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Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Mors Rattus posted:

That dude's cover is blown basically immediately, btw, in the Chaos cultist section.

Ah, right. I forgot I read the thing out of order originally. Still, I really like the 3 kinds of sources style for giving fluff on monsters.

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Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Mr. Maltose posted:

That's because humans cannot be completely impartial. Impartiality is a goal to work towards despite the fact it can never be fully reached.

Also the idea that it's unfair to the player because you didn't label, for example, the monster bat that eats souls as bad is. It's certainly a stance to take I guess.

'Unfair' seems the wrong way to put it. I would say, fundamentally poorly constructed for what a game book is, for the most part.
Now, I personally could hugely enjoy a game that takes a Gene Wolfe-esque stance, in which the perspective of players is almost certainly going to require a perverse or antagonistic relationship with the text, finding the flaws and disconnects in the setting to discover the stories that can be told in it.
But that's a lot to ask of people and is going to create an incoherent game as a whole. There's a difference between 'subtext' and 'you will literally get two different settings if you read this text assuming the author is trying to help you understand the setting, or trying to trick you.' Briefly mentioning that a society is reliant on feeding people's souls to a monster, then going right back to how great they actually are from their perspective, just strikes me as unhelpful and likely to make anyone not reading it as a scholarly text confused.
Plus, plenty of authors will accidentally write moral atrocities into fantasy cultures and both they and many readers will go along with it.
Compare that annoying tendency of steampunk settings to do little more than explain how great Victoriana and the British Empire were; if you aren't at least a little specific in outlining the moral failings of societies, anyone reading the elfgame book for fun rather than sociological analysis is going to be likely to take the author at their word.

Anyways this all boils down to 'locking the actual plot behind textual analysis is going to make the book less useful to a lot of readers, for no real reason beyond a stylistic dedication to a kind of rarified suspension of judgment that in context comes off as more than a little smug.' In my sleep-deprived opinion.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Seems like a fair general criticism of the Glorantha books, but ain't much to be done about it at this point

Ormi
Feb 7, 2005

B-E-H-A-V-E
Arrest us!
Truth, even up to the metaphysical level, is almost entirely relative in Glorantha. So the books aren't really deceiving you when they give one perspective or another, and later you discover a new "fact" from a different perspective. They're both pretty much equally valid.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
Yeah, I think that pretty much covers it. Glorantha generally gives you enough information to let you know that its coverage is woefully incomplete, but doesn't give you any guidance on filling in the blank (and frankly, the blanks are where the actual interesting material goes).

Ormi posted:

Truth, even up to the metaphysical level, is almost entirely relative in Glorantha. So the books aren't really deceiving you when they give one perspective or another, and later you discover a new "fact" from a different perspective. They're both pretty much equally valid.

This kind of equivocation is terrible whenever it raises its head. It was awful in Mage: the Ascension, and it's awful here.

Ormi
Feb 7, 2005

B-E-H-A-V-E
Arrest us!

Rand Brittain posted:

This kind of equivocation is terrible whenever it raises its head. It was awful in Mage: the Ascension, and it's awful here.

And this is the subtle thing. The setting explicitly does not encourage you to equivocate-- universal equivocation is, if anything, even worse than blindly championing your own values and truths above all else, through the history and lessons of the God Learners. The world just is what it is: many peoples with different beliefs interacting with one another in a myriad of different ways. The "meta-truth" isn't that everyone is equally right, or equally wrong, but that there actually isn't a meta-truth at all. Playing Orlanthi rebels and labeling the Lunar Empire as villains is perfectly good, and the things the game wants the players to uncover are not "the Lunar Empire has a point / is secretly right / YOU ARE JUST AS BAD!", it's the intricacies of Orlanthi culture and the consequences of not taking them seriously when playing a character enmeshed within them. All of the good, and all of the bad, from the perspective of the modern sentiments of your players. And, likewise, playing as Lunars, maybe the Lunar Way is fully correct and you can heal the world, if only the rebels were able to be squashed brutally. Or maybe the White Moon Movement has it right, and the Empire needs to fall for the Way to progress, possibly from within. This creates believable conflict between ideologues rather than pastiche villains, and that's what's interesting to players devoted to the setting.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Ormi posted:

Or maybe the White Moon Movement has it right, and the Empire needs to fall for the Way to progress, possibly from within.

