Adapting Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane for Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition & Barbaric! Rpg 2nd Edition

 Creating a character as legendary (and overpowered) as Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane for Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition requires treating him as a "Heroic" or "Legendary" level character. In the Cepheus system, a typical starting character has attributes ranging from 2–12, but Kane is an immortal who has mastered nearly every discipline over millennia.

Below are the suggested stats, traits, and skills for Kane, modeled after his portrayal as a left-handed, red-haired giant with the intellect of a polymath and the brutality of a butcher.

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Kane: The Mystic Swordsman

Age: 2,500+ (Appears 40s) | Career: Barbarian / Sorcerer / Scholar / Assassin

UPP (Universal Personality Profile): BCBFF6

Characteristics

Attribute	Score	Modifier	Notes
STR (Strength)	11 (B)	+1	Massive build; can "rip heads off."
DEX (Dexterity)	12 (C)	+2	Deceptively fast; master of the left-handed blade.
END (Endurance)	11 (B)	+1	Cursed immortality; massive hit point pool.
INT (Intelligence)	15 (F)	+3	Ancient knowledge; master strategist.
EDU (Education)	15 (F)	+3	Millennia of learning every known science.
SOC (Social)	06 (6)	+0	Feared and shunned; the mark of a killer.

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Combat & Vitals

• Lifeblood: 22 (2x END)

• Stamina: 17 (END + Athletics + Rank)

• Melee (Blade): +4 (Includes Dex mod + Skill)

• Sorcery: +5 (Includes Int mod + Skill)

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Key Skills

Skill	Level	Description
Melee Combat (Blade)	2	Master of the Carsultyal sword.
Sorcery	2	Deep understanding of ancient, dark magic.
Natural Philosophy	2	Mastery of alchemy and ancient technology.
Deception	1	A master manipulator and strategist.
Athletics	1	Incredible physical power and climbing.
Survival	1	Expert at surviving the wasteland.
Jack-of-all-Trades	3	Due to his age, he can attempt almost any task.

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Traits & Special Abilities

• Cursed Immortality: Kane cannot die from natural causes or disease. In game terms, he recovers Lifeblood at double the normal rate. He can only be truly "slain" by the "violence he himself created."

• The Killer’s Gaze: Kane has a terrifying presence. Any NPC with a lower Social Standing must pass a Difficulty 8 Willpower/Insight check to maintain eye contact or stand their ground when he is hostile.

• Left-Handed Mastery: Kane ignores the usual -2 penalty for using his off-hand (left) and gains a +1 to parry rolls in melee combat.

• Ancient Lore: Kane treats all checks related to history, ancient artifacts, or forgotten languages as Routine (+2).

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Equipment

• The Carsultyal Sword: A massive, two-handed blade (or used one-handed with his high STR). Damage: 3d6+1.

• Black Leather Armor: Lightweight but sturdy. Protection: 2.

• Satchel of Curios: Contains 1d6 random alchemical components or ancient scrolls.

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How to Play Kane in Cepheus

Kane is not a "team player." In Sword of Cepheus, he should be played as a devious polymath. He doesn't hate magic like Conan; he uses it as a tool. If you are the Referee, Kane works best as a patron who sends the players on errands—or a terrifying antagonist who is always three steps ahead of the party's intelligence.

Gemini said

In Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition, sorcery is often dangerous and taxing. For Kane, magic isn't a flashy "fireball" show; it is a cold, calculated manipulation of the laws of reality, often involving necromancy, cosmic horror, or lost technology.

Because Kane has a high INT and the Ancient Lore trait, he treats Sorcery more like a science than a religion.

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Kane’s Sorcery Profile

• Sorcery Skill: 2

• Casting Modifier: +5 (INT 3 + Skill 2)

• Magic Points: 15 (Based on INT)

Selected Spells

Spell	Magnitude	Effect / Note
Consult Spirit	1	Kane speaks to the dead to gain tactical intelligence or forgotten history.
Enthrall	1	Reflects his hypnotic, terrifying presence and ability to dominate weaker wills.
Animate Dead	2	Kane has famously raised entire armies of "corpse-slaves" to achieve his ends.
Scrying	2	He uses obsidian mirrors or pools of blood to track his enemies from afar.
Curse	2	A manifestation of the "Mark of Kane," bringing misfortune to those who cross him.
Wither	3	A devastating combat spell that shrivels the flesh of his opponents.

