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MonsterEnvy posted:Lets do Haqqislam, cause pirates.
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Jan 21, 2022 20:59
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 Summon Skate Part 8: Let's Go To the Judge's Panel At this point we come to the section of the book dealing with the Chaos Figures. There aren't a lot of rules here that haven't been explained in the review already, and is mostly a summary of stuff scattered throughout the previous sections. Individual Chaos Figures tend to have their own rules. And they're all gorgeous. It's interesting that as a broad rule, Japanese ttrpgs are kinda sparse with art, usually with some important key art of example characters and usually in black and white. Floria would be a decent example. Summon Skate, in contrast, is positively luxurious to look at. It might serve to have an example. Remember our friend Chaos Cage from the first example Short Program? Here's what his mechanics look like:  Monsters usually have at most six body parts, that all have their own halth pool and unique moves tied to them. Some of them Shatter spaces and do damage to whoever gets caught in the aoe. Some of them have a Stat Check of some sort to mitigate the effects of an attack. A few impart status effects. In instances where they do, they're always explained in the box, so there's no having to flip through the book to remember what differentiates "Curse" from "Insanity" from "Warp" or whatever. You'll also see a Conditional skill. Some Chaos Figures have these, and they trigger when their condition is met, even if it isn't on the monster's turn. In this case, when its main body gets low, it raises its blood sugar by eating the bird in its cage-mouth and blows up a number of PCs corresponding to how much health that body part had left. If at all possible, a good strategy there would be to take that bit out first before focusing on the Main Body. Speaking of body part health, you see how some boxes are orange and others are green? Only the orange HP is used in Easy and Normal DIfficulty. In Hard Mode, the orange and green HP is used. Hard Mode can also come with special extra Conditional Moves, to really ramp up once the boss has taken a few hits  Pretty much every Chaos Figure has Chaos Dimension on Hard Mode, meaning everything hits harder and breaks the stage faster. In Chaos Cage's instance, it also gets Bombard, where it just divebombs the weakest PC every round. If the players can manage to Trace his diagram, you can snipe him out of the air with a beefy 5 damage  There are 15 Chaos Figures in the book, with a plethora of gimmicks. Some will spawn swarms of Pawns, some will inflict lots of debuffs, some can do crazy stuff like teleport the PCs around the stage randomly or Unsummon your Figures or sever bonds of Unison. Chaos Mother, ridiculously enough, has the Conditional skill that once its main body has 1 HP left, it will just Shatter EVERY SPACE on the stage at the end of the turn, so pray you can manage to give it that last little nudge before your turn ends. They're varied in their design and abilities and preferred strategy, each one is a fun puzzle. The book also gives rules to make your own Chaos Figure. The best way to demonstrate this is by example, and other in-progress reviews in the thread have given me the perfect subject:  The World Of Chaos! That's right, this game allows me to recreate the final boss from Kingdom Hearts 1! The guidelines are pretty straightforward. Main Body should have between 5-8 health, with other parts having about 1-3 health. Skills that shatter squares or target all PCs do about 3 damage, with single-target skills doing 5 damage. Stuff with a save roll should be +/- 2 damage, and stuff that inflicts a debuff should do a little less damage. You can also program the boss' AI a bit, selecting what roll of the priority die does what. For higher difficulty, prioritize destroying the stage. Hard Mode will add a couple more HP to all the body parts, the Chaos Dimension skill, and a unique conditional skill. Putting it all together, the longest part was figuring out how to edit the blank Chaos Figure character sheet in the back of the book. In this case, it's very easy to go through the book and crib skills and such from the other bosses, making this World of Chaos something of a... Final Remix.   Final Thoughts: So that concludes my deep dive on Summon Skate. DO I recommend it? Yes! Unreservedly yes! It's central gameplay loop in combat is incredibly fun, both frantic and strategic, like the best kind of collaborative boardgame. This all feeds into its central concepts, that are all flavorful and bizarre while still making for a good elevator pitch if you want someone to play this as a break from your regular campaign and want something more nuts. My only caveats is that it might take some getting used to the ideas of it for newbies, and it'll need a lot of dry erase markers and possibly some clear plastic envelopes if you want to print off the useful character sheets and Combat Stage in the book. That's its ONLY hurdles for accessibility, as this has been thoroughly designed for just being playable. Solve the mystery, skate your heart out, save the world The End! Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Mar 3, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 21:24
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Covok posted:The exchange system is the only big issue for me. It's a bit slow and clunky but not terrible. I just wonder if Avatar is the right place for it. The combat in the show always felt very fluid and natural, not overly thought out. But maybe it does make sense to do it as part of the natural to-and-through of a martial arts fight. I mean, for all it’s worth, I really like the Exchange system. I’ve only played in two sessions and I’m running the one Quackles mentioned, but the exchange system felt unique and also like… Made PbtA combat not garbage? I love the system, but having narrative combat makes it all too floaty. I still have a major combat scene in Masks burned into the back of my brain because one player basically took every other turn and I think I only took one in that entire combat. I know that’s just a poor session and maybe GM’s fault, but it still felt like the biggest bad example of a flaw in the system. The exchange system in avatar is the only time I ever felt like I was narratively the least important person in combat but still was super useful.
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Jan 21, 2022 21:54
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Did I miss an F&F of Avatar? Or can someone please explain the exchange system for those of us who didn't back it?
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Jan 21, 2022 22:07
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CitizenKeen posted:Did I miss an F&F of Avatar? Or can someone please explain the exchange system for those of us who didn't back it? Basically, at the start of an exchange (the equivalent of a combat round) each player and NPC chooses an “Approach” which are Defend, Attack or Observe. Everyone reveals. Defend goes first and chooses special choices from the Defend list, Attack goes second and chooses attack options, and observe goes last and chooses observe options. Once that’s done, the exchange is over, and the next exchange starts when the next person chooses to strike. Essentially it gives a semblance of initiative to a game that otherwise has structureless combat.
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Jan 21, 2022 22:14
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Mors Rattus posted:So, what do you want to see next? The faction books are: Ariadna (which also covers merchant stuff, plus Antipode, Wulver and reworked Dogface PCs), Haqqislam (which also covers piracy), Nomads (which also cover Uplift PCs and heavy genetic modding), PanOceania (which also covers Helot PCs), ALEPH (which also covers advanced hacking, Aspect and Recreation PCs, and expanded Lhosts and geists), Tohaa (which also covers Tohaa client species and biotech), Mercenaries, Yu Jing (also covers the Japanese separatists) and Combined Army. Nomads gets my vote. Are you going to throw in the Gamemaster's Guide at some point for the extra rules?
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Jan 22, 2022 00:51
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Probably not - the lore is what I consider more interesting. GM’s guide does, however, add spacecraft rules, advanced vehicle rules and mass combat rules. The spacecraft ruleset is a lot more grid-dependent, notably.
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Jan 22, 2022 01:12
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Thank you very much for the Summon Skate review! It owns.
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Jan 22, 2022 02:31
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Haqqislam, 'cause it's a pirate's life for me.
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Jan 22, 2022 03:49
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I'm here for Haqqislam
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Jan 22, 2022 07:35
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Infinity RPG: Haqqislam The heart of Haqqislam is the Search for Knowledge and pursuit of faith, fulfillment and truth. Each person within the nation pursues their own enlightenment through the many paths offered to them, and life on Bourak is, on the whole, probably better than in many other places. However, the ability of the core Haqq culture to pursue learning and peace is built on a foundation of hypercapitalist wealth through the Silk Lords and the raiding of corsairs. Haqqislam does not like to fight, but to maintain its own existence, it relies on piracy and the Sword of Allah to protect its monopoly on the Silk trade and to defend its far-flung merchant outposts. We open with a chapter on the various groups that make up and help defend Haqqislam as a nation - starting with the Sword of Allah, the main armed forces. The Sword have incredible diversity due to the sheer number of peoples that exist on Bourak, which is both a difficulty for High Command in maintaining a cohesive internal culture but also a great gift in terms of strength and capabilities. They have access to a wide array of skills and resources, plus plenty of willing bodies to serve - the hard part is just making them all work together well. That work is left to the Amirs, the officers within the Sword, who are trained at specialized military schools. Depending on what branch they go into, they learn different things, with the Hafzas of the Qapu Khalqi favoring tactical flexibility and strategic excellence, while the warrior-sages that led the Khawarij supersoldiers refer to lead by example both physically and morally. The Sword has also recruited some of the criminal Kyrgyz biker gangs of Gabqar, the Kum, to join them - they lack much of the discipline usually expected of the Sword of Allah, being macho, aggressive and highly competitive, but no one can deny their skill on their bikes, and the Sword hopes that using them in military operations will keep them out of trouble. The Kum go along with it out of a mix of patriotic loyalty, bragging rights, and a hope that doing so will keep the authorities from poking into their criminal affairs too deeply. But the core of it all is the Ghulam light infantry force, the biggest army on Bourak. Many of t he scouts of the Sword are drawn from two different ethnic groups - the Hunza of the wild mountains of Gabqar and the Tuareg who live in the Taba deserts. Both hail from largely unterraformed parts of Bourak, with Gabqar left intentionally that way to help Silk production and the Taba subcontinent unlikely to see its terraforming anywhere near done for at least a century if not more. They learn how to survive in these hostile and difficulty lands, and that skill is valuable to Haqqislamite High Command, as it cannot be taught in any school. The Tuarag and Hunza scouts are not untrained, and many excel not only at understanding terrain and guerrilla warfare but also as doctors or hackers. In fact, there's probably not an armed force in existence that has better medics in general than the Sword of Allah, thanks to the Haqqislamite focus on medical science. The best of the best are the Janissary Akbar Doctors, who have dedicated their entire lives to military medicine. The Janissary Regiment is exclusively made up of orphans or donated children who were raised as wards of the state, trained in the faith of Haqqislam, and who as adults chose to enter military service. They are exceptionally devoted and often very dedicated to their medical work, with the most notorious specializing in Tebb al-Nabi, the Prophet's Medicine - that is, the study of doing even complex surgery under battlefield conditions. Others work on various soldier-boosting projects, which range from simple and subtle, such as the Djanbazan Tactical Group's regenerative capability, to the extreme Runihara supersoldier augmentations used by the Khawarijs. In theory, the Qapu Khalqi are part of the Sword of Allah and merely serve as the regional forces of the Funduq Sultanate. Certainly they are happy to work with the rest of the Sword when called on and are part of the same command structure. However, the main duty of the Qapu Khalqi in practice is to protect the ships and caravanserai along the Silk Route, and this means they often operate independently and work heavily alongside hired mercenaries such as the Druze Shock Teams, despite their ties to the crime family the Druze Society. Often, the Qapu Khalqi are underfunded and understaffed, as they stretch themselves thin to cover vast portions of space. Therefore, they encourage greater independence and creativity among their forces. Qapu Khalqi soldiers are expected to use anything they have available to defend the interests of Haqqislam, which can mean undergoing soldier boosting, using massive power armor or tapping into Funduq wealth to hire criminals and killers, including the vicious Yuan Yuan pirates or Corregidoran hiring teams. Perhaps their most discreet forces are the Odalisques, specialized bodyguards whom many never realize are actually soldiers at all. Men and women who join the Odalisques are altered for beauty first and foremost, after all. They are often known as neo-concubines, and making the rich and powerful Haqqislamite businesspeople who hire them look good is definitely one of their main jobs. They're arm candy by design, bright and beautiful and cheery. However, the lives of the rich and powerful are dangerous, and the Odalisques are also in charge of ensuring those lives continue. They stop assassinations, burglaries and kidnappings, and as well as being excellent conversationalists and very beautiful, the Qapu Khalqi Odalisquess are deadly warriors, trained in gunplay and martial arts so that they can provide discreet protection to their charges. Of course, the downside of the Qapu Khalqi is that they're very, very corrupt, as is much of the Funduq Sultanate's government. With enough money and the right people to talk to, you can just buy a command among their ranks. That said, Qapu Khalqi combat ranks are nowhere near as influential as bureaucratic rank, so it's relatively rare to see a complete incompetent buy their way into military power, just because it's much easier for them to buy their way into political power. When it does happen, their reputation tends to spread quickly, leading other Qapu Khalqi officers to avoid helping them as much as possible and to tell mercenaries not to hire on with them, hoping to minimize their ability to get people killed. Even so, managing the Qapu Khalqi is always difficult, and officers have wide latitude to make their own decisions. The best officers are promoted to the Hafza Unit, named for legendary guardian angels. Hafzas are renowned for being committed to protecting the lives of their soldiers, being tactically flexible, and being armed with concealment holoprojectors to help disguise themselves and make it hard for enemies to identify who's actually in charge. Next time: The Hassassins and the Guilds
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Jan 22, 2022 16:16
