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Halloween Jack posted:Yeah, I felt like the entire Neo-Roman Empire was totally unnecessary. Honestly, I keep thinking that the setting could be: some time ago, an evil sorceror crossed dimensions and created a portal (or portals) to our own world after besieging the various kingdoms of his homeworld. Despite the initial shock, his armies of orcs, goblins, demons, and other supernatural creatures are beaten back across the portal and he himself is killed by a combination of Earth's military special forces and heroes of the sorceror's homeworld (although special forces have more to do with it, I have the image of him getting caught monologuing midsentence when a .50 caliber bullet from a sniper rifle turns his head into a broken Klein bottle). Afterwards, both sides find that they're unable to close the portal and attempts to contain it fail. So, a cautious trade forms between the two worlds, with tourism becoming the fantasy world's biggest product. However, the fantasy world's inhabitants have a culture shock: our technology, firearms, and advanced weapons have weakened the foundations of the world's champions, physical melee combat and magic. Swordplay is a dead art when someone can not only kill you with a rifle hundreds of yards away, but even without physically being present. And a shooter can pull the trigger and silence a mage permanently before the mage can not get two syllables of an incantation out. Manufacturing have disrupted Dwarven metalworking and Elven crafting. At the same time, the defeat by Earth's military have shaken the former sorceror's monster allies: the orcs' mass wave attacks are a folly against machineguns, artillery, and air support. They continue raids against human settlements but Earther "green zones" are impossible to crack due to private military/security contractors and their guns. The orcs and others yearn for a way to get revenge on the Earthers who have destroyed their way of life. There are a few "terrorist" attempts both in fantasy world and on Earth by orcs and the other monstrous creatures, some even successful, but many stew in their ghettos, subterranean warrens, and tribal homelands. Both the kingdoms and Earth's governments realize that there needs to be measures taken before something regrettable happens. Then, Earther tourists discover dungeon-delving with the help of guides that have come from the out-of-work adventurer class. Eventually, someone records their expedition and it becomes a viral hit. Television networks develop this, with collusion among the governments of both worlds, into the next level of professional sports. Even the various monster races are persuaded to "populate" dungeons or join up, allowing them to blow off steam by finally being on equal footing as the Earthers.
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Jan 19, 2017 04:21
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So in your version of the setting we've colonized the dungeon, then turned colonization into a reality TV show and a spectator sport. That's horrifying. We're barreling toward maximum dystopia; I love it.
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Jan 19, 2017 04:24
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If you're interested in games in that vein, you might be interested in Splinter: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/105066/Splinter
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Jan 19, 2017 04:45
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That sounds a great deal like the anime GATE but way less pure garbage
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Jan 19, 2017 04:50
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Halloween Jack posted:So in your version of the setting we've colonized the dungeon, then turned colonization into a reality TV show and a spectator sport. That's horrifying. We're barreling toward maximum dystopia; I love it. Yeah, part of my idea was those traveling Wild West road shows where you could meet aging gunslingers and outdoorsmen like Wild Bill Hickock whose skills were no longer needed along with Native American leadership that have been cowed by American might like Sitting Bull, as the sun set on the American frontier. I was also thinking of the culture surrounding soccer, especially with the ultras, and how it's basically supplanted armed conflict between nations in Europe. You see those same rivalries popping up as a hundred years ago, but it's been giving a relatively safe arena to do it, comparing soccer hooliganism to genocidal warfare. That's kind of why I made orcs a race of heels, with orcs in the tribal lands cheering on the orcish defense versus humans of both worlds in the dungeon arena. LordAbaddon posted:That sounds a great deal like the anime GATE but way less pure garbage I had been thinking about that as well, as Sterling's and Shiner's short story, "Mozart in Mirrorshades", but given a fantasy bent. Young Freud fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Jan 19, 2017 |
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Jan 19, 2017 04:54
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Hostile V posted:If you're interested in games in that vein, you might be interested in Splinter: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/105066/Splinter
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Jan 19, 2017 05:29
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Halloween Jack posted:The other closest thing to XCrawl I can think of is the official Stalker game, which obviously takes inspiration from the Tarkovsky film and the video game series, but is an officially licensed Roadside Picnic roleplaying game. Roadside Picnic was pretty much wall to wall arbitrary fuckery of the protagonist by the laws of nature; how can this be anything besides codified GM railroading?
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Jan 19, 2017 05:50
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Haven't read or reviewed it, but I might do so at some point in the distant future. My F&F wishlist is like 10 books long now.
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Jan 19, 2017 05:54
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Count Chocula posted:I saw a European Dracula movie that was pretty normal except it portrayed him as a historical hero who fought off the Muslims? Ottomans? That was 100% the impression I got of his reputation in Romania- our tour guide told us that Vlad was pretty much a perfect hero of the people, and all of that 'eating dinner in a forest of the impaled' stuff, not to mention all of the occasional defection to the Ottomans, was nothing but propaganda designed to besmirch his good name.