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Unique Ritual: The Call of the Outer Dark

Kane possesses knowledge of entities that existed before the gods. Once per lunar cycle, he may perform a ritual to summon a Minor Extra-Planar Horror.

• Requirements: 1 hour, a sacrifice (or significant bloodletting), and a Hard (10+) Sorcery Check.

• Failure: On a natural 2, the entity attacks Kane or remains in the world uncontrolled.

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The "Techno-Sorcery" Twist

In Wagner's novels, Kane often finds remnants of "pre-cataclysmic" technology that look like magic to others. In your Sword of Cepheus campaign, you can give him single-use artifacts that mimic higher-level spells:

• The Glowing Orb: Acts as a Light spell but is actually a cold-fusion battery.

• Vial of the Ancients: A potent chemical stimulant that restores 2d6 Stamina but causes 1 point of STR damage after it wears off.

Ref's Note: Kane rarely uses magic in the heat of a sword fight. He uses it to set the stage before the battle begins, ensuring his victory is inevitable before the first blade is even drawn.

Gemini said

Stormbringer rpg Session Report Three - Guests of The Dark Empire of Granbretan! The Appearance of Kane.

  Our party was herded into two cages drawn by mutant horses and our weapons were taken away. Devices were also searched for and then it was a long trip to the capital of Londra. All of the while it was a miserable trip with animal headed guards watching our every move and our party was in mostly silence. This session picks right up where we left off here on the blog. 

We were briefly paraded through the streets on our way to the capital buildings & then it was our time to brought before King Huon. King Huon, also called Huon the Immortal and the  King-Emperor, The freak of a king emperor floated in a strange 25 foot bubble of biogenetic liquid who awaited us. 

'A strange melodious voice said, 'Adventurers, mercenaries, and villains a man of royal linage awaits you. Mr. Kane wants a word with you and then we'll have our way with you ourselves' 

Waiting for us was a warrior whose face was cragged over with tons of wrinkles and two very icy blue eyes surrounded by a wreath of red hair. 'Warriors, I have need of your skills and it's a deadly quest we've got line up for you!' 

'The staff of the demon stone is an artifact of Chaos that lies outside of the purview of Runestaff. We want it! ' the voice was horse and dire of purpose. 
'The Mantis sorcerers of the  Empire of Granbretan have opened a doorway deep into the Million spheres as a part of the holdings of a powerful wizard of the empire. We want you to grab this bauble for the emperor'  

'We will richly reward you warriors' , the voice was smooth as velvet but artificially weird in it's echoes & held an icy undercurrent of menace to it. 'Gold, slaves, lands, and titles could be yours if you bring us the artifact' the speaker barked in response. 
Given our current condition within the walled cage of steel and wood we were in position to refuse. We held out a bit and asked to discuss it among ourselves! And we did. We asked for further warrior retainers of mutant stock & two wizards who were on the execution rolls of the Great Empire. Actually two other players we'd added too our motley crew of scum! 
'Granted!' What else!?' 

So what's going on here is that we're sorta of connecting this Stormbringer campaign with my uncle's old campaign from the early 90's. The retainers and prisoners are actually PC's who'd been locked up by the dark empire back in the 90's.  And one of our players had the old sheets! So we connected the two campaigns through the PC's. One of which is Abe Sentient a mutant and psionic PC whose been locked up since the end of the old campaign. 

Stormbringer rpg Session Report Two - Guests of The Dark Empire of Granbretan!

  Still not sure what we're doing in the  Dark Empire of Granbretan but we're still sneaking around from the animal headed knights that we saw from the side of the road we're on. From behind us we saw a new warrior who had no idea who we were and why he was with us.  Seems Radic the Great was a prisoner of Pan Tang one moment on board one of their slaver ships and next with us. This session picks right up from here. 

We were able to quiet him as soon as he saw the animal headed knights of 

the Dark Empire of Granbretan. We explained that we'd heard rumors of the inhabitants of the Dark Empire of Granbretan; "The inhabitants of Granbretan are renowned for their cruelty, and for their practice of wearing masks at all times." We hid in the remains of a cottage and were able to find some fruit baring trees from which we got breakfast. "The Granbretanian aristocracy, and the soldiers they lead, belong to the equivalent of  chivalric orders, characterised by a totemic animal. The orders have their own secret languages and their animal-masks make their members resemble bipedal beasts." according to one of our number Count Orlock the Damned. Apparently Orlock had spent time within the dungeons of Londra.  We had no wish to spend any time in the tender care of the Dark Empire of Granbretan.