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 The Essence of d20: Let's Review The Power Rangers RPG We're going to do these chapters in batches since I am not going hyper indepth with every detail. For better or worse, while I have many problems with the game, it just came out and I don't want to invalidate all its contents or spoil everything inside. I might not like the game and I am giving an overwhelmingly negative review, but I do not wish ill on the developers or other workers who are hoping on the game's success to make their next paycheck. Chapter 3 Chapter 3 is short. It mainly just gives a list of "Origins." And this chapter really drives home that "Origins" are just a stand-in for "Races" from Dungeons & Dragons. Still, it's a better fit, if nothing else. Like, if you are going to do a "Race" option, calling it "Origins" is better. I won't give everyone a anthropology or etymology lesson, but "Race" is a super loaded term with terrible implications. The first thing that draws my eyes is the discussion of Humanity's place in the universe. To those who more closely follow the Boom! comic series, is this comics lore? I won't copypasta, but it goes on about humans are a young species, how humanity has lived in ignorance of the wider galaxy, and that mankind sees the threats with fresh eyes. Sure, a lot of this could be inferred from the series itself. But, is it explicit? Actually, wait a minute? Hold up, who are we? Is the idea that we are replacing the MMPR team? See, this is what I mean about the game not being clear enough. It said in the previous chapter that we could give our Ranger any aesthetic. Is the idea that this book covers any season? If so, why are we Zordon's chosen? The book explicitly mentions Rita and Zordon constantly. Zordon only chose the heroes of the MMPR and Zeo era. From Turbo onewards, Zordon is not the bestower of power. As a matter of fact, the Rangers get their own powers In Space. Zordon even dies at the end of that season so his magic would be unleashed and destroy the army of evil threatening Earth. In Space was Season 6, the show is currently wrapping up Season 29. Well, that confusion aside, the Origins themselves are pretty short. They are things like Athletic or Brainy or Tragic. It seems they are just overall descriptors of your pre-Power-Ranger life. Like a Race in 5e, the Origin provides an Ability/Essence score boost, you get some skill bonuses, you get a movement speed (in ft, no less!), you get languages...wait, Languages? Hold the F up, when has languages ever mattered? Power Rangers is the kind of show where the American teens will go to Japan and everyone is speaking English for no reason. Like, it is so not the kind of show to do that kind of thing. It seems you get it based on Smarts, because of course, and some Origins give a bonus. This is some D&D brain. D&D has languages so we have to have languages. Devs out there, when you give something mechanical design space, it should serve a purpose. If languages don't matter in the game, don't make them a thing. Oh, also, each Origin gets a power. Like I said, pretty standard. Nothing really stands out. The choices seem maybe a bit shallow? There are only ten. I feel like you could come up with more adjectives to describe someone's life than ten. But, I guess each one requires some design work and such. Still, does feel short. Chapter 4    Okay, here comes the meat, potatoes, cornbeef hash, and a slide of pickled cabbage of lot: The chapter on Spectrums. What's a Spectrum? It's your Color. What's it mean in game? It's your character class. And whoo boy does this one have problems. Like, I did not realize how they were rip offs of 5e classes. Hostile V posted:The Yellow Ranger is a reskin of the Monk is what it means. The Black Ranger is a reskin of the bard. Which is. A problem. I'm sure these aren't the only instances. Once again, I don't plan to go into hyper detail, but still.  Oof. I said this earlier, but this poo poo hurts me. And just further confuses things. Like, okay, if I was doing Power Rangers, I'd make it classless. Why? If you do something like this, you are locking in each Color to a role. Guess what? There is no consistency on that front. Red isn't always the leader, yellow isn't always support, green isn't always the badass, etc. Sure, Tommy Oliver, MMPR Green, is a bad rear end, but Ziggy Grover, RPM Green, is a comic relief character and jokester. Am I supposed to make Ziggy using this Green Ranger Spectrum? It wouldn't fit. The guy is the noble coward type who succeeds by luck, he's not the hyper competent team badass. Time Force Ranger Pink is the Team Leader. God, I won't go off on this again, but just consider that all these classes fall apart the second you try to take them out of the Zordon era. It would have been silly, but it would have been better to do "okay, here is the cool guy, here's the smart one" etc as classes instead of tying it to colors. Moving on, it looks like each Spectrum comes with some "Personal Powers", Armor Training (ugh!), Skill ranks, and some equipment. Everyone has some level of Power increasments with levels. I have skimmed ahead and Powers are basically feats. Each Spectrum has some unique resource that increases with level:
Lastly, you get some sporadic Essence Score increases. The chart actually splits them out. So, you don't get one point to spend amongst your Essence as you see fit, like most games of this type do for generic leveling. Instead, each Essence Score goes up on its own per level. Like Black increases social at 1st level (the level for their first level bonus essence), 5th, 9th, 13th, 16th, 18th, 20th. I'm sure a mathematician can tell me the system they're using for spacing these out. Each Essence goes up on their own speed. Oh, also, each level comes with a bonus Spectrum ability. Except some Spectrum have "Dead Levels", levels where you don't get a Spectrum Feature/Ability/etc. Your stats just go up. You do get Perks so that helps, but it begs the question "why?" Dead levels have been hated in d20 games since 3.5 D&D. They are reviled for being boring. Most d20 peeps know to never make a dead level. So, why would they do that? It's really basic design at this point, if you're making a F20 game. Listen, maybe this pisses me off more than others, but Dead Levels stink. Wait, hold the phone: I was reading some these abilities and I saw "Long Rest." Long Rest? LONG REST!?!? What the gently caress!? This is Power Rangers. Why are you calling it a Long Rest! "Per Scene, Per Episode" would be so much smarter. The Power Rangers aren't making the camp in the middle of Angel Grove to sleep Eight hours to recover their powers. Oh gently caress. Oh poo poo. They're going to make the 10 minute adventuring day an unintentional thing, aren't they? Like, in D&D, the system to restore powers in most editions is a long rest or 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Mainly this matters for Wizards, as they get back all their powers. Due to the silliness and arbitrary nature of this mechanic when it comes to design, many D&D parties have gotten into the habit of doing a bit fight then heading back into town to recuperate so the Wizard can go ham and use this spells to destroy their foes with reckless abandon. Some argue "a good DM" will stop this, but, if you're game requires a good DM to stop abuse, then the core mechanics needs reexamination. 4e fixed this somewhat by dividing powers into At-Will/Encounter/Daily, with At-Will having no restrictions, Encounters coming back after a battle, and Daily being recharged after every 4 battles. With a clear system, the game could better balance itself around set use/rest cycles. 5e abandoned this for marketability. Power Rangers should not have this feature. Eh, wait. Th..the term "Long Rest" doesn't appear outside of this chapter. W-what? I searched book and maybe I missed it but it wasn't anywhere else. I thought "maybe they were smart and put some rules on resting" but the term long rest is nowhere. It just says in health that rest can heal you but I missed a definition. People who have this book tell me I am wrong. Tell me they really didn't forget to define a long rest. Oh God, if they did: what a mess. Anyway, back to my point, Power Rangers doesn't need a rest system. Rangers just use their powers whenever, except for the one that takes out the baddy at the end. The Rangers shouldn't be running off to make camp, especially since the show routinely has monsters attack over multiple days. Like the balance would get all hosed. If you need a system, A/E/D is the best for this kind of thing. Also, brief aside, when I Crtl+F for long rests, I found out that later in the book there are rules for food and long distance travel. gently caress me, man. Just gently caress me. When has that every come up ever in 29 seasons? Like, maybe you found a single scene in like Megaforce or Samurai or some season I skipped where the Rangers went on a long trip and almost died of exposure, but come on. That doesn't matter. It's not important enough for its own rules. Okay, sorry. Back to Spectrums. Actually, you know what? gently caress it. Let's just sum them up.
You know, I should mention. The White Ranger is the single example of the special advanced spectrum color in the book. The book hints more will come later. Hold up, peeps, let's think about that for a second. First off, the White Ranger is only special in...you guessed it...the MMPR era. It's a rarer color but Wild Force and a few others have it as a main color. Also, what other colors are there for advanced colors? We got Purple from Mystic Force and Wild Force and Gold from Zeo and RPM. If they want to do a funny meme spectrum for April Fools, they should do Orange, which is a go-to "Fake Color" for the franchise. There has never been an official orange ranger. They usually appear as joke fake rangers. Wait, apparently there is one in the Boom! comic series named Remi, The Orange Solar Ranger. Well, still, I stand by it: on screen, it's a fake color. I feel like I could talk about this chapter forever and also not that much. Like, I don't want to pick apart each ability and go "Pink mostly just gets good at hitting stuff with her bows...as her entire thing...WHEN NOT EVERY PINK RANGER USES A RANGED WEAPON." But at some point I'll be repeating myself. I will say the captstone power is the same, for the most part, for every Spectrum and it's super boring. You become a "Prime" Ranger, receiving +2 to all defenses, edge (2d20, take better) on one essence category of skill checks, and a random minor ability. Like, that's your level 20 capstone...for every spectrum. Snore fest. Also, as an indie dev, can I say how nice it must be to have a license? All those super pretty pictures that show every single ranger with the same color? Yeah, those are just variant covers from the Boom! comic series. Anyone whose ever made a tabletop game before will tell you art is the biggest money sink and licensed games must have it easy by just having an art library.  Chapter 5 Oh gently caress this noise. I thought Influences might be cool, but they suck arse. They remind me of Numenera and that's not a game you want to be compared to. Yeesh, I must be sounding harsh, but I love Power Rangers and this is killing me. I ALMOST BOUGHT THIS THING FOR 55 QUID. Er, I mean, of course I bought it. Totally. 100% legit. Don't ask questions. Shut up. Ahem. Okay, here is what an Influence is: you pick something that ties you up, you get a Feat/Perk/whatever, and then you roll on a bond table to decide how this affects your personality. You can take multiple Influences but then you take Hang-ups, which are negative affects. Influences are things like caregivers, martial artist, student, etc. It's a bit eclectic. Why it sucks? Influence Perks have varying degrees of usefulness. They all give some mechanical benefit. But, guess what, Hang-ups do not! No wait, sorry, it's even worse: some hang-ups do and some hang-ups don't. You want all benefits and no drawbacks Do caretaker and nomad. Their hang-ups are all narrative. Which might matter if the game had narrative mechanics, but it doesn't. So, these RP downsides don't matter. And it's even dumber because the hang-ups are "wants to protect others first and doesn't trust strangers easily." Those are things that Power Rangers will probably JUST loving DO ANYWAY! Wow! Oh, and those bonds, right? What do they do? gently caress all! It's a suggestion box of story prompts. Like, okay, maybe I should care. It's actually not a bad idea. It's a good idea to give characters a reason to engage with NPCs, but what an rear end backwards way of doing it. It's just backstory on your character sheet. That's it. Nothing mechanically incentivizing you at all. Okay, peeps, let's talk. Take a seat. Have some hot coco. Quick game design chat. Sure, D&D loves the "RP should all be freeform and no rules and crap" stuff. That's how Critical Role, when not wearing "black face" and selling you chicken from a fast food restaurant known for abusing farmers overseas (Wendy's), can make all those fun stories, right? The game stays out of the way. Listen, if you like that, fine. But, here's the thing. When you design a game that way, you are actually saying you don't want any roleplaying to happen because you didn't encourage it. And that's not making assumptions, that's why Gary Gygax did it. When not saying how Paladins should raise Orcs to 18 years old before killing them to stay lawful good or using terms used to justify the genocide of the Native Tribes of America on internet forums, Gary Gygax spoke at length at how D&D wasn't really designed for roleplay as we do it today. It was designed for a type of personalized wargaming called "dungeon crawls," as I mentioned earlier. It even originally used Troupe play (though that may have been Dave Arnseson, who is the real creator of D&D who left the company due to creative differences) which means one player played four characters. The lack of RP mechanics comes from a lack of interest in integrating and encouraging those elements into the game itself. There is a reason Gary joked once that his biggest fear is gamers could one day realized they didn't need rules. While often used to justify the "rules don't matter" mindset that says you should just use D&D for everything, it's more accurate to say that Gary noticed many gamers liked the story elements of what happened in their games and his titles didn't actually do much to capitalize on that at all. After the second time D&D faded from the market, when WotC let Mike Mearls suffocate 4e to death, a lot of indie devs took up some ideas on how to properly gamify narrative elements to encourage dynamic storytelling in games. With the internet slowly making publishing cheaper than ever, this mindset became prevalent and many games were made that didn't care about simulating the world or other traditional paradigms, and instead gamified the narrative. Now, listen, one style is not better than the other. At all. Period. Full stop. Like what you like. If you hate when narrative mechanics come in, that's fine. Live your life. Good for you. Vice versa too. However, when you make a game that is so focused on traditional paradigms of combat, simulating the physics of the world, etc, any mechanics that's just "stuff for your backstory" is wasted fluff. It doesn't interact with the actual "game" of the product" and could be replaced with a post-it note saying "make something interesting." It isn't a game mechanic, it's like an attempt to pretend you have mechanics in places you don't. 5e itself did this a lot and it's just as pointless there. You, as players, can make something more interested and involved half the time. On roll20 alone (that I haven't used in years, switching to discord), I'ved GMed 49 games for 1343 hours and that doesn't included my IRL games and discord games and skype games. I've seen players do better. And as a player, I've seen GMs do better too with ideas. And sometimes I've seen them do worse, but still? How will this help? A post-it note saying "do rp like this?" is not going to make or break the thing. It's a waste of paper. It really just screams of a lack of ability to engage with the wider hobby and how ludonarrative mechanics work to integrate story and gameplay. Like, gently caress CORTEX, the system people thought this would be like, is a master-class in that, and I'm still mad at the license holders for Cortex and I'm saying that. They have a wonderful setting map system that quickly and collaboratively builds a world of NPCs, locations, and plot macguffins and ties it all to the PCs in clear ways. Just drat. Well, anyway, that's these chapters. gently caress me, right? I didn't expect to get this annoyed. Next time: We handle Essence Scores, Skills, Perks, and Equipment Covok fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 21:04
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I had a really stressful week at work that might be contributing to why I haven't been able to sleep all week and I feel that might have influenced the hostility of that post.