The White Moon movement ends up ripping the Empire apart in civil war, which ironically is what actually kills the movement (it's hard to maintain your pacifist principles when you're fighting.)

Ormi
Feb 7, 2005

B-E-H-A-V-E
Arrest us!

wiegieman posted:

The White Moon movement ends up ripping the Empire apart in civil war, which ironically is what actually kills the movement (it's hard to maintain your pacifist principles when you're fighting.)

That doesn't have to be the case by any means. The metaplot scenario for the Hero Wars is really just a set of guidelines for the places and people you and your players aren't directing the focus to.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Ormi posted:

That doesn't have to be the case by any means. The metaplot scenario for the Hero Wars is really just a set of guidelines for the places and people you and your players aren't directing the focus to.

Well, yeah. Argrath is a composite character for the player party, except when he isn't.

PoontifexMacksimus
Feb 14, 2012

It all sounds very CHIM, which I wouldn't really consider a draw... What book(s) would be best for getting into the setting if I don't care about the attached rules systems? The Guide currently under review?

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


anti_strunt posted:

It all sounds very CHIM, which I wouldn't really consider a draw... What book(s) would be best for getting into the setting if I don't care about the attached rules systems? The Guide currently under review?

The Guide, definitely, although it's pretty dense. Glorantha gets deliberately vague around the major conflict eras (the Gbaji War between Arkat and Nysalor, and the Hero Wars) but there's a tremendous amount of material to draw from.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

I have the PDFs of Torg Eternity in my virtual hands, and while I'm not far into it, I think it may be...good?

So far they're fixing a lot of the problems with the backstory (like expunging most of it) and the setting.

They even made the edenios more interesting!

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


I'm very interested, how complex is the system? Ignoring the metaplot is relatively easy but the clunky system was a turnoff to me.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
Oh, I thought that was a kobold.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Oh good, no more weird aversion to skulls.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Horrible Lurkbeast posted:

I'm very interested, how complex is the system? Ignoring the metaplot is relatively easy but the clunky system was a turnoff to me.

Still going through the book slowly, but:
  • XP and Possibilities are separate pools now.
  • Skill list has been pared down.
  • Non-humans don't have to keep paying out Possibilities to live.
  • Player abilities are called "perks" now, and don't have all the different subsystems. No more adventure costs; you just need to have skill/stat minimums (and sometimes be from a specific cosm) to qualify.
  • Pulp gadgets are actually practical now!
  • The lookup table is still there. You roll your d20 and get the modifier, then add that to you skill to get your result. The default difficulty is 10, and you get success levels the more you beat the difficulty by. On the plus side, that seems to be it for the core die mechanic. oTorg had a real problem with overcomplicating the die rolling with worrying about your bonus, and your total, and so on, so it's nice to see that we're just rolling a die, getting a number, and working from there.
  • The Drama Deck is now two decks: there's the GM's deck (the Drama Deck), which has the initiative and approved action stuff, and the player's deck (the Destiny Deck), which has the skill boosts and such. There are also Cosm Cards, which represent the nuances of the World Laws (even though those still exist). At the start of an Act, each player gets one Cosm Card, and they can be played to generate plot twists or to get Possibilities in exchange for having something bad happen.
  • Damage has been adjusted to just Wounds and stun. Instead of dying at four Wounds, you make a Spirit test to see if you die, are just knocked out, or receive an injury.
  • Also, damage is just "find the difference between the target's Toughness and the weapon's damage, every 5 points you beat the Toughness by does 2 shock and 1 Wound" now. No more scaling table.
  • In fact, most of the core tables are gone.
  • Multi-actions are simplified.
  • Mook rules! Yay!
  • Dramatic Skill Resolution (the ABCD thing) is still around, but seems more forgiving.
So far, I'm liking the changes.

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten
So are disconnections still "eat a bag of dicks" or what?

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

wdarkk posted:

So are disconnections still "eat a bag of dicks" or what?
It's actually not a total "gently caress you!" anymore. When you disconnect, instead of having to spend your whole turn trying to reconnect, you make that check at the start of your turn as a free action. So while in flux you can still do things; the only limitation is that you can't do or use something not supported by local axioms.