While we discussing our next move, we heard the ground being churned up and immediately went on the defensive. From under the ground some weird mutant tentacled  horror turned up! And we went to work and got into combat with the thing! Ripping and tearing the ground and around us it took the ground out from under us. Count Orklock got in a couple of solid hits with his demon sword & dagger. Turk The Violent got his battle axe deeply embedded in the thing's tentacled head and that gave Theusu the opening he needed. 
And that's when a bunch of crossbow bolts from  the wolf headed knights finished the thing off. We were surrounded by the very forces we were trying to avoid! 'Welcome my friends you are now guests of the empire of Granbretan! Please put down your arms! " 
We ended here for the moment 

Stormbringer rpg Session Report One - Through The Flesh Gate Of The Young Kingdom

 "Well. I can tell you now that Stormbringer's 'real' being is related to other supernatural forces on another plane. I know how to summon them, but these relations are also creatures of Chaos and therefore, as far as you're concerned, somewhat hard to control. They could well get out of hand in some way” perhaps even turn against you. Stormbringer, as you have discovered in the past, is bound to you by ties even stronger than those which bind it to its brothers, but its brothers outnumber it and Stormbringer might not be able to protect you against them."

-Sepiriz, Stormbringer p. 87-88

This session report picks right up from here on the blog. There is an unspoken rule within the Stormbringer rpg & that's never mess with the soul stealing sword! Let alone mess with other incarnations of Stormbringer. And tonight our crew of marauders went to work for a wizard who stumbled upon a strange time doorway in the center of the Young Kingdom. Dar'varn was a strange Melniboné wizard who hired us to investigate the gateway. 

The gateway was made out of a strange flesh like material & crossing over the threshold of the gate found ourselves within a strange realm surrounded by millions of Black Swords hanging in space. According to the Moorcock's  Multiverse wiki entry on the Black Sword entry; "The Black Sword has been called by many names in its different manifestations across the Multiverse, including Stormbringer, Mournblade/Ravenbrand, Kanajana, the Cold Sword, the Dragon Sword, and Murakamo-No-Tsurugi (Japanese for Sword of the Gathering Clouds). The blade may not always manifest in the color black either, such as Corum Jhaelen Irsei's moon colored sword Traitor."

"Though the Black Sword is a being of Chaos, it seems to be an instrument of the Balance, akin to the  Runestaff  and the Horn of Fate. This is likely because in some cryptic way, the Black Sword and the Eternal Champion are one."

Tur The Terrible is a mercenary from Pan Tang who decided to claim one of the blades as his own. Big mistake! Several of the blades closed in on Tur and impaled him and sucked his soul into several different blades! 
While this was happening our party backed up and back out through the gateway! We made it only to find ourselves in another universe surrounded by the giant runes of the Black Swords. Everything was surrounded by these giant eldritch charged glyphs! Our party backed up and exited once again through the gate only to find ourselves in a strange huge battlefield surrounded by millions of bodies that were once people. These corpses kept changing and mutating with flesh coloured slop & gore that came towards our party. 

The party backed towards the gate as fast as we could and went through only to find ourselves in a strange countryside! We heard hoof beats approaching and we hid behind a wood pile and the ruins of a cottage. We saw the animal masked knights of

 the Dark Empire of Granbretan. We need to find out what era of this world we find ourselves in!  And that's when we heard someone cough from behind our party! 

Betweeen Kane & The Granbretan Empire - The Stormbringer rpg, Karl Edward Wagner's Kane & Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon

  "The Eternal Champion is a mystical hero who lives upon all planes of existence, in all ages and times. Whenever the greatest need arises, the Eternal Champion awakens to ensure mankind's survival. His names are many: Elric, Corum, Erekose, Urlik, Hawkmoon, and a multitude of others. Into the thick of the fray he strides, heroic companions at his side."

This is going to pick right up from yesterday's blog here. Today is one of those days that I seriously need to recharge the batteries. For the moment I've handed off both my Castles & Crusade campaign & my Wretchedverse campaign. Russ Nicholson's passing has effected me more then I thought. However I wanted to take a few moments to discuss the Hawkmoon box set by Chaosium. This is especially true after reading through Wayne's Books article on the Hawkmoon box set available here.