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Jan 19, 2017 07:25
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ZeroCount posted:I've seen the real life Vlad idolised a bit but also mostly by people who just really like the fact that he killed a shitload of muslims. Ivan the Terrible was apparently a total Vlad fanboy.
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Jan 19, 2017 07:31
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A lot of those states in the Balkan-ish area and environs were seen as the shield of civilization against the hordes that had already taken Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul.
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Jan 19, 2017 07:38
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wiegieman posted:A lot of those states in the Balkan-ish area and environs were seen as the shield of civilization against the hordes that had already taken Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul. During his lifetime, though, Vlad was more famous for his conflicts with Hungary and the Saxons in Transylvania than his campaigns against the Turks. Germany was full of sensationalist woodcut pamphlets decrying his cruelty. How much that reflects reality is hard to say - you can argue either way. On the one hand, these were obviously propaganda by his many enemies and rivals. On the other hand, to have a reputation for cruelty even by the standards of the fifteenth century implies he must have been at least a bit nastier than his contemporaries.
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Jan 19, 2017 07:59
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Count Chocula posted:Nerds. I worked out who TMBG are probably associated with. Its definitely Demon. Think about it, hidden messages vague and formless terrors and an overarching spirit of both jollity and fear.
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Jan 19, 2017 09:31
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Midjack posted:Roadside Picnic was pretty much wall to wall arbitrary fuckery of the protagonist by the laws of nature; how can this be anything besides codified GM railroading?
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Jan 19, 2017 10:31
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Siivola posted:As it happens, it's a diceless game. If I recall, the flow of the game is pretty much "here's some arbitrary fuckery, how about it" "uhh aw crap I do X" "sure, sounds plausible". That sounds like my perfect system. You could use it to run Mage, UA, Over the Edge....
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Jan 19, 2017 12:17
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Night10194 posted:She gets mentioned briefly in the Lahmian section, but, uh... A little late to this particular party but my least favourite thing about Genevieve is how the author copied her straight into Anno Dracula without even slightly trying to hide it. Same name, same sire, same backstory... like a straight-up copy-paste job. It was just such low-effort bullshit that I gave up pretty much the moment she was introduced. (And I'd been a Kim Newman/Jack Yeovil fan up to that point. I love his Dark Future novels, and I enjoyed Drachenfels a lot too.)
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Jan 19, 2017 16:56
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Night's Dark Masters Nagash Makes Poor Interpersonal Decisions W'Soran, if you'll recall, is still the only person in all of Warhams to ever like Nagash for Nagash, and so it turned out to be no accident that the vampires stumbled upon the revived Great Necromancer. Further, W'Soran and Nagash decided this was a good time to gloat and play puppetmaster, saying they'd intentionally set everything up to go like this. As you might imagine, this didn't please the other founders very much, but they needed the help and wanted revenge for their burned city. Thus, they decided to throw in with the Necromancer on his revenge tour. Nefereta got a further unpleasant surprise when Nagash offered a position of great authority to Vashanesh, rather than to her. He took it, and was gifted a ring that would allow him to return from the dead at nightfall should he fall in battle. However, through the ring, Nagash controlled the actions of the vampires almost as solidly as he could have had they been mindless undead. This is where Nagash made two mistakes: First, he assumed Vashanesh would not try to find some way to subvert his control. Second, he assumed he had the vampires now, and that he could just make them do whatever he wished. So he used them like one would use a wight or ghoul, throwing them at his enemies as disposable shock troops. In short, Nagash's decisions made rebellion by his new servants inevitable. Vashanesh found a surprisingly easy solution to the control of the ring: when Nagash wasn't paying attention, he simply threw his decisive battle against the King of Khemri and let himself be beheaded. By the time the ring returned him to life, the other vampires were gone (except W'Soran, who remained Nagash's creepy groupie) and Nagash's plans were in ruins. With the others escaped, Nagash was unable to win. Before he was overrun, he cursed the vampires for their fickleness (which he had caused by treating them like disposable troops instead of using the barest of tact) and afflicted them with many of the great weaknesses they suffer today, like their inability to deal with the sun. Now free, the founders scattered to the four winds, founding their own bloodlines and beginning the most famous traditions of the vampires. Despite staying with Nagash, W'Soran managed to survive, and through his devotion to his master and his own creepiness, managed to find ways to stymie the red thirst by feeding on the energy of dark magic itself. This ruined his appearance and made him the first corpselike, horrific Necarch, but he had never really cared about such things anyway. In the meantime, one of the founders, Ushoran (Nefereta's brother), who had been the one to convince the others