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Jan 22, 2022 21:21
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I appreciate your style. Apologize for nothing!
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Jan 22, 2022 22:06
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A class-based system is absolutely the worst one to use for Power Rangers and other Sentai-type series.
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Jan 22, 2022 22:20
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My Power Rangers DVDs came in yesterday. I am watching Lost Galaxy. You know what I said about Languages? Well, either the British colonized Planet Mirinoi or they just all speak English because THAT'S THE KIND OF SHOW IT IS.
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Jan 22, 2022 23:22
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Infinity RPG: Haqqislam Freeroving Murder Squad The Hassassins are by far the weirdest intelligence agency in the Human Sphere. They're weirdo mystics whose goal is to preserve humanity's ability to perform the Search for Knowledge, religious fanatics who protect Haqqislam because it is the purest form of the Search, and they aren't always aligned with Bourak, for the obey only the Old Man of the Mountain, the head of their order. While the Old Man maintains a direct communication with the Hachib and serves as a presidential advisor, he does not obey her by any means. Likewise, while the Hassassins work with the Sword of Allah and have a legitimate image in the minds of other nations, they don't operate under any kind of oversight and take no outside orders. Other spy agencies tend to hate them, in part because their methods can be terrifying, and in part because everyone wants their secrets. This is why most Hassassins maintain multiple layers of false identity even when, for example, seconded to Bureau Noir...which absolutely can and does cause problems with trust between Noir agents when it comes out that one member of the team has been lying about who they were constantly. The Hassassins consider anyone that opposes the Search for Knowledge to be valid targets, which includes most reactionary groups, and also folks who want to oppose scientific and cultural developments for their own gain. Even more than that, they despise anyone that they see as an existential threat to humanity, which at the moment mostly means the Combined Army, but also any scientific organization working on weapons of mass destruction or similar things. This often puts them at odds with the Black Labs of the Nomads. Outside this, the Hassassins work to destroy beliefs, attitudes and ideas that they feel block scientific and cultural progress, usually by murdering people who advocate for those ideas and using their deaths as propaganda tools to drive others holding such beliefs into fear and hiding. They do not at all consider the people of Haqqislam to be immune to their attentions, either. After all, while Haqqislam is the greatest driver of the Search for Knowledge, any mortal can be corrupted. They keep watch over their own people, even the Hachib, Council of Wali or other leaders. They believe themselves to be chosen as the conscience of their people - and when they are failed, the enforcers of divine judgment. As a weirdo secret society-slash-cult, the Hassassins are united and bonded together in a way much closer than most spies ever get. They have an ideal they believe in deeply, and they are united by their shared initiations and understanding of what they consider to be secret truths of the universe. Many imagine all Hassassins to be secretive killers who infiltrate places, kill people, and vanish. And those exist! However, they aren't everything the Hassassins are by any means, and Hassassin agents exist in all parts of society, doing research, writing books, influencing people. Frequently, their status is known only to a small number of other Hassassins, if that. All are taught the signs, key phrases and codes that can identify the Hassassins, though, and all serve the Old Man of the Mountain. All orders flow from him...but often, a Hassassin is not operating based on strict orders. Many of them spend most of their time operating based on the strong moral principles that the Hassassins instill in them. (Sure, they're perfectly okay with murder, but they actually do have pretty strong morals outside that.) They will obey orders from the Old Man to the letter, but they are trained to act independently if the need comes up. In fact, where other intellgence agents usually have a handler that gives them work, the Hassassins often do not. Rather, they use physical and quantronic dead drops, random folks hired to pass off notes, or sudden appearances by Hassassin agents delivering mission briefings, who could be just about anyone - after all, the Hassassins have deep cover agents all over the place. As long as the correct passphrases are used, then the Hassassins know they're allies, regardless of what they seemed to be. Mission briefings can be as simple as a scrawled note, as weird as a puzzle box you have to solve to get the instructions, or as complex as a full VR show, and progress reports are usually be dead drop. Some missions are to deliver missions to other Hassassins, as well. The orders often seem prescient, and many suspect the Old Man of the Mountain has some means of predicting the future. No one can say for sure if that's true except him, and rumors vary on how good it is, but all kinds of people would love to find out. If the system is real, it allows the Old Man to process truly vast amounts of data to get specific predictions about real-world situations - incredibly useful, even if the margin of error or degree of forewarning aren't great. (Again, no one knows for sure what those might be, or if this even exists.) Many more paranoid intelligence operatives and conspiracy theorists suspect that it is a wide-ranging system that allows the Old Man to make plans manipulating the Human Sphere on a massive timescale. Hassassins work in all manner of roles and social levels, so it's hard to talk about what they're like on a verage, but there's a few things that are unified - mostly, their belief systems, training and methods. To become a Hassassin means being a person who is [i]entirely obsessed[/b] with the Search for Knowledge. Every Hassassin has a personal project that they focus on by default, an aspect of the Search for Knowledge that they dedicate themselves to. This is usually some manner of self-improvement, a skillset that they focus on. For some that is murder, but others are doctors, teachers, philosophers, gardeners - anything they can pursue to better themself and the understanding of humanity. Sometimes their personal goals are why they were recruited, sometimes not, but they all have them. This tends to make Hassassins confident and determined, as they are always are of their own skills and capabilities - and they know the rest of the order has their back. Most Hassassins are recruited after being noticed by a Hassassin agent that decides they're ideologically suited for the cause and sends their name up to the Old Man. At that point, they are often tapped to serve without even realizing it, receiving new job offers that let them demonstrate their skill, their mindset and how loyal they are to the cause. A small number, however, seek out the Hassassins on their own, seeking them out in Iran Zhat Al Amat or on the moons of Bourak. Most of these never find what they seek and are left to die in the hostile environments where Hassassin strongholds are built or are more directly murdered. A rare few, however, are rescued or taken in and allowed to join. The training is intense, and even Hassassins who have no intention of ever fighting are taught, among other things to fight with chain rifles, jammer devices and smoke grenades, which the Hassasisns consider the most basic modern weapons. Training is something no Hassassin ever fails, either - at least, not in the sense of washing out and going on to something else. You either become a Hassassin or you get killed. The goal is generally the former - death is very much not what the Hassassins want for trainees. The training is rough, physically and emotionally, but its main goal is to reinforce a strong and dedicated moral code and build a total devotion to the Search for Knowledge - which most recruits already possess to some degree anyway. They are not, however, taught to blindly obey. Rather, trainees are encouraged to explore and question their teachers, even if it means they head into danger and get themselves killed by accident. (This, in fact, is where most of the fatalities come from.) Most training is one on one, with trainees going through a series of mentors chosen based on their existing skills and development path. Each mentor has their own methods, which means trainees need to be adaptable and ready to deal with any circumstances. The training is not just practical, either - the Hassassin Society are mystics, too, and trainees go through many ceremonies and rituals intended to aid in their spiritual development, sometimes with drugs helping. The Hassassins claim that eventually, each one of them will develop the Six Subtleties and master their use - that is, the set of spiritual and mental organs that grant them their most terrifying skills. Hassassins are expected to develop and construct their own tools within their area of expertise - a hacker builds their own hardware and recodes their own geist, a warrior brews their own poison and hand-makes their own guns, and every Hassassin develops a personal cipher and a series ofcarefully minted cover identities. One's personal cipher is used to encode their notes, mission reports and communications within the group, with skilled mathematicians developing their own codes and other Hassassins choosing their favorites from among the massive library the Hassassins keep. Choice of personal cipher often reflects an agent's self-image in some way, perhaps chosen for the beauty they see in it or for its development history resonating with them. It is taken on faith that the Old Man is capable of cracking any code, so no matter which one you use, your reports will get through and are readable to your boss. As for cover identities, Hassassins develop them personally whenever possible, and often layer them on top of each other. For example, you don't usually see a Hassassin posing just as a local scholar. Rather, they're a local scholar who is secretly an agent of PanO's Hexahedron who is secretly a deep cover Muhafiz for the Sword of Allah's intelligence division. We also get two major operations of the Hassassins. First, their war on the criminal organization Equinox. Yeah, we all got the story in the core about the Hassassins uncovering their plot to use weaponized memetics to take over a colony ship to Bourak...but it's gone much farther than that. After the Hassassins identified the existence of a group dedicated to violent, technology-based revolution, they decided to wipe out Equinox, exterminating over a dozen active cells. Sadly, the Hassassin Govads that were on the job were all slain in a counterstrike, save one - Dawud al-Dafani. al-Dafani was given free rein by the Old Man to train a new generation of Govads, whom he has attempted to turn into fanatical, dedicated warriors willing to sacrifice their own lives to wipe out Equinox. Now, he leads their war on Equinox, burning out cells wherever they find them in the hopes of destroying the conspiracy forever. The other operation is Zero Day Capital, a venture capital firm that the Hassassins use to finance start-ups throughout the Human Sphere. They don't do it to technologies they think are good, though. Rather, the job of Zero Day is to identify companies doing research the Hassassins deem dangerous or destructive, buy them up, then take them apart, redirecting them to more harmless goals. The most dramatic of their interventions was against Clear Hearts, a group of memetic researchers who were developing an app to help with grief and heartache by delivering a memetic virus into the user's PAN that would dampen specific emotions. Hassassin operatives studied the virus and realized it had the side effect of reducing curiosity in those exposed to it, so the company had to go. With a mix of financial trickery, social engineering and a single murder, they drove Clear Hearts out of business, discredited the founder and split the development team up into three different groups on three different planets. The lead software engineer vanished entirely, and it is rumored among intelligence agencies that she was recruited into the Hassassins to build a weaponized version of the virus. Still, one can't talk about Haqqislam and only look at the military or the Hassassins. To understand how the faction operates, one must look at the Guilds, the merchants who are the source of so much Haqq power. The most powerful of the Guilds are the Master Gardeners who oversee terraforming, the Biohealth Corps that perform advanced medical research, and the Silk Lords, who rule over the Silk trade with an iron fist. The Master Gardeners are in charge of terraforming Bourak - a job that is going to take generations to complete and is extremely difficult, requiring great care and frequent tweaking. There's always the risk of failure, too, but the benefits of success are gigantic. The Gardeners are immensely powerful on Bourak, and the Hachib's advisory council always includes at least three Master Gardeners, with success in terraforming often being taken as a sign of political success as well, and failures of environmental management ending the careers of politicians associated with them. The Master Gardeners are also active in Haqqislamite education, ensuring that all children receive a basic understanding of water preservation and waste management, with managing small gardens being a common class activity. Many Haqqislamites maintain small gardens in their homes wherever they go, even in space. Off Bourak, however, the Master Gardeners are essentially powerless except when hired as advisors on habitat recovery or local projects. Their focus is pretty much entirely on Bourak and its terraforming goals. The Master Gardeners are led by the Terraforming Council, the chief government agency overseeing the planetary project. They work out of Iran Zhat Al Amat but coordinate actions across the planet. The Council is composed of over a hundred people, a mix of scientists, policy wonks, financial sorts and similar, but is led by the Central Council, twelve people with a wide array of expertise. The Hachib's advisors are selected from it, too. Under the Council are the Gardener Guilds, each theoretically an independent group that operates however it chooses internally. Some are family-run, others independent research boards, others corporate in structure. Each individual Guild tends to specialize in a single project or type of project, such as maintaining a tourist haven, raising farmland, building new terraforming towers and so on. The Gardener Guilds bid on projects with the Terraforming Council, and it's definitely not a pure process - nepotism is extremely common, and a Guild's success is usually more