One element of Hawkmoon's era that stood out to us as players were the Mantis scientist/priest/ magus who were Emperor Huron's personal bodyguards. These guys were whom we were captured by and tortured. It took a renegade Mantis priest to get us out of the dungeon and onto  ship. Then we had a cabal of six Mantis on our party's asses.
And let me tell you these guys were a pain in the ass. The Mantis priests are highly formidable, highly motivated, and filled with forbidden occult knowledge. We managed to make it out of Londra and out into the Atlantic. This was after getting acid filled globes hurdled at our PCs, dodging Wolf patrols, killing a bunch of animal masked assassins, and then digging out the surgical tracker/controller implants that had been implanted by the Mantis.

Did I mention that we did recover the 'Super Science' artifact?! And this is what kicked off this manhunt in the first place. And one of our number killed one of the Mantis priests to get it. And this indebted the Mantis priest/scientist absolutely wanted revenge against our party with the orders of Emperor's Houn. Even through 5 editions the Mantis continued hunting our party! This has been a major plot point to our games. Families have been generationally targeted by the Mantis through the super science of the burgeoning Tragic Millennium time travel projects. We did get paid for our efforts and almost double crossed by Kane. We got tired of the double crosses and what not so we simply told him that we wanted get paid. This earned a bit of respect from Kane.

Kane's got a great video overview right here.

Here's the thing our party of scoundrels and rogues were not good guys. We were really in a mercenary  band mold. We did five jobs in the world of Hawkmoon and eventually had several mutants among our ranks. Curiously we haven't heard from the Mantis in a very long time. This doesn't mean that there not out there. Note that this is a repeated blog entry because we're starting up a new round of our Stormbringer campaign soon.

Dangerous Beginnings - Darker Tides of Chaos - Oceans of Eternity of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane & The Stormbringer rpg

  So how did our party eventually end up at the End of Time or one of it's timelines?! Well that goes back to the fact that our party ended up together aboard a Pan Tangian slaver galley. These were sent all over the Young Kingdoms collecting workers ie slaves for the massive Pan Tangian machine. This is the beginning of our Stormbringer rpg campaign that came from here on the blog. 

We were each captured by Pan Tangian pirates & raiders. Ended up in irons, & down in the hold of a Pan Tangian sloop on it's way to the main country. Our party escaped when they went for supplies at a neighboring country sea port. 

We had one shot to break free & steal away during the night. These circumstances that we found ourselves enabled us to sign up with a mercenary outfit. And we targeted the Pan Tangian interests every time we could. 
According to the Sorcerers of Pan Tang wiki entry;"Shannon Appelcline noted how after the fourth edition of Stormbringer was published, "the best books to date for the line were produced first by Keith Herber, then by Mark Morrison. They consisted of thick, well-written books of background, such as Sorcerers of Pan Tang (1991) and colourful adventures, such as Rogue Mistress (1991)." This book delivers the Pan Tang island in colourful and dangerous detail.
We made contact with a dark red bearded sea captain with whom we signed on. This sea captain backed down the Pan Tangians on our party's behalf. That sea captain was Karl Edgar Wanger's Kane! 

Darker Tides of Chaos - Oceans of Eternity of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane & The Stormbringer rpg

   The edge of the Eighties were dead on a busy for our group of players of the Stormbringer rpg campaign that my uncle had been running. We had eight regular players and it was due to the DMing of my uncle. He was awesome when it came to keeping his campaigns consistence. 

 

 Back on the edge of the Eighties we ended up on the shores of the end of Eternity & time. This picks right up from here on the blog. There was no wind, no animals, and nothing whats so ever to really encounter. And waiting for us was Kane clad in his armor. He was surrounded by eternity ships all beached and waiting for captains who might never come. This was Ninety three & some change or so. 'Choose your ship lads' the heavy voiced Kane looked at our party and pointed around him. 
My uncle's passing had brought out the fact that there was a giant hole in our collective hearts. We were shocked when a party of Chaos pack mutants attacked our party! We climbed aboard one of the ship wrecks and found one that was still serviceable.  We went on exploring the Million Spheres after we dispatched the Chaos mutants. 

During one of our jaunts we came face to face with our former Hawkmoon general who'd taken on life as a mercenary general. Our party had accidentally killed his aid de camp at the End of Time. This act guided him on a revenge against our party of adventurers. He had his own planar ship and chased us across the Million Spheres. 

 We had some of our crew killed and kidnapped to drop into Chaos spawn areas. The Black Mantis was once upon a time a Mantis scientist priest of Great Britannia of the "Tragic Millennium,".  This was only the beginning of his revenge. Fortunately we had Kane as a patron or Heaven help us.