that Abhorash was an idiot and there was no need for his charter, went off and founded his own kingdom to try to emulate Lahmia. In doing so, he found a valley where the locals worshiped a great magical artifact, the Crown of Nagash, and decided he was totally going to gain full control of its power for himself and become better than the Great Necromancer. Strangely enough, this particular bout of hubris is not what destroyed the new kingdom of Strigos. This time, Ushoran decided that Abhorash had been right all along and kept studiously to his charter, building his kingdom and inviting his fellows to come bask in his achievements. Considering what they did when they felt slighted by Nagash, you would think he would not be caught so off-guard when his messages were met with scorn and hatred by Abhorash (who I imagine held a grudge), Vashanesh (who had his own plans), and Nefereta (who wasn't happy with how any of this century had gone). Soon, he found human kingdoms around him stirred up against him by Nefereta and her agents, and at the same time, found his kingdom surrounded by a perennial problem of the Warhammer world: Orcs. Ushoran died in battle with these many foes, and the crown was forgotten under the green tide. His own children and followers found that no-one liked them any more than they had liked their father in darkness. Hunted by their own kind and by humans, they became the Strigoi ghoul-kings, living among twisted cannibals and ancient barrows, feeding on the cold blood of the dead and warped by their hardship. Next: Do I Need To Redo The Story of Vashanesh And Isabella Because Vashanesh is Vlad and I Did the Wars of the Vampire Counts in the main book. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Jan 19, 2017 17:22
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Wikipedia posted:According to Newman, there are three versions of Geneviève, one for each series (Warhammer Fantasy, Anno Dracula, and the Diogenes Club series). Each has a different middle name but each is a "trans-continual cousin". 
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Jan 19, 2017 18:12
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It's like Zifnab, except the author wants to gently caress him.
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Jan 19, 2017 18:14
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Yeah. Uh. Genevieve is creepy as gently caress when you know about her author's weird fixation. Or rather, the fact that she is, again, eternally a teenager is. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Jan 19, 2017 |
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Jan 19, 2017 18:19
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Yeah, there's a difference between Moorcock's Eternal Champion and just inserting your pedophilic fantasy into every story you write.
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Jan 19, 2017 19:07
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The storm has a name... - Let's Read TORG Part 16c: Nature reclaims its own The next two chapters are The Invasion of Earth and The Living Land Realm, which means it's time to talk about how things are in the States and Canada. In the public eye, Baruk Kaah's invasion was what kicked off the entire invasion of Earth. Yes, Orrorsh was technically first by a few days, but the Gaunt Man made sure to keep the invasion a secret for as long as he could. He knew that once his bridges dropped and the storms sprung up around central Indonesia, the rest of the world would be cut off and it'd be a while before the outside world could find out what was going on, and he was counting on the other invaders landing to draw attention away from his realm for as long as possible. However, "subtlety" is not a word Baruk Kaah understands. The first of Kaah's maelstrom bridges dropped directly on Shea Stadium during the first game of the 1990 World Series, creating a Living Land pure zone that covered about half of New York state and Pennsylvania. Chaos ensued as technology stopped working, lizardmen riding dinosaurs flooded the streets, and people started attacking each other for no reason. Thousands of humans were immediately transformed to Living Land axioms, and thousands more were killed in the chaos. In less than twelve hours, New York City was in ruins. The military was called in quickly to deal with the situation, but were unable to fight the invading forces. In the pure zone, weapons and vehicles stopped functioning, the chain of command broke down completely as soldiers became incapable of understanding a command structure, and there was no way to communicate with other forces inside or outsize the zone. Kaah knew that he had to press his advantage quickly. Jakatts were sent out in all directions to begin planting stelae, while the gotaks quickly began planting gospog fields. Expanding the realm was easy, since the military defenders were completely powerless in the face of the Living Land's reality. Within days, Kaah controlled most of the northeastern portion of the United States. But he wasn't done there. A second bridge was dropped on Fort Providence, Canada. Again, he was able to take the territory with little effort, but instead of rapid expansion Kaah only set up two pure zones, making sure they were well defended before preparing his third incursion. Kaah's third and final bridge was dropped onto Sacramento, California, and this was Kaah's first real defeat. When the bridge dropped, the area known as Silcon Valley failed to transform and became a Core Earth hardpoint. Thinking that his own power would be enough to overwhelm the region, but was unable to overcome Core Earth's reality. He was forced to retreat back up the bridge, but his forces did manage to expand northward into Canada. Another thorn in Kaah's side were the increasing number of storm knights being created by Core Earth; more than had been seen by anyone in any previous world. Kaah reached out to Uthorion, who loaned him the Wild Hunt as part of his own schemes (which would never come to fruition). By this point, hundreds of thousands of gospogs were harvested, and Kaah used them to prevent people from escaping his realm. The inhabitants were either integrated into existing tribes, sacrificed by the gotaks, or killed and used as raw material for more gospog. Within three months, Baruk Kaah controlled about a quarter of the United States.  "One weekend a month, my rear end!" So let's talk about Kaah's tactics. Or lack thereof. As we've seen, Kaah's overall strategy in an invasion is to throw warm bodies at the target. And it's effective because not only does he have several worlds' worth of followers to do this with, the axioms of the Living Land favor his people in conflicts For instance, the Living Land's low social axiom barely allows the concept of a militia that can be assembled for defense. It doesn't support the idea of a standing military, or an army that's assembled for conquest. Of course, "assembling an army for conquest" is what Kaah does every time he invades a world, but he gets around that by keeping everyone assembled into tribes he can order around. He knows that you need planning and strategy to wage a war, but the rest of the edeinos don't (and can't) think that way. They live in the moment. Really, the only reason Kaah keeps the social axiom where it is is because it hurts any actual army that gets in his way. But while the low social axiom doesn't hurt his forces, whose preferred attack style in any case is the chaotic swarm, it makes it drat near impossible for people to put together a decent defense. Add to that the low technological axiom (which his people are used to but most other realities aren't) and it's easy to see why he's been able to steamroller so many cosms. Of particular interest is the Battle of Chicago, where Kaah managed to suffer a short-term loss but get a long-term gain. The US military quickly realized that Kaah was taking population centers; Kaah needed believers to power his stelae and maintain the realm. The military also realized that attempting to fight the edeinos in their own territory was suicide. The only real option was to dig in and set up a defense in Kaah's path, and wait for his troops to enter Core Earth reality. Kaah had assembled a gigantic army to attack Chicago, and since he knew all about shock and awe made sure the Army could see it coming. Both sides were assembed at the border of Illinois, waiting for the other to make the first move. Unfortunately for the Army, nobody knew about steale yet. Kaah had sent small forces around the planned battlefield to plant stelae. One such group was discovered and stopped by a National Guard unit, but it wasn't enough to stop a zone being created in the northern third of Illinois, with the Army right in the middle of it. At this point, the military tried to evacuate Chicago, focusing as many troops as they could on defending the civilians. This turned out to be a disaster; the shortest route back to Core Earth was along I-57 and I-55, only 25 miles...but that's not very easy to do when you're funneling the population of one of America's largest cities through two highways. It was depressingly easy for Kaah's forces to descend on the evacuees and slaughter the military forces. But, interestingly, not the civilians. The Jakatts had other plans for them. quote:The Jakatt army had two goals: to kill as many military personal as possible, and to drive the evacuees back into the Living Land. Although the American soldiers fought bravely with the simple tools they had available (knives and bayonets), thousands were wiped out when confronted with the primitive army trained to fight in such a reality. The march south was halted when the primitives spilled across the highways and demanded that the humans return to the north. Countless civilians died in the ensuing panic. Some people were able to sneak around the edeinos, but most were too weary to make an effort. Parents traveling with children (the majority of the evacuees along the highways), when they saw that the lizard men were not going to harm them, agreed to return to their homes. The Jakatts aided the humans who cooperated in every way, as was their custom, and performed many miracles to help the weak and injured survive. As always, these efforts had a positive effect on the Earth natives' attitudes toward the invaders, and by the time the journey north was completed many a human had come to depend on the Jakatts for survival. The Jakatts accept humans into their tribes, regardless of if they've transformed or not. Of course, humans who've transformed are probably worshiping Lanala and are capable of performing miracles, but even those who haven't switched over yet are tolerated in the tribes in hope they'll come to love Lanala. There's actually quite a few non-transformed humans in edeinos tribes, often for no other reason that survival in the Living Land without their help is drat near impossible for a 20th century human. One thing that's important before to note before we close out the chapter is that some of the Jakatts are beginning to rebel against Kaah. They're slowly realizing that Kaah's ambitions only serve himself as opposed to all the tribes, and they've grown increasingly unhappy with Kaah reliance on dead things. Several Jakatts have split from the main religion, calling themselves Jakatt Teks, and started their own tribes. Right now the Jakatt Teks are a small enough problem that Kaah just ignores them, but he has forces ready to sweep in and kill the traitors if they become too much of a problem. The last part of this chapter covers Kaah's Relations with the World, which is to say the other High Lords. For the most part, Kaah doesn't care about them because he's too focused on himself, but he's been known to ally with the other Raiders as needed. He has a very tenuous alliance with Dr. Mobius, mainly just because they both dislike Malraux's goal of spreading CyberCatholisism worldwide. Despite everything, Kaah is very faithful to his religion (or at least his interpretation of it), and sees Malraux as a serious threat. Rumor has it that the CyberChurch has been reaching out to the Canadian government to offer aid against the Living land, and as you can imagine Kaah is not happy about that.  