Filmation Friday: "The Sleepers Awaken" from He-Man

For Filmation Friday this week I give you a Season One He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episode "The Sleepers Awaken". With Skeletor and his minions nowhere in sight, Adam and Teela hunt for horses near a ruined castle with a dark legend. Two hundred years before, Lord Tyran and Lady Valtera used dark magic to draw on the power of the forest around them. When the trees were all absorbed, the pair entered an enchanted slumber to await a time when the forest would revive. In the space of twenty minutes we get a gothic tale of resurrection, dark powers, and redemption. Oh yeah, and a lesson.

One of the things I love about Filmation is that many times the one shot characters in a series are often very striking. Note the withered appearance of Lord Tyran because he drew too much on dark magics. Another interesting thing to watch in this episode is the treatment of drawing magical power from trees and plants. If you were always curious what Defiler Magic from Dark Sun looks like outside of the desert, "The Sleepers Awaken" can give you some ideas.

D20 Masters of the Universe-A Link

During one of my afternoon jaunts on the web, I stumbled on to this site while looking for conversions:

D20 Masters of the Universe

The author of the page has made one of the better RPG adaptations I've seen, even for a work in progress. There are rules for the specifics of the He-Man/She-Ra setting, the races you can play, and spell and class ideas. Even the worlds of the setting are described in D&D 3e planar rules. This is a blend of 3e rules and conventions blended with the MotU setting, and the author does a commendable job.

The character sections are currently small but interesting. There is plenty use of prestige classes in the character write-ups. Many characters are mere the name, alignment and what classes they are. The best part are the sheer amount of characters and monsters that the author has provided. You just don't get He-Man and Skeletor. You get stats for obscure MotU characters as Plundor the Despoiler (an evil rabbit) and Octavia (a green octopus lady from She-Ra). Pretty neat.

Check out this site if only to witness a really good RPG adaptation of the Masters of the Universe setting.