related to who its leaders know and their ability to bribe people. The Council has total oversight, though, and plenty of inspectors to ensure that just because the projects are handed out this way doesn't mean they're handled incompetently. After all, the entire planetary project is very important, and if some idiot cousin blows it all up, everyone suffers, and the inspectors are very strict in keeping track of how well projects are going. Disagreements between Gardeners and guilds tend to be more theoretical and scientific than political, and even when they're not, the Gardener tradition is to handle them out of public eye with the aid of the Terraforming Council as mediators. They can be quite vicious, but almost none end up as public scandals, and the Gardeners maintain a united front to help maintain their political power. We get two example Guilds. First up, the Tahan Family. While over most of Bourak, the use of terraforming towers overwhelmed the use of the mobile, town-sized platforms called T-Palaces, there are still a few, mostly in the Al Medinat region. The most famous among the people and most hated by the Terraforming Council is run by the Tahans under leadership of Mehmet Tahan. The reason the Council is mad at them is they're rogue terraformers, with their platform not in use for any official projects. Rather, they wander across the deserts and low mountains, approaching communities and asking them what they need fixed up, environmentally. The people love the Tahans, who see themselves as providing for the poor, whose individual needs usually don't reach the Terraforming Council, and they believe their work is too small to be a problem. The Terraforming Council disagrees, on the principle that the Tahans are an unpredictable and random variable within the planetary project, and while their work is admirable and moral, it endangers the entire planet. Our other is a trio of friends on the Central Council - Abigail Adid, Izil ben M'Hidi and Ziri. Abigail is the most recent person elevated to the Central Council and hopes to become one of the Hachib's advisors. The other two support her in this; Izil specializes in climate engineering, and Ziri is a marketer. They've been helping Adid rise in power, and she's become a frequent sight on Bourak's media - often speaking without consulting the rest of the Council. Izil and Ziri are both secret agents, though. Ziri's a Hassassin who has been assigned to get Adid into the Hachib's inner circle to increase Hassassin control over government decisionmaking and the terraforming projects. Izil, on the other hand, actually works for Yu Jing's Yanjing, and his goal is pretty similar - get Adid into a position of power so she can help him out without realizing who his actual bosses are. Next time: Mastery of the body. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 23:27
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I really hope that this Power Rangers game has rules for 1-hit enemies.
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Jan 22, 2022 23:28
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Pvt.Scott posted:I really hope that this Power Rangers game has rules for 1-hit enemies. Oh, you think they put in rules for enemies. Oh, my friend, you are forgetting that you can NOT put any rules in for enemies then sell it to your marks at full price. That's the Hasbro/WoTC/TSR way!
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Jan 22, 2022 23:37
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Grunt/mook rules in RPGs are absolutely based on putties and other Sentai shows and the fact that the official power rangers RPG doesn't do this is wild.
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Jan 22, 2022 23:55
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Oh wait, I forgot. They did put in the mooks in the main book. Let me check, are they one hit point? Okay, they are 1 hit point.
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Jan 23, 2022 00:58
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  Known in 1st Edition as Heroes & Villains and in 2nd Edition as Friends of Freedom, 3rd Edition’s title is the most self-explanatory. This chapter details the notable superheroes of the Earth-Prime setting, and given the metaplot development the entries differ by Edition. The Freedom League’s membership has gained and lost a few members over time, while the Next-Gen got an entirely new membership in 3e but are relegated to that Edition’s Hero High sourcebook. Eldrich is no longer Master Mage in 3e after bequeathing that title to Seven (who then ended up a Dark Lord of the Netherworld). One notable thing exclusive to 1e was listing one-sentence quotes (including for villains) to give a taste of their personality, as well as Rogues Gallery listings to show which supervillains have history with Earth-Prime’s defenders. There were also backstories and stat blocks for non-powered friends and acquaintances for many of the heroes, such as Captain Thunder’s wife and son as well as his old Air Force buddy Dan Cloud who serves as an aeronautic consultant and mechanic for the Freedom League.  The Freedom League is the longest-lasting and most famous superhero team in the Earth-Prime universe. Their membership changed greatly over the decades, and as of 3rd Edition only Daedalus and Siren have membership stretching back to the Silver Age. Their traditional headquarters used to be Freedom Hall in Freedom City, but as of 2e they launched an orbital space station known as the Lighthouse to serve as that purpose instead. With teleportals and spaceplanes, they can easily go anywhere on Earth and beyond. In 1e and 2e the Freedom League’s leader was Captain Thunder (Ray Gardener), a former Air Force pilot who gained lightning-based superpowers from a rogue experiment by the mad scientist Dr. Stratos. While he initially had a secret identity, Dr. Stratos captured him and revealed it to the world, and Ray had to relocate his family to Freedom City in order to gain a safer life. As of 3e he retired, with his son Ray Gardener Jr. (formerly Bolt of the Next-Gen) joining the Freedom League as Thunderbolt. Bowman (Fletcher Beaumont III) is the fourth superhero to bear the legacy title of the Golden Age archer. In 1e he was a member of Claremont Academy’s Next-Gen, but as of later Editions he graduated and joined the Freedom League. Although he is one of the less-powerful members and has no superpowers, he more than makes up for it with his knowledge of tactics and arsenal of gimmick arrows. Centuria (Katherine Leeds) is unique to 3e, the daughter of an alternate-universe Centurion who also arrived in Earth-Prime via a life pod from space. And like the Centurion that became world-famous on Earth-Prime, her home dimension was destroyed by the Terminus. Her proclaimed backstory and similarities in powers caused a media frenzy, and after some heavy vetting by other superheroes she was happily accepted by her new home. She is the most powerful member at PL 13, with abilities similar to her “father.” Daedalus was a mainstay in all 3 Editions, being one of the world’s most brilliant scientists with origins dating back to Ancient Greece. He is much like the Daedalus of myth, although the minotaur he was responsible for trapping would eventually become Taurus, head of the Labyrinth. He also earned the enmity of Hades once the gods “gifted” him immortality as a means of making up for his son’s loss, and the ruler of the Underworld took his initial refusal as a personal affront. Ever since, Daedalus has wandered the world, learning from lifetimes’ worth of civilizations and covertly passing on his own findings to others such as Isaac Newton and Leonardo DaVinci. Few people know that Daedalus is the man of myth, and instead he pretends that a succession of “sons” are gifted his trademark battlesuit. Dr. Metropolis’ true origins are unknown, although theories abound that he’s the metaphysical manifestation of the concept of cities. He appeared in the aftermath of Omega’s invasion of Freedom City, using his powers to repair the damage. He was called “Dr. Metropolis” by scientists which he accepted as his own, shortly thereafter joining the Freedom League. On the surface he seems emotionless and has trouble understanding human social cues, although he possesses a deep care for his beloved city. As you can imagine, Dr. Metropolis serves as a good narrative explanation for why Freedom City (and other metropolii of Earth-Prime) aren’t ruined wastelands with all the collateral damage from supervillains. Johnny Rocket (John Wade) is a speedster who inherited his powers from his grandfather who was the Johnny Rocket of the Golden Age. His powers activated when one of the last surviving villains of the latter’s rogues gallery tracked him down and tried to kill him. Johnny’s powers activated instinctively, and in a manner that left a lot of witnesses, so he never had a secret identity. This would come back to haunt him when he was publicly outed by an angry ex-boyfriend. As this was the early 2000s America (and when the first book was published), this was a lot less socially acceptable then than it is now, so there were a lot of people calling for the Freedom League to kick him out as a “bad influence.” They refused, in fact going on to support him, and the original Johnny Rocket told the press how he was proud of his grandson as a worthy successor. As of 3e, Johnny Rocket is still a member of the Freedom League, although he recently became an adoptive father and mentor to Jonni Rocket, a female clone of the superhero created by his archenemy Dr. Simian. Lady Liberty (2e Elizabeth Walton-Wright, 3e Sonia Gutierrez) is not a single superhero so much as a title that has been passed down to generations of worthy women by the Spirit of Liberty. The first one to join the current version of the Freedom League was a liberal lawyer married to a police detective, although her superhero life has put a damper on their marriage. Elizabeth eventually stepped down her role, feeling that she could do more good via charity work and service at a legal clinic, causing the Spirit of Liberty to find a new host. It found that host in Sonia Gutierrez, a transgender woman and daughter of Mexican immigrants. Unlike Donna’s liberal and relative apoliticism, Sonia was well aware of America’s many moral shortcomings on its minority citizens, and while not a patriot like former Lady Liberties she was chosen due to her compassionate nature after she saved a random woman from an attempted murder. The newest member of the Freedom League, Sonia feels a bit in over her head at times although the former Lady Liberty established contact as a mentor. Pseudo (R’ik Faax) is exclusive to 2e, a member of the shapeshifting Grue. Trained from birth to be a scout for the Grue Unity, he was sent to Earth with the purpose of sabotage, although he went rogue after spending time among humans. Seeing the worthy causes championed by superheroes, R’ik eventually joined the League sometime during the Silver Age, establishing a new identity as freelance journalist Rick Fox when not superheroing. He’s not listed as a member in 3e although that book doesn’t mention his fate. The most I could find is him being mentioned as a reserve member. The Raven (Callie Summers) is exclusive to 1e and 2e, the daughter of the original Raven. Duncan Summers sought to keep his identity a secret from his family, although after one of his foes kidnapped Callie the secret was out. She did what she could to learn more about her father’s time as the Raven, covertly training in the hopes of becoming like him. Eventually Duncan realized that in spite of his protests he couldn’t deny Callie’s wishes. She is pretty much “female Batman,” having no superpowers but highly trained in a variety of skills and feats with a small arsenal of equipment and non-lethal grenades. As of 3e Callie retired and became Mayor of Freedom City, passing on the mantle of Raven to Elite, formerly of the teenage superhero team the AlterniTeens. That Raven currently operates out of New York City. Siren (Cassandra Vale/La Siren) is two people in one: the psychologist Cassandra Vale and the Voodoo Loa La Sirene. Cassandra visited the Voodoo communities in Haiti in the 1960s as part of a research paper. She theorized that the power of belief can reshape reality, which is responsible for creating all manner of supernatural beings. She inadvertently came across a drug smuggling ring, and was saved by La Sirene when the smugglers attempted to turn her into shark food. The Loa explained to Cassandra that she was chosen for a special purpose: humans were ultimately good and worthy of aid of the spirits, although one of their peers Baron Samedi disagreed, arguing that humans were little better than animals and worthy only of being slaves to the Loa. So Cassandra was chosen to help settle this cosmic bet, operating as the superhero Siren to make the world a better place and also operating against Baron Samedi’s many plots. Star Knight (Maria Montoya) is a 2e/3e addition, a child of immigrants and a cop who uncovered Grue spies in her police department when investigating internal corruption. It wasn’t long before Pseudo came to her aid, given that she was now wrapped up in a plot for the aliens to invade Earth. Mentor of the Star Knights approached Maria, offering to appoint her the new Star Knight of Earth’s sector of space. It was only natural that she’d also join the Freedom League, albeit as a reserve member. As of 3e she’s been less active on Earth on account of the interstellar turmoil wrought by Star Khan and Collapsar. Thunderbolt (Ray Gardener Jr.) is a 3e exclusive, an intangible mass of electrical energy contained within a human-shaped bodysuit. Ray used to be a normal boy, having developed electrical powers during puberty inherited from his father, the great Captain Thunder. He enrolled in Claremont Academy to help manage his powers, joining the Next-Gen as Bolt during his time there. His zest for superheroism didn’t die out upon graduation, and sought to join the Freedom League. Ray got his wish, albeit as a result of recklessness in trying to apprehend Dr. Stratos on his own. Captain Thunder saved his son, albeit at the expense of becoming permanently depowered and Ray Jr.’s body atomized into a “living thunderbolt.” Daedalus and Dr. Atom helped construct a containment suit to let him live something close to a normal life, and he did join the Freedom League. Although he still bears guilt for being responsible for the circumstances that led to his father’s retirement. Fun Fact: The 2nd Edition book Worlds of Freedom had a chapter covering Freedom City in the “near future” of the 2040s. Several characters mentioned in the 3e sourcebook were part of the team, such as Centuria, Jonni Rocket, and Thunderbolt. Thoughts: The Freedom League is a pretty decent team. They have an established presence in the world and their various members occupy a diversity of roles that make them feel distinct. Although many are built with far more Power Points than a PC of equivalent Power Level, many of their members are within the bounds of starting PCs for typical PL 10 campaigns. Your average party may not be able to take them all on at once: there’s 8 of them, and over half are above PL 10, but unlike “big names” in other established settings (coughwhitewolfcoughforgottenrealmscough) their capabilities aren’t so far and above beginning PCs to the point that your players will feel useless in comparison. I will note one peculiar thing on my mind: in the case of Siren, La Sirene is a real-world religious figure in Voodoo. I did read that Steve Kenson wanted to make a superhero setting where Vodouism is prominent in the same way that the Nordic faith is in the Marvel universe or the Greco-Roman pantheon in DC. But unlike those faiths, Voodoo has been under a sustained propaganda campaign, being portrayed as a creepy cult of zombies and black magic in most pop culture portrayals to the detriment of other aspects. The placement of Baron Samedi as a zombie-focused supervillain mirrors this, and from what I read of the actual faith the Baron doesn’t really occupy an “evil” role in Voodoo. That being said, I am not a practitioner nor do I know those who are, so I can only speak as an outside observer going off of what others have said.  