When/if you do transform, your gear transforms into the closest local equivalent, but at least it seems like "living to living, unliving to unliving" doesn't exist anymore, so at least you don't have to worry about your cyberheart transforming into a lump of metal or something.

Oh, and reconnecting is just a regular difficulty 10 roll, with a -4 if you're in a dominant zone and a -8 if you're in a pure zone. No more cross-referencing based on your reality and the local one.

Oh, and it looks like you no longer have to spend Possibilities to create reality bubbles in a Pure Zone!

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


Sounds good so far, I'm looking forward to a more thorough review.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

So here's something that's pretty interesting: this isn't a reboot of oTorg.

The original version of Torg still happened, with everything playing out as presented in those books. Torg Eternity takes place on a different Core Earth, being invaded by alternates of the the same High Lords and realities.

That said, there are significant changes. The edenios are using dead things, and Kaah is actually a serious threat. Ryuchi Kanawa isn't an alias for 3327, that's his real name, and his invasion plans involved releasing a zombiesque plague on Japan. The Cyberpapacy has had high technology for ages; it's not because of Malraux being infected by ideas from another reality, and as such is completely comfortable with it. Kranod is still High Lord of Tharkold, and Jezrael is still his favorite thrall. Uthorion is still running around Aysle, and Lady Ardinay is obsessed with hunting him down. The Gaunt Man was never trapped in a pocket dimension by Storm Knights, and is still running Orrorsh. Only Dr. Mobius seems unchanged from the original version.

The leader of the Delphi Council is Quinn Sebastian, as it was in oTorg. The thing is...Quinn Sebastian is actually from the original Torg line's iteration of Core Earth. When that Core Earth won the war and defeated that iteration's High Lords, Quinn dimthreaded to this Core Earth, armed with the knowledge of his Possibility War. The only problem is that his knowledge is based on the old war. In Eternity, the High Lords are doing things differently, they've taken different territory, even some of the axiom levels and World Laws are different. So far his basic knowledge has worked out well, but as things diverge more he's going to find his position shakier and shakier. Especially since the High Lords have realized that he knows a hell of a lot more than he should about pretty much everything.

JesterOfAmerica
Sep 11, 2015
That's actually really interesting.

Loxbourne
Apr 6, 2011

Tomorrow, doom!
But now, tea.

Joe Slowboat posted:

Now, I personally could hugely enjoy a game that takes a Gene Wolfe-esque stance, in which the perspective of players is almost certainly going to require a perverse or antagonistic relationship with the text, finding the flaws and disconnects in the setting to discover the stories that can be told in it. But that's a lot to ask of people and is going to create an incoherent game as a whole. There's a difference between 'subtext' and 'you will literally get two different settings if you read this text assuming the author is trying to help you understand the setting, or trying to trick you.'

Oddly enough I've seen this done. It took a delicate touch to do it, but the authors managed to pull it off. Of all the things, it's the Citizens Federation sourcebook for the Mongoose Starship Troopers RPG.

You can read the text as being entirely earnest and upfront with the reader, in which case you get the setting of the original Hienlein novel, somewhat dubious politics and all. Or you can read it as being sarcastic and propaganda-laden, in which case you get the nakedly fascist setting of the Veerhoven movie. The book carefully does not go either way, although there are a few bits where the mask slips a little because the quality of the writing didn't hold up. We're shown, e.g. a member of the police force arguing for why corporal punishment is justified, and the reader is left to make up their own mind about whether the man is a blowhard who believes what he's saying or just spouting propaganda. We're presented with biographies and stats for PCs and NPCs who believe in their government out of sincere patriotism, intel/internal security officers who have excellent reasons to be paranoid, and upper-echelon NPCs who are trying to make their government work or win the war without excessive casualties.

If you want to take one interpretation over the other, you're given material to let you smoothly incorporate the other version into your game without disrupting your take on the backplot (e.g. if you want the novel's setting, you can explain the events of the film as internal politics and military scandals causing under-trained conscripts to be thrown into battle too early. If you want the comedy-fascism feel of the films, the heavy power suits are available but only given to the most politically reliable soldiers).

