page Daily Planet supplements they did in Dragon Magizine (started right when I suscribed and ended when my subscription ran out and I couldn’t afford another) and they had stats for the then new Manhunter and you had to send off for his equipment stats becasue there wasn’t room. If I recall they came on dark yellow paper. :)

    Oh the good old days.

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