The Atom Family is the second major team of Freedom City. Modeled heavily off of the Fantastic Four with a side of Johnny Quest thrown in, the Atoms are a family of adventuring psychic scientists who travel to all manner of places around Earth-Prime and even other dimensions. Their “membership” dates back to the Golden Age, with Dr. Atom being your typical pulp two-fisted scientist who is now a disembodied AI confined to the family home in Freedom City. He is far from useless, being capable of traveling the Internet and appearing as a holographic advisor anywhere. Dr. Atom also invented and patented morphic molecules, an adaptive fabric made of super-strong material that is an in-universe explanation for how superhero uniforms remain virtually undamaged without the need for regular change. The Atom Family’s membership remains unchanged between Editions. Besides the disembodied Dr. Atom, there’s Maximus Atom (eldest and leader when in the field, powers include size-changing), Tesla Atom (stereotypical nerdy scientist, energy manipulator), Victoria Atom (optimistic mediator of the family, stretchy-shapeable form), Chase Atom (psychic telepath/illusionist, is great at superhero stuff but has trouble adapting to “normal life”), Jack Wolf (former soldier of fortune who became guardian of the Atom children upon Dr. Atom’s ‘death’ back in the day, has no powers but pilots their flying “Atomobile” and is good with a blaster), Cosmo the Moon Monkey (Chase’s pet, psychic teleporting monkey from Farside City), and ALEX (Artificial Life-form Experiment, robot butler and lab assistant with British accent). As of 3e, Max Atom became CEO of the family business Atomic Inc and got married and had children, Victoria manages a travelog blog that created the phenomenon known as “V-Spotting” (fans guessing where the Atom family might be traveling in their area). Chase has been approached by Thunderbolt of the Freedom League with an offer to join (an offer he’ll take up in Future Freedom from Worlds of Freedom). And Dr. Atom helped cure Gamma the Atom-Smasher, nuclear-themed supervillain, of his radioactive powers. Thoughts: I like the Atom Family. They have a different enough dynamic and place in the world in comparison to the Freedom League, so they don’t feel like a carbon-copy cutout of “Generic Superhero Team B.” About half of their members aren’t that powerful or have complications preventing them from being useful in combat (Dr. Atom, ALEX, and Cosmo the Moon Monkey) but that helps strengthen their theme as a superpowered family who prioritize exploring the mysteries of the world.  This is the closest “group shot” I could find of the Next-Gen. Several members are also of the AlterniTeens in case it seems like there are “missing entries.” The Next-Gen are exclusive to 1e/2e, and in the current Edition have an entirely different membership that is detailed in Hero High. The Next-Gen are a team of teenage superheroes from Claremont Academy and operate with the covert support of Duncan Summers. They are overall lower-powered than the Freedom League, with member PLs averaging around 8 or 9 with their strongest member Megastar at PL 10; in 1e they had overall higher PLs, averaging 10. Bowman was a member in 1e, with Captain Thunder’s son joining in 2e as Bolt. Bowman’s time at the Academy had him as a star student, wanting to help restore the family name after the last generations’ less than noble departure from the Freedom League (namely alcoholism compromising his superhero career). Bolt (Ray Gardener Jr.) is the newest member of the Next-Gen as of 2e, being eager to enjoy life and is good friends with Chase Atom. He has electrical-themed superpowers and as well as super-speed. Megastar (Christopher Beck) was a normal high school student who ended up bonding with an alien piece of technology known as MEGAS, or Metamorphic Encephalic Guidance and Attack Suspension. The Grue sought to steal MEGAS from the Lor Republic after its carrier ship crash-landed on Earth. Christopher managed to fend off the Grue after changing into a taller and stronger silver-haired man with super-strength and flight. He was eager to prove himself to the Freedom League, although his age meant that he was sent to the Claremont Academy instead. As of 3e Chris’ life has been rough; personality problems, not being a “team player,” and relying far too much on MEGAS’ powers to coast him through life made him a washed-up superhero turned supervillain working as a galactic enforcer for Tellax in the Rogues Gallery sourcebook. Nereid (Thetis) is the granddaughter of the original Golden Age Siren, her father being the King of Atlantis. She was sent to the Claremont Academy to gain a greater understanding of the surface world for her eventual role as Queen, being a literal “fish out of water” to this new environment. Although she isn’t overtly arrogant and spoiled, she does have a high opinion of herself in viewing her royal status as making her better than “common folk.” As of 3e she returned to Atlantis and resumed her royal duties, detailed in the Atlas of Earth-Prime. Seven (Serena Vervain) is quite clearly Raven from Teen Titans, but more extroverted and serves as the Next-Gen’s moral support. She came from a bloodline of witches and has the potential to be the most powerful in her family tree. Her grandmother enrolled her in the Claremont Academy, and she took the name Seven due to that number’s magical powers and being the seventh realized witch in her family (sometimes the magical potential skips generations). Serena also began an apprenticeship under Adrian Eldrich, and her archenemy is the demonic lawyer Lucius Cabot who believes her part of a prophecy that will spell his undoing. As of 3e she took on Eldrich’s role as Earth-Prime’s Master Mage, only to lose it after defeating Una Queen of the Netherworld and accidentally taking her title of Dark Lord. If she refused the role the realm would cease to exist, effectively killing everyone in that reality. Finally we have Sonic (Lemar Phillips), a young man who grew up in Lincoln and was strong-armed by a friend who sought to prove himself to a local gang. The gang sought to steal an experimental sonic disruptor, only for unforeseen circumstances to trigger it and bestow sound-based powers on Lemar. Startled by this turn of events, he shared what happened with Wilson Jeffers of the Lincoln Youth Center. Wilson in turn revealed his status as the former superhero the Black Avenger, and helped train him. By the time Sonic became a notable superhero in Lincoln and Southside he was offered a spot at the Claremont Academy, although Lemar sought to keep attending his “regular” classes at his local high school and is at Claremont mostly as a member of the Next-Gen. Thoughts: The Next-Gen has some clear inspiration from the Teen Titans: Bolt is like Kid Flash and Nereid an Atlantean Starfire. Although I can spot other influences: for example, Megastar bears a strong resemblance to Ben Ten (kid uses an alien artifact to gain superpowers), and Sonic sounds similar to Static and has a similar backstory (African-American teenager pressured by gangs and gaining superpowers from weird science experiment). Like the Freedom League, each member has a unique power set and role, although given their lower Power Levels are a bit less multi-talented. Bolt is like Johnny Rocket in being a fragile speedster but with less powers and tricks, Megastar is like Star Knight as a space-themed bruiser but without that one’s universal translator and ranged attacks, etc. Unlike the Freedom League their Power Point totals are well within the bounds of their respective PLs, meaning that they are more on par with typical PL 8 teen superhero PCs if one’s GM opts for a Claremont Academy campaign.  Solo Heroes is our shortest section, and its entries differ depending on Edition. In 2e Lantern Jack was included among them, although we detailed him already in an earlier post. Dr. Tomorrow wasn’t available in 1e although he was referenced in the history, while as of 3e Adrian Eldrich was destroyed in battle with Una before Seven deposed her as Dark Lord. Dr. Tomorrow (Tomas Morgen) hails from the dimension of Erde, where the Axis powers won WWII. Tomas was created as part of a eugenics program in the Nationalist States of America to be the perfect Nazi poster boy, although he eventually learned of the horrors his ideology was built upon and made contact with the American Resistance. They raided a military lab to steal an experimental time-travel device in hopes of traveling back in time to prevent the Axis from winning. He made contact with FDR, helping form the Liberty League. Tomas’ dream of defeating the Axis was successful, although his manipulation of the time-stream either put him back in time into the Earth-Prime of the 1940s…or instead created a parallel universe in the timestream as a result of this. Regardless, his original home was still ruled over by fascists, so Tomas returned in the hopes of giving them the freedom that he helped win in Earth-Prime. He was successful in developing weapons and technology to help the Resistance defeat the Nazi’s brain-jar-controlled tanks and fighter jets, and having done his part he now travels through time warning various figures of import about cosmic catastrophes. Eldrich (Adrian Eldrich) is Freedom City’s Doctor Strange, an all-purpose “superhero wizard” and investigator of the occult. He delved into the world of magic when visiting a lost Temple of Sirrion back in the 1930s, accidentally breaking the protective seals which housed the Atlantean archmage Malador the Mystic. Being a wizard of great evil, Malador imprisoned Eldrich and left him to die, although the temple’s guardians sensed Adrian’s magical potential as the reincarnation of their former master, awakening memories dating back to Atlantis and filling him with magical power. Eldrich did a lot of good in the world, as much as any superhero, although unlike the more overt cape-bearers a lot of his deeds were done behind the scenes and rarely made it into headline news. In 1977 he made residence in Freedom City, eventually tutoring Serena Vervain in spellcraft. His body died in combat with Una, but his soul lives on in the higher planes. Foreshadow (David Sloane) was born with the ability to see into the future, a talent he tried hiding. When a vision showed his parents dying in a car crash he tried to warn them, but they didn’t take him seriously and that terrible event came to pass. David was left with a significant inheritance, although he decided to travel the world and learn more about his powers as well as picking up other talents along the way. When he came back to his old neighborhood of Southside he saw how criminals and evildoers had come to prominence and decided to put his training and powers to use as the precognitive superhero, Foreshadow! He’s a street-level vigilante who tangles with the Freedom City Mob, and as of 3e developed a rivalry and mutual attraction with Lady Tarot. The Freedom League has encountered Foreshadow and even offered him membership, although he declined, preferring to operate on his own. Thoughts: The Solo Heroes are a bit of a mixed bag for me. Dr. Tomorrow and Foreshadow are PL 9 and serve as useful allies for their respective fields (time travel, street level) yet not to the point that their abilities overshadow typical PL 10 parties. Eldrich is a very powerful PL 13 character whose magical array makes him quite multi-talented in what he can do, although I can’t help but feel he’s somehow out of place. I’m guessing that this must be why he was removed in 3rd Edition, and also for the possibility of a PC taking the role of the now-vacant Master Mage title. Thoughts So Far: I already went over my individual thoughts for the entries above, so this is a more holistic judgment. I will say that Freedom City does a good job of making a setting that is “lived in.” Practically every superhero in this chapter has a solid backstory, personality, relationships, and distinct themes with little in the way of overlapping roles. And such overlap tends to come more from the relative rookie teenage superheroes, like Eldrich to Seven or Bolt to Captain Thunder/Johnny Rocket. One downside is that the large number of superheroes in a relatively small area means that it’s harder for original PCs to establish themselves in the setting, and inevitably begs the question of what the other superheroes are doing when some city-wide threat comes to Freedom. The books attempt to alleviate this with various explanations and suggestions, such as the Freedom League having a more worldwide sphere of influence, the Atom Family usually traveling abroad, or the PCs joining the teams. Although given the way the characters are written it sounds like they’re a frequent enough presence in Freedom City to the point that they rarely leave the metropolis alone for long periods. Join us next time as we cover the first part of Foes of Freedom! Yes, there’s a lot. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Jan 23, 2022 |
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Jan 23, 2022 02:37
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Libertad! posted:One downside is that the large number of superheroes in a relatively small area means that it’s harder for original PCs to establish themselves in the setting, and inevitably begs the question of what the other superheroes are doing when some city-wide threat comes to Freedom. The books attempt to alleviate this with various explanations and suggestions, such as the Freedom League having a more worldwide sphere of influence, the Atom Family usually traveling abroad, or the PCs joining the teams. Although given the way the characters are written it sounds like they’re a frequent enough presence in Freedom City to the point that they rarely leave the metropolis alone for long periods. That explains, and it was a good idea, the whole thing with the city on the west coast (Emerald City?) which is much less populated by supers and I think the idea is for your characters to be the first real team there (thanks a superpower-inducing trigger event) although they do have one statted up because... well, NPCs are fun.