It's a careful balancing act, necessitated by the way the Starship Troopers IP had been bifurcated and how parts of their fanbase would demand one interpretation or the other with great vehemence, and the writers managed to get away with it. I've not seen anything really like it since.

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



Joe Slowboat posted:

Now, I personally could hugely enjoy a game that takes a Gene Wolfe-esque stance, in which the perspective of players is almost certainly going to require a perverse or antagonistic relationship with the text, finding the flaws and disconnects in the setting to discover the stories that can be told in it.
This sort of description is making me fear that I read Shadow of the Torturer very wrong.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Evil Mastermind posted:

I have the PDFs of Torg Eternity in my virtual hands, and while I'm not far into it, I think it may be...good?

So far they're fixing a lot of the problems with the backstory (like expunging most of it) and the setting.

They even made the edenios more interesting!


Look at all those dead things on that lizardman. That seems like a serious divergence from the original game, which is honestly good considering how boring and restrictive that stuff was.

Evil Mastermind posted:

So here's something that's pretty interesting: this isn't a reboot of oTorg.

The original version of Torg still happened, with everything playing out as presented in those books. Torg Eternity takes place on a different Core Earth, being invaded by alternates of the the same High Lords and realities.
... okay.... That's... interesting.

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine
The only thing I don't like in that summary is the loss of The Cyberpapacy going through a sudden and vast technology shift basically on Malraux's whim.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Joe Slowboat posted:

'Unfair' seems the wrong way to put it. I would say, fundamentally poorly constructed for what a game book is, for the most part.
Now, I personally could hugely enjoy a game that takes a Gene Wolfe-esque stance, in which the perspective of players is almost certainly going to require a perverse or antagonistic relationship with the text, finding the flaws and disconnects in the setting to discover the stories that can be told in it.

Exalted ended up doing this within the fandom and the very early books, but whether or not it was intentional is questionable. Certainly, Gene Wolfe's novels were a notable inspiration behind the game.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Hey I just remembered I was doing Corporation but I'm officially abandoning that because I can't. I just can't. I tried opening the books again and nah I'm good. Basically it kinda just ended up being a d20 game where cybernetics take the place of magical items and that's really all you need to know about it besides it desperately trying to stop you from being a murderhobo. It's also stupidly in-depth about a lot of stuff. Anyway yeah that's that for that.

Wapole Languray
Jul 4, 2012

EDIT: Wrong thread, am moron.

On TORG, it still seems way too overcomplicated an like it has the Feng Shui 2 problem. IE, it's better than the original, but it's still basically a game from the 90's and that kinda sucks nowadays.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Zereth posted:

Look at all those dead things on that lizardman. That seems like a serious divergence from the original game, which is honestly good considering how boring and restrictive that stuff was.

... okay.... That's... interesting.
They even get into detail about some of the tribes. There's one that uses camo leathers to hide in the Deep Mists, and there's another that loves gold and jewelry.

Mr. Maltose posted:

The only thing I don't like in that summary is the loss of The Cyberpapacy going through a sudden and vast technology shift basically on Malraux's whim.
The problem with the old thing is that it's dependent on the three novels of backstory, and lord knows we don't need to get back into that horseshit again.

Barudak
May 7, 2007

Hostile V posted:

Hey I just remembered I was doing Corporation but I'm officially abandoning that because I can't. I just can't. I tried opening the books again and nah I'm good. Basically it kinda just ended up being a d20 game where cybernetics take the place of magical items and that's really all you need to know about it besides it desperately trying to stop you from being a murderhobo. It's also stupidly in-depth about a lot of stuff. Anyway yeah that's that for that.

Thats cool. Anything, even a bullet point list, of key piles of dreck?

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Barudak posted:

Thats cool. Anything, even a bullet point list, of key piles of dreck?
There are rules for in-universe gambling on a violent bloodsport that's basically like American football but with weapons being allowed on the field and mandatory enhancements and poo poo. The rules for gambling on it are pretty in depth. That says pretty much everything you need to know. They have a lot of books that expand more and more about the cybernetics and world and it's all just...a d20 horse of a different color (hell I forgot that the system is actually just 2d10) that has been speedreading cyberpunk cliffs notes.