Technically, this is from the upcoming Torg Eternity, but it's also the only decent picture of Kaah I could find. So what's life like in the realm now? It's pretty drat scary. quote:"Father?" Kaah's territory is split into three separate regions: The Eastern Land, which is most of the northeastern US, the Western Land, which consists of most of the North American west coast, and the Northern Land in Canada. Of these, the Eastern Land is by far the largest, and is where Kaah has set up his base of operations.  The Living Land, about three months after the initial invasion. Kaah was able to establish and expand the Eastern Land so quickly due to its population density; right from the start of his invasion he had millions of converted believers powering his stelae. The majority of Kaah's forces are here; countless tribes are used to harvest gospog and defend the boarders. At the heart of this Land is New York City, which has been utterly destroyed by the invasion. quote:It is ruled by those with a will strong enough to survive and possessed of the almost mythical New Yorker disinclination to leave the city no matter how bad things get. New York City still sort-of belongs to the humans, mainly because to the edeinos it's composed of nothing but dead things. The only real area they care about is Central Park, which has been converted into a gospog field. That said, the majority of the population have descended into near-barbarism, and the city (apart from the south end of Manhattan Island) is now pretty much run by the gangs.  Can you dig it? Well, not really "gangs" in the sense of street gangs so much as neighborhoods assembling a bunch of dudes to stake out and defend thier territory. It's very much a Batman "No Mans Land" situation, where the ords stuck in the city (and that haven't transformed yet) have been forced to band together into rough...well, tribes, claim a few blocks as turf, and defend the borders (and their dwindling supplies) from everyone else. The big thing is defending your territory's supplies. The Deep Mist has permeated the city, and the current World Laws means that most of the food in the city rotted away months ago. And since nothing is coming in, this means that the overall food supply is a perpetually dwindling resource. People have had to rediscover basic hunting and tracking skills to take down the dinosaurs and other beasts wandering the city, but rumor has it that some gangs have already begun sliding towards cannibalism. Really, more than anything else food is the main reason for inter-gang fighting. Chasing prey into someone else's turf but not following means you're giving them an advantage over your gang (since now your people can't eat), but following the prey in is going to result in a battle with that turf's defenders. Territory is demarked via graffiti and gang tags, which have become a sort of "law" in the ruins. Whoever marks the territory first gets it. Most territory battles start off with a gang overwriting another gang's tags in an attempt to claim territory. The unwritten rules of territory are:
That said, no gang or conclave or whatever goes anywhere near Central Park. Nobody's sure what the Jakatts are doing there, but whatever it is they're killing everyone who gets close to the Park so nobody's in a hurry to find out. As you'd expect, we get a few sample gangs to seed the city with. The Subs consist of kids ranging from ages 14 to about 20. They operate out of Grand Central Station and hunt mainly along the subway and shuttle lines. They stay underground for the most part, and only come up to the surface to see what the overall situation is.  It's only a matter of time, really. The Zonks is comprised mainly of small-time drug dealers and low-end criminals, and currently controls most of the upper east side. Needless to say, the area isn't quite a opulent as it used to be, but the Zonks love it because it still sort of represents the wealth they always wanted. Despite the fact that they're living in the ruins of luxury (and have the gaudy jewelry to prove it), they're also one of the most dug-in gangs because their past "professions" make them one of the best-armed gangs in the city. Admittedly only P-rated gang members can use guns, but that still puts them ahead of a lot of other gangs. Then there are The Links quote:Basing their slang on a Nintendo video game, this adolescent gang spends its time looking for "hearts" (live animals), collecting "gems" (ammo), and searching for Zelda, a term which doesn't have a specific translation, but means to still be alive, or "the next day." A Link who just survived a close battle against a tra might say, I'm still on my way to Zelda, man." Anyway, moving on. The reason Central Park is a no-go zone is because (as stated previously) it's a gospog field. The Park is always defended by about a thousand first- and second-planting gospog; fortunately for the gangs they stick close to the Park itself. The Jakatts manning the field, on the other hand, tend to go deep into gang territory looking for fights to heighten their experiences and to scour the city for eternity shards. It turns out that there's actually a lot of eternity shards in New York City; the large number of museums, libraries, and centers of learning means there were a lot of objects layign around with strong ties to Core Earth's reality. Most of these items were either lost during the confusion of the invasion, or have already been claimed by gangs who don't quite know what they have on their hands. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, and the Museum of Natural History in particular have generated a large number of artifacts.  "Hey, I don't care if you're a dinosaur, no jaywalking!" So remember before when we talked about how the southern part of Manhattan Island isn't in the pure zone? It's still a Living Land dominant zone (starting around W 23rd Street and covering everything southwards) and is now calling itself The New York Metropolitan Protectorate. The area now known as the Protectorate was where all the city's political and financial leaders were forced to retreat to during the invasion. Despite the chaos, the police force and what little National Guard presence there was managed to defend the line, and now the Protectorate is firmly dug in. The current "mayor" of NYC is a woman whose last name is Bradshaw and was previously deputy-mayor; she's replacing the former mayor whose last name was Green, who abandoned the island early in the war. The reason I'm only giving the last names is because the book doesn't tell me their first names, and as near as I can tell these aren't based on the real mayor/deputy-mayor at the time. (The mayor of New York City was Dinkins back in 1990/91). Well, whatever her name is, Bradshaw's overall goal is to keep what territory she can. She's smart enough to know that trying to take back the rest of Manhattan is a fool's errand, so the focus is on keeping the Protectorate safe. She's been going well outside the lines of what a mayor can legally do, but it's generally accepted that the normal "this is what the mayor is allowed to do" ideas kinda went away when the city was invaded by dinosaurs. The Protectorate barely has enough P-rated individuals to keep things running at (and I quote) "at a level which is at least as sanitary as New York was before the invasion." Of course, overcrowding is an issue, as is keeping everyone fed. There's still an economy of sorts, although it's really more of a barter system. Payment for city services (patrolling the streets, repairing things) is done with food and supplies distributed by the mayor's office. Greenwhich Village has actually been doing pretty well for itself, mainly because theater is the only real form of escapism or entertainment left available to the survivors. The only real source of information is the New York Times which is still operating and publishing despite the apocalypse. Even then, nobody knows what's going on outside the realm, as government forces haven't been able to penetrate that far into Kaah's territory. The biggest hardpoint in New York is, unsurprisingly, the Statue of Liberty. Or, I should say...was the Statue of Liberty. During the first month of fighting Liberty Island was the base of operations for the National Guard and a symbol of hope for the survivors. But of course, Kaah wasn't going to have any of that crap in his backyard and sent waves of Jakatts and gospog to overwhelm the National Guard forces. Once the defenders were killed, Kaah had a kaiju-sized fifth-planting gospog destroy the statue and the hardpoint. It's believed that somewhere in the ruins of the statue is a powerful eternity shard, but since Kaah doesn't know anything about American culture he doesn't know what it would be. Just to be on the safe side, he has the giant gospog guarding the island 24/7. Now that Lady Liberty has (literally) fallen, the largest hardpoint in Kaah's eastern territory is Philadephia. Which isn't to say it's really doing that much better than NYC. One of the major differences between the two cities is that the Philly government is still trying to do things by the book. Whereas Mayor Bradshaw has figured out that her territory is pretty much on its own, Philadelphia has actually applied for Federal Aid. Thing is, it's getting it. Since the whole city is a hardpoint (centered around the Constitution), it's seeing a lot of military use as a staging point since the city isn't located in a Living Land pure zone, as well as being the largest staging ground for the supply convoys . So yeah the city is getting government money, but it's mostly going to support the military operations. Which is a problem, because Philly's starting to get overloaded with Core Earth refugees. The city's seen a 50% jump in population in just under a month, and the overcrowding and lack of basic supplies is starting to wear on the city's infrastructure. The city is able to get supplies in via boat, but getting people back out of the city the same way can't happen as fast as the refugees are coming in.  Hail to the truck farmer! The rest of the Eastern Land is peppered with survivor colonies. Remember, unless they're in a pure zone ords will generally take months to transform, and until then most of the population of the northeast is stuck in towns and 'burbs that are surrounded by hostile jungle. Many of the colonies are small hardpoints with maybe 100 people living there, relying on supply convoys for food and news. The thing about the survival colonies is that, for the most part, they're full of people who aren't able to leave. Even ignoring the fact that navigation through the jungles is ridiculously difficult, getting out of the Living Land would require weeks of travel through dinosaur-infested hostile territory. For ords, that's drat near impossible even if you have a few P-rated people backing you up. And even if you get out, you're probably leaving most of your possessions behind, which makes resettling pretty hard to do. And yes, there's also a lot of "ain't no lizards gonna drive me off my land" types out there, but for the most part the people in survival colonies are pretty much stuck. Some of the colonies have made tentative alliances with those Jakatts and tribes that are realizing that Kaah isn't exactly the best leader. It's a risky proposition for both sides, because neither group fully trusts the other, and many resistance and survival-focused colonies treat anyone allied with the edeinos as "traitors to humanity". The last major topic about the Eastern Land is Detroit, which is the second-largest hardpoint after Philladephia. Unlike Philly, though, Detroit's population has actually taken a sharp decline due to people evacuating as the Living Land expanded around it from New York and Thunder Bay. Still, the city's managed to stand tough in the face of the invasion, and has sort of revitalized due to two major points. First, being a hardpoint relatively close to the center of the Eastern Realm has made it an important center of trade between