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Jan 23, 2022 04:45
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  America After Dark, Part 3: Houston Sucks  Chicago began as a few settlements and an army fort at the mouth of the Chicago River. The Kin didn’t establish themselves in Chicago until the 1930s, by which time the city was famous for shipping, industry, labour activism, and bootlegging. Illicit liquor was a major source of revenue for the Complex and the Morningstar Corporation when both factions were in their infancy. Today, the Complex is so powerful in Chicago that unlikely alliances sometimes emerge between the Commune, Failsafe, Morningstar, and even the Limbo Wolves. None of them want to see a single rival faction take control of an entire major city. McDevitt characterizes Chicago as proud of its status as America’s “biggest little town,” with a decidedly blue-collar attitude. The average Chicagoan is cheerful, obsessed with sports, and willing to help a stranger in a jam. There is the usual section on local neighborhoods and landmarks. All your favorites are here: Sears Tower, Wrigley Field, The Loop and all its architectural marvels. Interestingly, Nightlife’s setting supposes that a huge “Block Fire” will ravage several blocks of The Loop some time in the mid-90s, killing over 800 people. As usual, the most important landmarks for the Kin are various nightspots. Valentine’s Day Massacre is a sleazy punk bar that gets some great bands on tour, including L2K. The center of Commune activity in the city is Absolutely Blues, a grimy dive that nonetheless books the best acts in the country. The owner is a Wyght and blues guitarist named Delta Slim. His partner is Resurrection Mary, the most famous Ghost in Chicago. She died in her teens, on the way to a dance, and became a local legend for asking for rides back to the cemetery, only to fade away. She and Slim are trying to prevent the Complex takeover of Chicago.  The Squat is the most notoriously anti-human bar in the city. The existence is a dearly-kept secret, despite the Complex’s dominance in the city. That’s because it’s a condemned mansion, the only building on its street not destroyed by the Block Fire. It’s now a concert hall with a stage, dance floor, and a killing floor for victims, whose bodies are dumped in the river. The Squat’s owner is an Animate named Duet. Her face was sewn together from the faces of two women who did not resemble each other, the halves connected by a jagged scar. Even her brain was pieced together from multiple donors, leaving her with superhuman intelligence but no emotions. Besides that, she’s described as a chubby deathrock biker. The author seems to think that there’s not a lot of demand for thick goth ice queens.  Baby Bunsen is a Complex agent who used to work for Red Moonrise. She was one of the terrorists responsible for the Block Fire, because she wants revenge on humanity. She chooses to appear as she did in death: a horribly burned 12-year-old girl who died in the Great Chicago Fire. You can picture the boss fight now, right? A dance floor with cages and meathooks while a punk band is playing. Duet is a character in a 2D fighting game.  Wacky Jack’s seems like an unlikely headquarters for the Failsafe Coalition, but so it is. It’s a popular venue for all kinds of rock bands. Wacky Jack is a Texan Vampyre who defected from the Complex. His Hawaiian garb and multicoloured dreadlocks make him hard to miss. He often organizes benefit concerts to aid the homeless.  Jack lives with Icebox, a White Woman who is a lot more aggressive about Failsafe ideology. She believes humankind is too petty and cruel to survive on its own. She’s also viciously opposed to anti-human Kin–especially Nakani, after an encounter with Razor. She’s hard to miss, too, given that she dresses in nothing but lingerie and a trenchcoat. Morningstar’s top man in Chicago is Robin Michener, the leader of Miracle Consultations. Michener maintains diplomatic relations with the pro-human factions against the Complex. He’s a Daemon and an avid baseball fan.  The North Branch Mutants are a Kin gang that deal drugs out of a fortified tenement. Their leader is Deathclown, a Vampyre who spent years living with a traveling circus. He’s very tall and thin and dresses like a Mad Max goon in full clown makeup. The Mutants are nasty pieces of work, but aren’t really anti-Human–they’ve fought against the Suicides. Oh, the Suicides? They’re made up of Kin who killed themselves. They’re a small but extremely violent group led by Blender, an Ekimmu whose body was mangled by the L train. He’s a stinking sack of rotting meat held together by his heavy clothes. The Limbo Wolves have a branch in Chicago, led by a Withered Man named CW Kill U. Strangely, he dresses in ragged old clothes but wears a lot of makeup to hide his apparent age. Under his leadership, the Wolves usually lose in brawls with other gangs. The biggest and most powerful gang in Chicago is the Tattoos, who control the biggest drug running, arms dealing, and racketeering operations. Frostbite has designs on taking over the gang by Infecting their leader, Smiley Costaracas, who would replace the lackluster CW as Frostbite’s lieutenant.  Target Alpha also has an agent in Chicago, and he’s an unusual one: Tony the Razor, a Zipperhead. He got caught and took the “hard option,” choosing the job over cremation. Target Alpha actually trusts Tony to be their main operative in the city, trusted with recruiting other Kin assets. The city’s other Zipperheads help Target Alpha in exchange for being left alone. One of them owns a bar called the Undersea. Lastly, Chicago is home to at least a couple of important Elementals. DuSable is the Concrete of the West Loop, and his Domain cuts across the territories of all the major gangs. He has his hands full keeping them in check. He is enemies with Checagou, an Undine. She appears as an indigenous woman constantly dripping greenish water, thanks to the pollution of the Chicago River. She loathes humanity so much that she’s allied with Duet and Baby Bunsen.  I don’t know a lot about Houston, but I’ve known a lot of people who lived there. It’s a great place to start your career before you move someplace that has geography and weather. McDevitt describes life in Houston as a little slower and more laid-back than you’d expect from a major city, perhaps because of the brutal heat in summer. There’s also some space devoted to just how common it is for people to go around armed. Unlike the other cities, there’s not really a “Kin history” of Houston. The overview of the city emphasizes the city’s industry and ethnic diversity. Major landmarks noted include the downtown tunnel system (very useful to Kin!), the LBJ Space Center, the Texas Medical Center, and Six Flags. So let’s get into the nightspots. The Rocky Road Club hosts world-famous acts, but the media attention makes it a dicey hunting ground. Mick’s Honky-Tonk Barn, the Caribbean, and Fritz’s are more popular with Kin. The premier Kin hangout is Elysia 33. Founded by a genderqueer Vampyre named Gamma Orpheus, it was originally an attempt at a Kin-only bar. Ironically, this only made the place seem more exclusive, and the owner was forced to open it up to avoid undue suspicion. This strategy of hiding in plain sight has worked out well so far, at the cost of playing a lot of Top 40 to appease the Herd tourists. The Zombie City Club is an underground venue beneath a boutique movie store called Film Freak. It’s got a stage and a dance floor and a lot of B-movie posters. The house band, Screamplay, does comedy-horror songs. The owner, Chainsaw Feldstein, is a Sorcerer and horror geek with ties to the NYC Commune. The Club is also the usual hangout for Galveston, an Old West sheriff who still dresses the part. His Relic, a Colt revolver, is buried under the floorboards. The BattleGround is the polar opposite of Elysia 33. It’s a grimy building where the owner, Riotbrain, books metal and hardcore bands. The venue often hosts Born 4 Death (B4D), which started as a Looks 2 Kill cover band. Their frontman is H-Bomb, a secretive, taciturn Vampyre known for his black garb and mushroom cloud tattoos. It’s implied that he’s a Russian veteran of Stalingrad. He’s also a pedophile; he’s dating a teenage girl named Pamela. RatHead is a Wererat and the band’s songwriter. He’s become rich selling hit songs to nationally famous bands in many genres. He’s also the band’s link to the Complex. C-Red, the band’s easygoing drummer, is an Alaskan Manitou and baseball fanatic. There are several gangs operating in the city. The biggest human gang is the Palominos, a motorcycle gang that mostly deals drugs to college students. But they’re nothing compared to the Coyotes, a Kin-led gang that runs drugs, guns, and protection rackets. The leaders of the gang are all Werecoyotes, the strongest of which is named Trickster.  In contrast to the Coyotes, the Knights of the Living Dead are a militantly pro-human gang, an offshoot of the KOLD from New York City. This group’s leader is a Zuvembae named Stormbringer. A classic TV movie protagonist, he’s a cop who was killed by gangbangers and came back for vengeance.  Organized crime is huge in Houston, and most of it is controlled by a Crowley known only as Mister Adonis. He has an arrangement with the Coyotes, and every Kin faction in the city has to work with him or around him, since he controls the mayor’s office and the police. His name is ironic–he’s ugly, very short, and impossibly obese. Expensive clothes don’t help. Adonis isn’t Kin and has no powers of his own. But in exchange for providing human sacrifices to Black Solstice, he got himself a Demon bodyguard named O Twisted. A Threel, O Twisted usually appears as a little boy, and here’s where it gets gross again–Adonis is also a pedophile. The Complex would like to take over Adonis’ operation, but he hasn’t budged. Their chief agent besides Duet and Bunsen is China Flight, an Ubo in charge of their smuggling operations. The Complex wants to make Houston a gateway for smuggling across the Pacific. Flight used to be roommates with Amy Hayes, the drug-crazed member of NYC’s Laughter Factory. Meanwhile, the Morningstar Corporation is ignoring crime in favour of getting its hooks into industry and technology. They’ve heavily invested in aerospace. Their investment in the insecticide industry is the prelude to a comically evil scheme: they’re going to sell unsafe products on purpose, provoke a government crackdown, and seize a big share of the global chemical industry “in the confusion.” Hey, good luck getting the US government to give a poo poo about pollution and healthcare. Anyway, their top man in Houston is Dr. Jonathan Hadean, a finance professor at Rice, scion of an oil fortune, and middling Sorcerer. Red Moonrise has a cell in Houston, which is obsessed with attacking the Space Center out of sheer loathing for scientific progress. It’s leader is Straight Eagle, an Neo-Nazi skinhead from London. His second-in-command is Moskva, a nearly ancient Russian Zombie. She’s secretly working for Lenin’s Ghosts, Russia’s Kin special forces unit. Target Alpha keeps tabs on the Kin factions in Houston. They can’t do much about Adonis because of his influence over local government, but they’re aware of the Complex’s smuggling operations and Morningstar’s investments. Their chief operative is Lee Xuan-McDougal, a redheaded Chinese-Irish-American. Lee has had a successful career thanks to framing his superiors for conspiring with the Complex. Finally, Hexenbanner has some unnamed operatives on the trail of both Dr. Hadean and Chainsaw Feldstein. Next update: Deadly Sparkle, a road trip adventure that ties all these cities together.