Really the only other thing I remember is that there's a really lovely company called The Bobco Company that exists in another book because the other books offer different companies you can work for. Bobco owns because it's legitimately kinda funny. They're a deniable asset for another megacorp (EI) that exists to just destabilize other pharma companies by running amok with bottom-barrel prices and undercutting, given legitimacy and deniability and autonomy as long as it just hurts the other companies. The CEO, one Robert Evans, branched out into other products to do further business with people that won't deal with the EI (Eurasian Incorporated, aka "what if Russia became a company and had German engineering behind it"). Their products all appeal to the lowest common denominator consumer, using their pharma history mixed with branching out into chemicals to basically sell cheap stuff in huge bulk. Namely, cheap alcohol by the barrel and cheap perfume by the bucket.



Which in retrospect having read the products again they're not as funny as I thought they were. Welp. Anyway. Yeah. That's Corporation!

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine

Evil Mastermind posted:

The problem with the old thing is that it's dependent on the three novels of backstory, and lord knows we don't need to get back into that horseshit again.

Oh absolutely, it's just a pity there's not really a good middle ground to use between them. It was a really good example of how a Darkness Device can destabilize on a grand scale.

DicktheCat
Feb 15, 2011

I'm going back and starting at the beginning of the TORG writeup, and what the gently caress, seriously. All of these rules are awful, holy poo poo, how did anyone play this game? A lot of it is so superfluous.

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Mr. Maltose posted:

Oh absolutely, it's just a pity there's not really a good middle ground to use between them. It was a really good example of how a Darkness Device can destabilize on a grand scale.
Oh, I agree. I even said back in the Cyberpapacy book how it was an example of exactly how powerful the High Lords are.

On the plus side, now Malraux has gamified faith, with every citizen having a "Piety Score", complete with achievements. Attending a mass gets you 20 points, but denouncing a family member gets you a cool 200!

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

DicktheCat posted:

I'm going back and starting at the beginning of the TORG writeup, and what the gently caress, seriously. All of these rules are awful, holy poo poo, how did anyone play this game? A lot of it is so superfluous.
Speaking as someone who played Torg back in the day: the thing about most of the rules were that they were GM-facing. The players didn't need to know all the various scale/result tables or any of that poo poo, they just generated a total and the GM did all the heavy lifting.

Obviously once the other books came out and all the subsystems started cropping up things changed, but at its core it wasn't that bad...if you were a player.

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Hostile V posted:

There are rules for in-universe gambling on a violent bloodsport that's basically like American football but with weapons being allowed on the field and mandatory enhancements and poo poo.

How barbaric.

They should play a more civilized sport.

Like Gun Soccer.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.



JAPAN, CONTINUED




Harajuku is where the COOL HIP YOUTHS chill out and has become increasingly more angry since the blockade. Colorful Japanese fashion has become overtaken with UNSAVORY YOUTH TYPES. "Neo-tribal and Goth-metal groups, bosozokus and other amphetamine and Squid junkies have made their appearance. Old shamisen (a three-string lute) players have been replaced by more violent rock guitarists in certain areas." So yeah Japanese youth culture is pretty bitchin'. Anyway this is full of cafes and nightclubs that have normally been frequented by students and teens and young folks up until the blockade. Now there's a palpable anger and the fact that things have gotten bad are definitely apparent to the youth who are starting to ignore the district in favor of survival.

Notable Locations

The Akai Cho is a bar that specializes in punk, metal, rock, post-punk, glam rock, a genre called "rock'n'tek" which is a rock/techno fusion and also neo-grunge. A lot of occult types like to hang out at the Akai Cho, including a band called Sugomi. Sugomi is made up of has-been rock stars who have a way with words that some say can actually cast spells.

100 Yen is the Japanese equivalent of an American Five Below. Or a Spencers' without the tee hee giggle novelty sex stuff. Or a dollar store. I guess more of a Five Below mixed with a dollar store, the cheaper price but with a teen-friendly aesthetic.

The Chika Club is a cube-shaped night club decorated with gold cables home to a virtual idol, one Hatsune Chiku Chika. "A contributory factor to her popularity may be that her designers spared no detail when designing her anatomy." Look I don't gotta go too in depth about this, Miku exists, people want to gently caress Miku, you don't gotta tell me people want to gently caress the AI.