Core Earth and the various surivor colonies. Second, the city's automotive manufacturing industries have shifted focus from building cars to building big rig trucks, which are needed for the supply convoys. The real problem that Detroit is facing is the conflict of interests in regards to the city between Baruk Kaah and the US government. Kaah, believe it or not, wants Detroit to keep functioning. Why? Because it keeps people alive in his territory, and the more people there are in his territory the more possibility energy he can siphon off them. The government, meanwhile, now knows about how reality mechanics work and wants Detroit to stop supplying colonists, forcing them to abandon their colonies and leave the Living Land, thus slowing Kaah's growth. Of course, the government can't really enforce this idea without turning the city against it, so tensions between the city and the military are strained at best. Wow, that was a lot of words about only one of Kaah's territories, wasn't it? Don't worry; the rest of the chapter is much shorter. In fact, The Western Land barely gets half a page all told. But really there are only two major differences between it and the Eastern Land. First off, a noticeable percentage of the human population in the Western Land are practicing Jakatts, many of who weren't in the Living Land but emigrated there once learning about the Keta Kalles religion. This is attributed to (and I quote) "California's high population mix of cult-seekers and what have become derisively known as 'nature lovers'." Oh, the 90's.  The other difference is that a very large number of the edeinos tribes in the region are rebelling against Kaah. Nobody's exactly sure why, although the prevailing theory is that it's because of the influx of humans who came willingly and have become Jakatts. Not every tribe has turned its back on Kaah, so inter-tribal warfare is very common. Lastly, we have The Northern Land, the small region he siezed around Fort Providence, and where Kaah engages in some very dangerous secret experiments. The Northern Land is a secret to all except the most loyal of Kaah's Jakatts and gotaks; not even the other High Lords know what he's doing there. And what he's doing is twisting nature and his followers into weapons. The first of his projects involves taking gospog and infusing them with the spirituality of Keta Kalles. These creatures, called osthangs, are created by infusing gospog with the infused mystical properties of Great Slave Lake. Osthangs are beings made of water that can shift between solid, liquid, and mist forms at will. They're incredibly dangerous because not only can they shift to mist to avoid bullets then shift to a solid form strong enough to punch a tank, they're also capable of rusting metal by touching it. The second project is the creation of Fire Warriors. Flame warriors are Jakatts who are infused with flame from a Kaah-created rift in the earth near Lac la Martre. Although I think "infused" might not be the best word; the flame is not put in the Jakatts so much as the Jakatts throw themselves into the fires and take them within themselves. This fire slowly and painfully consumes them from the inside out (which the Jakatts love, of course), and in exchange for having his life span reduced to about five weeks tops the fire warrior becomes stronger, and his very touch will burn his foes. The Jakatts know they will die, but they belive they've been specially chosen by Lanala to experience this intense sensation for her. They are very, very wrong. What they're doing is actually the greatest sin imaginable to a follower of Lanala: committing suicide. Both of the projects Kaah is undertaking in the Northern Land are sacrilege to Keta Kalles, and he knows it. The osthangs are technically a manufactured thing (there's a page describing the process in detail that you don't need to know about) because they're made by hand from dead bodies, and in order to become a fire warrior a Jakatt must throw away Lanala's greatest gift: life. Kaah keeps all this secret because he knows that if the Jakatts learned about the truths of these creations, they'd turn on him in a heartbeat. So he lies to his loyalists, and tells them that they've been chosen by Lanala and that they're doing all this with her blessing. So far, they're all buying it. Of course, Kaah's confident that nobody will find out. As stated before, Kaah is overwhelmed with ego and hubris, and his experiments in the north are one of the many things that will turn around and bite him squarely in the rear end in a short amount of time. But Kaah's future will have to wait, because we're going to see how the rest of America is dealing with the invasion... NEXT TIME: The State of the Union Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Feb 6, 2017 |
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Jan 19, 2017 21:13
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Simian_Prime posted:You know your setting is bad when literally just saying "people dungeon crawl on TV for prizes, here are the rules, don't think too hard about it" would have been the better option. Instead it's "Dungeon crawl meets reality TV!. But first, let me tell you about the Roman Emperor Ronald Reagan..." Angry Salami posted:During his lifetime, though, Vlad was more famous for his conflicts with Hungary and the Saxons in Transylvania than his campaigns against the Turks. Germany was full of sensationalist woodcut pamphlets decrying his cruelty. How much that reflects reality is hard to say - you can argue either way. On the one hand, these were obviously propaganda by his many enemies and rivals. On the other hand, to have a reputation for cruelty even by the standards of the fifteenth century implies he must have been at least a bit nastier than his contemporaries. Makes sense. There are only so many invasions each year, but those pesky neighbors are around 24/7.
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Jan 19, 2017 21:49
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Oh god the Links...  What year did this come out?