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Jan 23, 2022 04:57
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Dawgstar posted:It does feel like Avatar could suffer the same way Masks does if you try to run it like just another supers system (subbing in magic martial arts for supers). I honestly think Avatar and PtbA aren't going to fit. Maybe if you separate the kung-fu and bending ala Lancer with mecha combat and social stuff
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Jan 23, 2022 05:24
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Dawgstar posted:That explains, and it was a good idea, the whole thing with the city on the west coast (Emerald City?) which is much less populated by supers and I think the idea is for your characters to be the first real team there (thanks a superpower-inducing trigger event) although they do have one statted up because... well, NPCs are fun. Emerald City's Sentinels are all PL 10, 150 point characters, so perfect to start playing or use as an example for character building. They also each have a "villain option," the way Champions example characters did in 3e and 4e.
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Jan 23, 2022 05:36
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Infinity RPG: Haqqislam Medicine Is Money Of all the guilds on Bourak, the Biohealth Corps are easily the most academically associated, heavily involved in the universities and bimaristans of the cities. Many of them actually start as small groups of researchers with public funding that develop a new treatment or drug, which they then start a new company to sell. Bigger ones, like Ma'an Azraq or Saygun Hill, are considered amazing places for researchers to work, giving them great freedom and lots of funding to explore whatever part of medicine engages their interest. That said, the Corps do exist to produce money for owners and shareholders, so they are expected to produce salable results at some point. It just need not be soon - most Biohealth Corps take a long view of things and understand that research takes time and needs to be cultivated. Many scientists from across the Human Sphere flock to Bourak for the chance to work in these attractive positions, regardless of their national origins. The Biohealth Corps don't just run research facilities or drug factories, either - a lot of their money comes from running spas and clinics across the planet, often aided by the Master Gardeners that help create lovely and therapeutic environments. These medical tourist facilities are marketed across the Human Sphere for anyone seeking care. It produces tons of money for Haqqislam generally and also gives the guilds a significant amount of soft power throughout the Sphere. People tend to like Haqqislam more as a nation after they've had a lovely time in one of their medical facilities slash resorts, and the government has made great effort to make it easy to run medical tourist facilities because of how useful they are diplomatically. That said, other nations also often want to steal the medical secrets discovered by the Biohealth Corps - and the guilds also want to steal them from each other. Corporate espionage among the medical guilds is rife, thanks to the sheer quantities of money involved. They are always trying to sabotage each other and keep their secrets from being stolen by other corporations or governments. They make a frequent target for those who want to harm Haqqislam, because the medical industry is vital to Bourak's economy but lacks the heavy protections that the Silk trade has. Most of the Corps maintain a sizable security department to protect themselves, and often make an effort to convince both the local government and the Bourak planetary one to help them with security as well. Larger guilds are often protected by Ghulam teams from the Sword of Allah, and high-level executives sometimes get Odalisque protection. Most of the Biohealth Corps go to great lengths to keep their researchers out of the line of fire and insulated from espionage so that they can focus on the work, but rumors spread quickly, and everyone loves gossiping about the latest spy scandals. Some researchers even find the whole idea exciting and actively try to get involved. Again we get two samples corporations. First is Echelon Technologies, a recent guild founded by a team from the University of Medina. The head researchers, Dr. Amina Nahhas and Dr. Caitlin Khan, have developed a radical Silk-aided brain surgery that, in theory, should remove the need to sleep at all. As yet it remains in the theoretical stage, mostly producing large numbers of simulations with ALEPH's help. The surgery would require fully rewiring the brain so that all tasks formerly limited to one hemisphere were shared jointly between them, allowing the patient to rest one hemisphere at a time in a manner similar to a dolphin. The military would love to get such an augmentation, but approval of human testing has yet to be achieved. Echelon's tried three times so far and been rejected each time on ethical grounds. The financial backers are getting upset, and Dr. Khan has begun considering illegal tests of her ideas. Current Resort and Spa is our second, based on a small but lovely island off the Ravansar coast. It is almost entirely designed for offworld tourists, with a paradaisical jungle setting hiding a number of carefully and beautifully designed buildings. The entire island is artificial, built by Ava Industrial, a major Biohealth Corp, and it's a mobile island that usually drifts along the coast near the capital of Iran Zhat Al Amat, but is capable of surprisingly high speeds over a very far range. The island is sometimes moved to various places at the request of powerful guests, to view natural phenomena of note such as eclipses, or to chase migrating pods of sea serpents for the benefit of the tourists attending the spa resort. The Silk Lords are the richest and most powerful of the guilds, and also easily the most corrupt, heavily investigated and prone to conflict. The Haqqislamite government and Hassassins keep an eye on them, but so does every other major power in the Human Sphere. After all, they are the source of immortality, and their wealth is one of the main things that keeps Haqqislam independent and powerful. They control the Silk, and there is no medical treatment or drug in human history more important than Silk. Their wealth and power has corrupted the governments of Gabqar and Funduq to a greater degree than most other parts of Bourak, for Gabqar is where Silk is made and Funduq is home to the space elevator that takes it into orbit for shipping across the Human Sphere. The governments work hard to influence the Silk Lords, and the Silk Lords work hard to influence the regional governments. It's gotten even worse since Kerim Bey was elected Sultan of Funduq and Lord of the Gate, publically promising to break the influence of the Silk Lords over the region. As yet, no one is sure if he actually intends to purge corruption or if he just wants to get rid of Silk Lords that oppose him politically, but it's made him plenty of enemies among their ranks. The Sultan never sleeps in the same place two nights in a row and is always surrounded by a large bodyguard of soldiers, Odalisques and hackers to ensure he isn't assassinated. (And for good reason - he's not just a target of the Silk Lords; his death has been ordered by the Evolved Intelligence, which has identified him as being in charge of the Qapu Khalqi armada that has proven so good at reinforcing the Paradiso blockades, and the Shasvastii have made several unsuccessful attempts on his life.) Each Silk Lord runs their own organization, usually structured similarly to a crime family or mafia. They maintain their own separate Silk production, real estate, private armies and hired pirates to protect their shipping, and each also tends to cultivate government officials to approve their various projects with bribes, threats or a mix of both. Each organization is heavily colored by the personality and goals of the individual Silk Lord running it, and ownership is usually handed down on dynastic lines, though sometimes advisors or warlords will make power plays for control. In theory, all answer to the Silk Consortium, a collective organization that allows the Lords to meet each other on neutral ground, with legal guarantees of safety. In practice, the Consortium is almost never used unless the entire system of Silk Lord-run guilds is threatened - which means that since the election of Kerim Bey, it's seen unprecedented levels of activity and joint operations between Silk Lords. Through the Consortium, the Silk Lords also cooperate on a few key projects that form bottlenecks in the Silk supply chain - most notably, the maglev trains that transport Silk from its production facilities to Dar El Funduq, but also some military training schools. The Al Hawwa' combat hackers of the Qapu Kalqi's naval division, for example, are partially funded by the Consortium. (Officially this is a gift; in practice, it almost certainly comes with requirements.) The maglevs are a single point of failure for Silk transport, so they are heavily guarded by the Azra'il Special Deterrence Group, a paramilitary organization made up exclusively of retired or discharged members of the Sultan's personal guard, noted for their heavy armor and heavier firepower. Despite this, the lure of wealth leads people to try and rob the trains with some regularity - sometimes crime bosses, sometimes foreign agents, sometimes even groups funded by Silk Lords to steal from their rivals. It rarely goes well, and one of the more ambitious attempts in recent memory involved an entire fake maglev train, whose shattered remains have been left next to the tracks by the Azra'il as a warning to others. Most of the Silk Lords operate out of Dar El Funduq, given its place in trading and shipping for all of Haqqislam. They are renowned for living in gorgeous and heavily fortified compounds and estates, guarded by "bodyguards" that are essentially paramilitary units all their own. Some Silk Lords choose to live in even more remote regions, such as the highlands of Khiva Kala or out in space in a caravanserai, which tends to be safer but also means they're further from the economic pulse of the nation and often have lag time on their business decisions. We have two example Silk Lords, as expected. The first is Efe El-Hashem Lund, who has chosen to live near the Silk production facilities in Khiva Kala. He's famous for the huge parties he throws every Friday when the maglevs leave station to deliver the Silk, flying in wealthy and famous people from across Bourak every week to celebrate. He also operates a lottery - ten random citizens are selected each week to attend the party, with free tailor services to ensure they come in style. Mariette Naskali - Jet to her friends - is more infamous. She tried to have Kerim Bey murdered three separate times and, in response, was declared an enemy of Haqqislam. Her assets were seized and given to her advisor, Halim Sleiman, who has sworn allegiance to the Sultan. Secretly, however, Halim remains loyal to Jet and continues to take orders from her, though they have to be delivered from her hiding place in space. She lives in a set of custom-made quarters designed to be easily attached to any of her corsair vessels or caravanserais, allowing her to live in the opulence she is accustomed to while fleeing at a moment's notice to a new location. Tracking her down has proven impossible even for the wealth of Kerim Bey, thanks to her loyal Al Hawwa' hacker team covering her movements and scrambling her transmissions. After covering these orgs, we move on to an in-depth look at the planet of Bourak. When it was first discovered, it was barely habitable due to its closeness to its sun and the fact that most land was in the tropics, making it unbearably hot. The Haqqislamite pilgrims refused to accept this as a defeat and set about making it their home anyway, building a network of terraforming towers to cultivate their new world and extend the boundaries of human life, so that it would become the garden they envisioned. In many places the project has succeeded amazingly, producing excellent fields, beautiful plantlife and slow expansion of Earthlike environs. However, as you get further from the equator, it tends to be less complete, with farmland shifting to wild savannah to deserts with occasional oases of parasol fungi and low scrub. The mountains are even rougher, cold and barren but for the hardiest plant life, with extensive valley systems. The mountains control the weather, preventing rainclouds from traveling far, and human settlements in the mountains are often governed by how much rainfall they receive. While life inside the cities of Bourak is as excellent as anywhere in the Human Sphere, travel outside them must be done with planning. Bouraki people have inherited a cultural attitude of survival and love of life from the original settlers, and the idea of planning for the worst that Bourak can throw at them is deeply engrained. Even after many decades of work, the planet is noted for its sudden and violent storm systems that can be terrifying even to nativeborn people, especially those that roll in off the desert and carry enough sand to blast flesh off bone or those which come from the savannah with a cloud of choking seed-threads. Fortunately, the storms tend to dissipate quickly, for all their terror, and the people have learned how to recover from them. Where the continents were found to be largely barren, the oceans of Bourak are thriving with life. The intense sunlight from Fareedat causes immense algal blooms and massive amounts of phytoplankton, which provide the foundation for an immense food chain of marine life...most of which is snakes. Sea snakes come in a huge variety on Bourak, from tiny, worm-like critters to massive sea serpents. Much of life on Bourak in general is reptilian and much of that serpentine, but nowhere is this clearer than the oceans, which are full of happy giant snakes. Scientists believe part of this is because the sunlit euphotic zones are on average deeper than on Earth, which has led to higher density of life. Little research has gone into what lives in the deep dysphotic and aphotic zones, but most biologists assume they're no less rich in variety. It's just that the upper oceans have so much left to explore that no one's really gotten around to the depths. Common folk tales among fishermen suggest that the depths are full of horrific, alien monstrosities that occasionally get tangled up in fishing nets, but since all footage of these creatures has ended up pretty blurry and unclear, no one can tell if they're real or the work of enterprising pranksters and artists. For most Haqqislamites, the care and development of the planet is one of the ultimate expressions of societal faith and progress, and it is deeply important that it continue. The making of the desert bloom is a point of pride, though the job is far from complete. The ideal is a world where human civilization can coexist with beautiful nature, both cultivated by the hands of the faithful - inside and outside the cities. This has proven somewhat more difficult due to the limited variety of native plantlife. That said, while there's only a few different plant families, each one has a massive variety of species within it, expanding to fill many environmental niches. Grasses are the most common, found throughout the native biomes. Most are tough and coarse, flowering in spring and autumn to get pollinated by various insects. Most rely on the wind to spread their seeds, and the massive seed clouds can cause great damage to communities by coating buildings, to say nothing of the hell for anyone that hasn't had their allergies addressed by Bourak's many doctors. Seed-threads are prone to fires, getting stuck in ventilation, clinging to machinery and increasing the friction on machine parts, and generally causing a lot of frustration. As terraforming has altered the weather patterns, seed-thread plagues have become more frequent and dangerous, and they're a major issue in rural areas, which have been asking the Terraforming Council to find a solution for several years now. Most larger plantlife resembles bush scrub, with thick and barky stalks that end in sharp, pointy leaves. They grow in clonal patches in which each scrub tree is genetically identical to the rest in the patch. After rain, they produce small berries, which are sweet and a common source of food for many of the land-based reptiles that come out after the rains. The lizards often collect large amounts of berries, which they bury in caches for later, to be eaten on hot days when they don't come above ground. Forgotten caches then sprout in the next rainfall, spreading the scrub. There's also a number of succulents that can grew to heights of two meters on the savannahs. They flower quickly following rainfall, attracting pollinators - a mix of bugs and small flying lizards, plus some snakes. Several produce large flower pods that can be refined into a powerful hallucinogen. The drug is considered haram under Haqqislam, but rumor has it the Hassassins use it to interrogate prisoners. Probably the weirdest succulent is the Hofrehgiyahi, a circle of bulbous leaves up to three meters in radius. They share a large taproot that extends deep into the ground and grows wider with age, becoming hollow in the center. The hollow is invisible from the outside but can be two meters wide and two to three deep. Many criminal groups will lift up the leaf circle to get access to the taproot hollow, which they use to store contraband. This slowly kills the plant, and a surprisingly active community of treasure hunters has formed up around searching for dying Hofrehgiyahi and looting them. After a heavy rain, the plant will send up a single large shoot that bursts as it dries, rleeasing a deadly cloud of hallucinogenic, poisonous seeds onto the wind, which has ended up killing both criminals and treasure hunters trying to access the plant caches. Next time: Snakes and mushrooms.