The Meiji Jingu Shrine is shrine built in honor of Empress Shoken, the wife of the emperor of the Meiji period. Let me share with you the pinnacle of writing in this book: "Surrounded by a rich, dense, manmade forest of over 700,000 square metres, a bridge connects it to Yoyogi-Koen park. Originally, its main entrance was open only through a cedar arc (a torii) ten meters high. However, a new torii has appeared inexplicably in the heart of the forest. Painted black (which is uncommon), the later has proved impossible to tear down and makes the priests in the shrine extremely uneasy. The dead birds that fall around it do nothing to reassure them." I can't help but read that in either Werner Herzog's voice or David Attenborough's, it's just so dryly funny.



Kaijin is 30 KM offshore, 12 square KM of offshore platforms and underwater stations covered in aquaculture facilities and solar panels. Kaijin is an industrial quarter, home to research labs, food production companies and weather research facilities. Only officially recognized as a quarter in 2038, Kaijin gets a lot of visits from students and businessmen who want to see the underwater tours, the underwater cloning facilities responsible for all of the fish and general business. However, life on Kaijin is pretty rough. For starters, the Yakuza are the middlemen between every business and the shore. The Yakuza help staff the technical staffs who handle the maintenance and they also staff the construction companies. The bigger threat is the weather and the nature of the district. Maintenance is constantly being done on the pillars holding Kaijin above sea level and scientists are often running tests to make sure that everything is stable as they repeatedly plan for expansions on the structures for redundancy. The weather looms above all, the waves getting choppier and haunted by the blockade around Japan as it brews towards something bigger.



Notable Locations

The Sushi Sea is a typical sushi joint on Kaijin. Run by Mrs. Ukitaki and her robot cook Yoshihito, it's all super nautical and kinda cheesy but also home to plenty of rumors. One particularly interesting rumor/fact is that the seas are completely depopulated in the oceans of Japan and that everything has to be cultivated via cloning in safe zones by food companies.


Odaiba was an artificial island built in 1853 as part of a futurist exhibit and became a leisure center and the home of Japanese TV and movies. Later it became home to amusement parks. Since the blockade it's been rather empty but you can still go there and hopefully see some shows still being shot!

quote:

"There are always many visitors on the narrow, metallic Odaiba streets, each hoping to see their favourite show hostess outside a film set or to join the long waiting line to see one of the more popular TV game shows being recorded (like ‘Fun & Surgery’ a where contestants attempt several ridiculous events to win nanotech enhancements, or even K-1 World War, a combat show where humans face androids in a ring using devastating techniques). Another popular show is ‘Kill Power Ball.’ Only shown in reruns after it was denounced by several other nations as cruel and inhumane, the show pitted dangerous habitual criminals fighting each other in a virtual arena using Squids (even though these are illegal). A violent defeat would frequently result in irreversible brain damage, or even brain death, whereby the victim’s organs were systematically recovered by one of the labs sponsoring the show."

Notable Locations

Zepp Tokyo is a real night club that ends up getting closed due to a biohazard incident in 2022. A suicide bomber killed themselves and spread a bio-engineered virus with the power of Super Ebola and the cops immediately sealed all of the exits and trapped all of the victims inside to prevent the spread of the virus. After the police were lambasted for this choice, the government decided to not test the virus' properties and built a hermetic container around the Zepp and then covered that in concrete. Close to 1,300 bodies are still inside the concrete tomb, unrecovered and likely never investigated due to fears that the virus might still be active.

Dai-Roku Daiba is a smaller artificial island turned into a manor by industrialist Futaki Taneo in 2013. Made to resemble Victorian Gothic architecture, Futaki Taneo and his family hosted galas and were general media darlings...until July 20th 2046, the day of Umi No Hi, "The Festival of the Sea". He was found alone and naked in the salon of the manor, mute and with his hands covered in blood after he scrawled symbols all over the wall of the room. To date his family hasn't been found and he hasn't said a word since.

Taki-Tso-Hiko is the name of a weird silhouette seen by technicians shooting film and TV. Taki-Tso-Hiko apparently looks like a large figure in the rain, invisible but occasionally seen moving.

Sega Joyopolis is Sega's theme park that looks cool and is fun and I don't know why this is in here.