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Jan 20, 2017 01:28
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Kurieg posted:Oh god the Links... (Man I was hoping the Links would get some kind of reaction from anyone; thanks Kurieg!)
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Jan 20, 2017 01:50
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So only Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 had come out at that point... I'm not sure if I should praise them for their prediction of a cultural zeitgeist or just groan all the harder that they didn't pick a franchise that was already established.
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Jan 20, 2017 02:10
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There were a zillion pop culture gangs they could have picked and they went with the least threatening option. This is the worst post-apocalypse idea I've seen since yesterday, when Mad Max offered me a free car made out of ancient Rockstar Energy Drink cans. The trick with that sort of thing is to twist it so it's almost unrecognizable, to show how things have changed. Like the town in the Dark Tower books that prays to an old speaker pounding out the drum part to an ZZ Top song, or the Sinatra gangs in New Vegas. There needs to be something creepy about it. These guys are just cosplayers of a non-threatening franchise. The Warriors poster you put in the writeup is way more evocative and inspirational. I want to make up Warriors style gangs in the Living Land! The whole setting reminds me of Tokyo Jungle, where the jungle has reclaimed Tokyo and you play as animals. Or that stupid Fight Club monologue. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Jan 20, 2017 |
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Jan 20, 2017 02:11
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Someone did isolate the drum track from Dark Tower. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmePghg9nCY
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Jan 20, 2017 02:37
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Also, In case anyone thinks he's joking about the mad max car:
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Jan 20, 2017 02:50
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Why isn't there an official Mad Max RPG with 100 pages of fiddley car creation rules?
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Jan 20, 2017 03:11
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Count Chocula posted:Why isn't there an official Mad Max RPG with 100 pages of fiddley car creation rules? I have no idea
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Jan 20, 2017 03:14
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Count Chocula posted:There were a zillion pop culture gangs they could have picked and they went with the least threatening option. This is the worst post-apocalypse idea I've seen since yesterday, when Mad Max offered me a free car made out of ancient Rockstar Energy Drink cans. The thing that really bugs me about it is that the rest of the book up to this point does a really good job setting the tone of life in the realm: it loving sucks. You're always fighting others for base survival, be they edenios or dinosaurs or other humans who're just scrounging for food. The government has written off NYC so help ain't coming from that direction. Maybe you could get to a survivalist colony or one of the hardpoint cities...assuming you can walk or get a car working to cross three states without getting killed or transforming. And then in the middle of it they drop this stupid video game gang that gets more page space than the underground orphan gang or the now-organized street hustlers. Or even the "G-Men", who are mentioned only by name but are given no description other than being mentioned in passing in as fighting the Zonks. I think Greg Gorden just likes the Zelda series, because it also gets a mention in the Nippon Tech book as a game available for the "32-bit NES III".
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Jan 20, 2017 03:18
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Count Chocula posted:Why isn't there an official Mad Max RPG with 100 pages of fiddley car creation rules? You could call it Fragged Max.  (Yes, I have given this idea a bit of thought.)
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Jan 20, 2017 03:20
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I honestly thought it was Car Wars.
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Jan 20, 2017 04:30
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Car Wars had "Chassis & Crossbows" in Dueltrack, which was designed just for that sort of thing with a more limited weapon list designed to simulate cobbled together vehicles, but it's only tangentially RPG-ish.
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Jan 20, 2017 05:29
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Atomic Highway is literally an unlicensed Mad Max RPG complete with Road Warrior class. It's legit a really well put together indie game, is free, and has car build rules which are just simple point buy stuff.
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Jan 20, 2017 05:36
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GURPS Vehicles is your 200 page math test.
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Jan 20, 2017 07:56
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Sorry, I briefly forgot that Apocalyse World exists. 'Breath of the Wild' would be a good name for a Living Land spell.
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Jan 20, 2017 08:00
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Count Chocula posted:Why isn't there an official Mad Max RPG with 100 pages of fiddley car creation rules? Serious answer: a very close call is the recent Godless expansion for Shadow of the Demon Lord (the main game currently being under review in this very thread). The post-apocalyptic add-on, among other things, has rules for vehicles and firearms (and customization thereof), and aside from optional goblins, orcs or magic, it is capable of reproducing the Mad Max feel well-nigh perfectly.  I mean, really, I used it to run a war rig chase. Foglet fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Jan 20, 2017 |
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Jan 20, 2017 08:05
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Cythereal posted:Yeah, if the Vampire Counts stopped trying to take over the Empire [through illegitimate means], they'd be pretty low on everyone's scale of people to murder, ranking well below Chaos, skaven, greenskins, beastmen, and elves. Hey, Vlad's attempt was entirely legitimate! I mean, he had a claim on the throne (by marriage) and a large army. What more could you want?
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Jan 20, 2017 08:54
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