Roppongi is where a lot of the foreigners trapped in Japan are residing, a place of vice and cabarets and bars and white people. Roppongi looks cool and interesting and seedy but in reality it's a cultivated image.

Notable Locations

Kiyowara Kijuro is the son of a businessman who has psychosomatic pains when bad stuff happens to Shin-Edo. Or maybe it's not psychosomatic, maybe he does have a psychic bond with the city when physical damage to the city does physical damage to his body. Either way, he'll probably die should things get too bad in Japan. Protected by his bodyguards, he refuses to leave his apartment, staring at the holographic images and the ceiling as he lies on his bed.

Cho-han bakushi is a gambling game where you roll two dice in a black bamboo box and basically bet on odds and evens. Popular amongst the Yakuza, you can play it at the White Tiger cabaret with a man named Sadafusa who has an appetite for strange bets like memories and secrets.

Kim Min-Seun is an old North Korean man who managed to get into Japan illegally before the Kuro Incident. Not yet accepted for proper asylum, he lives on the streets and claims he escaped North Korea because he foresaw the incident and wanted to warn Japan. He'll tell people what he knows for food.

Donburi Twin is a black cube building run by the Kobori twins who specialize in fukagawa-meshi dishes. At night, the twins are part of a left-wing anti-nationalistic group who want to stop the xenophobia and do this by hacking servers, committing vandalism and taking action against the right-wing groups.

Sengakuji Temple is home to the graves of the 47 Ronin and that's really all this is here for.


Shibuya is the trade quarter, home to the statue of Hachiko (a famously good dog) and various labs and state-of-the-art medical technology. Shibuya is hands-down home to the best of Japanese cosmetics and various treatments and procedures to be used for beauty. It's also home to the Ministry of Family and artificial wombs, where the lucky are allowed to have the government birth their babies and the unfortunate are forced to have chemical abortions for breaking the law.

Notable Locations

The Sunrise is found on the 12th floor of the Cerulean Building, owned by Nabeshima Matsuta who is an artist and a Noh actor. He's a master bartender who some say is able to figure out what you want to drink through psychic powers and reading body language.

Hacha Okichi is a woman who has a small shop. She lost her hands in 2028 in an accident, getting first-rate replacements as part of the massive settlement. Since gaining her new hands, she's learned jo rei which is being able to heal diseases by laying hands. Now she's a masseuse and a folk healer.



The Sendagaya Dome Library is a huge virtual library beneath a glass dome. Most of the books are virtual and can just be downloaded onto your Pod but there are still wings of paperback books. There's also a robot named Kigo who watches the doors who is notable for only speaking in haiku.

The Ako Gishi is an ancient tea shop that is home to the proprietor Mrs. Tsukinoyo (descended from one of the 47 Ronin). It's a small tea house with old men playing Go and ancient paintings and decorative swords.

NEXT TIME we finish up Japan with Shinjuku, Tsukiji, Kabuki-Cho, Kamata and Ueno.

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Evil Mastermind posted:

So here's something that's pretty interesting: this isn't a reboot of oTorg.

The original version of Torg still happened, with everything playing out as presented in those books. Torg Eternity takes place on a different Core Earth, being invaded by alternates of the the same High Lords and realities.

That said, there are significant changes. The edenios are using dead things, and Kaah is actually a serious threat. Ryuchi Kanawa isn't an alias for 3327, that's his real name, and his invasion plans involved releasing a zombiesque plague on Japan. The Cyberpapacy has had high technology for ages; it's not because of Malraux being infected by ideas from another reality, and as such is completely comfortable with it. Kranod is still High Lord of Tharkold, and Jezrael is still his favorite thrall. Uthorion is still running around Aysle, and Lady Ardinay is obsessed with hunting him down. The Gaunt Man was never trapped in a pocket dimension by Storm Knights, and is still running Orrorsh. Only Dr. Mobius seems unchanged from the original version.

The leader of the Delphi Council is Quinn Sebastian, as it was in oTorg. The thing is...Quinn Sebastian is actually from the original Torg line's iteration of Core Earth. When that Core Earth won the war and defeated that iteration's High Lords, Quinn dimthreaded to this Core Earth, armed with the knowledge of his Possibility War. The only problem is that his knowledge is based on the old war. In Eternity, the High Lords are doing things differently, they've taken different territory, even some of the axiom levels and World Laws are different. So far his basic knowledge has worked out well, but as things diverge more he's going to find his position shakier and shakier. Especially since the High Lords have realized that he knows a hell of a lot more than he should about pretty much everything.

Given that spoiler, I'm pretty sure I know the reason why Dr. Mobius is unchanged: It's probably the same Dr. Mobius from oTorg. Like a good pulp villain, he made a miraculous escape and never got deposed by their own world like 3327 or Malraux when their Darkness Devices abandoned them, nor killed in combat like the others. He's making his comeback.

Only thing I don't like is Malraux already having an upper hand in regards to technology (although I do like some of the new stuff that you've said) as well as Jezrael not being a High Lord.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Terrible Opinions posted:

This sort of description is making me fear that I read Shadow of the Torturer very wrong.

You don't need to do the peeling-back-layers thing to get a very good book out of the Book of the New Sun. Severian's emotional journey does benefit from reading a little into his memory, though - people with perfect recall tend to be bad at understanding patterns and critically analyzing what's given to them, instead passively absorbing huge amounts of information.
Also Severian is just not very self-aware a lot of the time. He believes untrue things about his own thought process, because his introspection is really weak.
These traits combined mean that the narration often occludes the reality of events, even as the reader can sift through his memories. A great early example is how Valeria pretty openly flirts with him when he's chasing after Triskele, and he completely and utterly misses it.

Uuuuuh to put this back on topic, has anyone ever read the GURPS New Sun book? I know it exists and I know it's the second-saddest I've ever been to find out a setting I loved had been made into an RPG and the RPG was GURPS.
The first saddest was the Hellboy GURPS book.

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Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Young Freud posted:

Given that spoiler, I'm pretty sure I know the reason why Dr. Mobius is unchanged: It's probably the same Dr. Mobius from oTorg. Like a good pulp villain, he made a miraculous escape and never got deposed by their own world like 3327 or Malraux when their Darkness Devices abandoned them, nor killed in combat like the others. He's making his comeback.

Only thing I don't like is Malraux already having an upper hand in regards to technology (although I do like some of the new stuff that you've said) as well as Jezrael not being a High Lord.
The nice thing about Kranod still being High Lord is that you get to see him fail in real time.

So on this Tharkold, it seems that the demons won the War and the Race are mostly enslaved. But when the Tharkold bridge gets nuked by Russia, there's a massive reality storm that travels back up to Tharkoldu cosm. This storm (which carries Core Earth axioms) causes all the slave chips and explosive collars used to keep the humans in line short out. So now the Race are freed and fighting back both in the cosm and the realm. In fact, the Race slaves that were brought to Core Earth are allying with Core Earthers, and bringing knowledge of Tharkoldu tech and weaknesses.

On top of that, since the Russian president did technically kill a bunch of high-ranking Tharkoldu, Kranod actually offers the guy a position as a Duke directly under Kranod (the ol' "keep what you kill" thing). So now all the other high-rank demons are pissed because there's this monkey they're supposed to be treating as an equal. What's more, there's a truce between Tharkold and Russia. Technodemons do not like the idea of a "truce" with anyone, let alone a human.

It's also worth pointing out that forging a truce was NOT part of Kranod's original job. The Gaunt Man wants the High Lords to keep the Core Earthers in disarray by keeping constant pressure on them. This truce is kind of the opposite of that idea.

The destruction of the bridge also revealed an unwelcome truth, or at least an unwelcome truth from the point of view of the High Lords: the bridges aren't indestructible. Yeah, it took a nuke to do it, and turned half of Russia into a mixed-reality wasteland that's a cross between Mad Max and STALKER, but it was still enough to rally Core Earth's governments to the idea that the High Lords aren't unstoppable forces of nature.

Oh, and Kranod has barely done anything since the invasion. He's basically been sitting on his rear end and playing political games while Jezrael goes out and fights battles for him and pulls his rear end out of the fire while he just lays around and plays stupid political games and destabalizes his own power base through his own stupidity and throws the entire invasion plan out of whack.

Needless to say, the Gaunt Man is not happy with Kranod right now.

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