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Jan 23, 2022 18:37
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quote:After a heavy rain, the plant will send up a single large shoot that bursts as it dries, rleeasing a deadly cloud of hallucinogenic, poisonous seeds onto the wind, which has ended up killing both criminals and treasure hunters trying to access the plant caches. Okay finally they're talking about PC relevant stuff.
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Jan 24, 2022 12:30
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Infinity RPG: Haqqislam Super Mario World There are few lifeforms on Bourak more famous than the Bourak Parasol, a tall fungus topped in many umbrella-shaped pilei. (That's the mushroom cap.) The trunk is hard and rough to protect the inner parts from the sun, and often have multiple offshoots, each with their own pileus. Like Bouraki scrub, Parasols are clonal lifeforms that tend to exist in large patches. The pileus is where their spores live, and they soften when wet to release said spores into the air. As they dry and contract, they make sharp cracking noises. The spores themselves are mostly harmless, unless infected by certain native parasites, which can be told from the trunk and pilei of the Parasol - the trunk grows discolored and the pilei have streaks of color running through them when infected. Infected spores are dangerous to breathe in and should be avoided. The fungi are very culturally important, as their presence revealed to early settlers the existence of underground water sources - a fact that every Bouraki citizen knows, even those who never leave the cities. Many folk tales talk about how travellers are saved by taking refuge from the sun under a Parasol and finding water springs beneath it, and sun parasols sold in the bazaars are often patterned after the wild mushroom caps. Besides the native lifeforms, most Earth-based plantlife is found in the tropical regions, where Bouraki civilization is focused. Besides staple food crops, many cultivate small gardens and many communities maintain tree groves of old Earth plants - cyprus, acacia, olives, that kind of thing. These are actually part of the ongoing terraforming project rather than just simple garden parks - the idea is that the vegetation will grow and take hold, helping to transform the region and serving as a visual sign of how well things are going. Bourak's animals tend to go out of their way to avoid the hottest hours and the direct light of Fareedat; it produces less ultraviolet light than Sol but a lot more heat. Most animals are nocturnal or active in the late afternoon and evening. The majority of land animals are very similar to Earth reptiles - scaly, ectothermic egglayers that have dominated most ecological niches. Some lizards and snakes are only as big as your nail, while others are multiple meters long and up to two meters tall. One of the biggest is the Ezhdeha Sabz, a massive savannah lizard that mostly eats grasses and succulents. Their back, head and outer leg scales are thick armor, and they travel in large herds that follow the seasonal rains. They are mostly predated on by the Ezhdeha Tariki, pack-hunting lizards about two meters long and as clever as a dog. They strike to wound, relying on necrotic poison in their saliva to weaken their prey until they stop moving and can be eaten alive. That's not to say all animals on the planet are reptilian - there's a number of warm-blodded critters too, of various sizes. Most are nocturnal and tend to have highly developed senses and large eyes. The scariest ones are probably the Sakht Taqdeer, found in the mountains of Gabqar, who resemble large lions with black fur and a vicious demeanor. They are apex predators and were nearly driven to extinction in the early days of the colony, but there have been recent efforts to preserve and breed them back up to a strong wild population, mostly driven by the tourist industry that wants to cater to big game hunters and thrill seekers. There's also a ton of arthropod-like insects; they have organs more similar to lungs than the tracheae of Earth bugs, but most people neither know about this nor care. Mostly, they are decomposers or pollinators. With the terraforming project going well, slow introduction of Earth animals has begun, using artificial wombs for the first generation of native-born livestock, along with the small number of live animals descended from those brought from Earth. Early colonists introduced chickens, sheep, camels, horses and goats, and that's been the focus of the animal introduction program so far. Recently, it expanded to also include some other birds and wildlife, with carefully controlled releases and strict monitoring both of their effect on the local environment and its effect on them. Most animals released into the wild have been genetically modified to render them sterile or had their movement somehow restricted to limit their ecological impact. There are ongoing debates about the halal status of native herbivores, too, but the majority consensus is that as long as they are slaughtered correctly, they are halal. I'm skimming past the economy section because the overview of the Guilds covered almost all of it anyway. Instead, let's talk about the people! Outsiders often stereotype Haqqislamites as being utterly dominated by their religious beliefs, and they tend to be surprised by how pluralist and open Bourak is, embracing multiple ideologies, beliefs and cultures existing side by side. Yes, the practice of Haqqislam is obvious to anyone at all levels of society, but the embrace of knowledge-seeking and trade have made the people of Bourak very open, accepting and without prejudice towards those who do not follow their ways. Religious practice is very important to most Haqqislamites, though adherence to traditional practices such as wudu (ritual washing) and the exact timing and manner of the Salah, the five daily prayers, are not as strict as many tend to assume. The Call to Prayer still rings out from minarets and mosques across the planet and play over the comlogs of most Haqqislamites, but the content and nature of their prayers is highly personal. Many spend their daily prayers in meditation and reflection rather than more traditional prayers, and this is not considered particularly strange - introspection and self-examination of one's role in the Search for Knowledge are considered holy, after all, and performing them as prayer is just as valid as older ways. There's also a large emphasis on communal life and activity, with most Bourakis spending time in public parks, debate halls or coffee houses, interacting with their neighbors. Even their Maya programs encourage group participation and connection with the community. For many Haqqislamites, specific ritual observances are less important than how one acts and that one's deeds reflect a commitment to the Search for Knowledge and the teachings of Allah. Daily life on Bourak is split into periods of work, study and personal time, and while it's a thriving world for business, even business bends to this cultural imperative. While many jobs can be physicall or mentally taxing - or both - there is a strong recognition that a person needs to be more than their work. That's part of why there's such a strong focus on communal life and communal entertainment, giving people time to relax and unwind between the busy parts of the day. That said, the Bourakis frown on perceived laziness, and the tough life of the early colonists has led to an enthusiasm for hard work and giving one's all during periods of work. It's just a common understanding that one must not only work hard at labor but also at self-improvement and study; many Bourakis take up hobbies which they become exceptionally enthusiastic about, and spend at least several hours a day in religious study or contemplation. Bouraki fashion favors practical clothing, reflecting their strong connection to the difficulties of early settlement. It mostly favors airy, layered clothes which cover skin to protect it from sand and wind, along with common hats, scarves and hijabs to protect the head and face and to cover the hair. Shawls and sashes are common among many different subcultures. Colors tend to be duller and more muted than on other planets, with white being common as a cooling color and most clothes being a mix of white or light earth tones with only small splashes of brighter colors. Jewelry is common among all genders, with arm bands, necklaces, earrings and pins all signs of wealth and power. Poorer families tend to save their jewelry for special occasions and wear clothing that tends to have plain or nonexistent patterns, focusing on the practical things. Middle class fashion favors geometric patterns, especially along edges, and many rings and necklaces worn pretty much at all times. Among wealthy elites, less jewelry is actually more common, usually only a single ring or exquisitely made necklace rather than the multiple ones the middle class wear. For the truly wealthy, opulence is shown in one's home and business, typically by having a large family with multiple concubines and beautiful surroundings. Fashion trends vary heavily by region, though on average Gabqar tends towards more conservative looks and more obvious class divides, and resort areas like the al-Idrisi coast tend to more revealing fashions and obsession with physical beauty. The so-called "cult of beauty" is fairly common among the urban Bouraki, with all genders taking cues from Maya stars and the Neo-Concubine augmentations of the Odalisques about what it means to be beautiful. Cosmetic surgery is common and a major sign of wealth, even more than jewelry is. The doctors on Bourak are the best, after all - and that includes the cosmetic surgeons. They tend to avoid the more drastic physical alterations practiced by the Nomads, such as the creation of furry Chimeras; that tends to be seen as vulgarly debasing what Allah designed. Instead, an emphasis is placed on subtlety and the use of cosmetic surgery for refinement of one's innate, natural beauty, as a sculptor might refine the curves and lines of a stone to bring out its inner truth. Bourak's entertainment industry is often considered weird by outsiders. Niche sports like kabaddi have intense followers and national competitions, and various cultural wrestling traditions are actively followed, particularly Iranian zoorkhaneh wrestling, which is very popular among both the military and civilian populations, with influential and wealthy families backing wrestling teams as a point of pride. Sports competitions in generally are widely broadcast across Bourak via Maya. Board games and multiplayer video games are also popular, as multiplayer interactive entertainment is considered to help hone and train the mind. Every coffehouse on the planet will have sets of backgammon and dominos for people to play while relaxing. Maya channels also exist for all kinds of stuff, most notably action shows about popular corsairs, medical dramas set in the research universities, and cooking shows. Cooking is one of the most common hobbies on the planet. As anywhere, music is very popular - and particularly live music, with public funds going towards concerts in the many gardens and parks across the planet. The most popular musical trends tend to involve heavy drums, electronic accompaniments, frequent use of strings and complex rhythms. Lyrical poetry is also exceptionally popular, and while it's not explicitly stated, I suspect that there is a thriving and thoroughly mainstream genre of religious hiphop. Culturally, music is held up as a method of engaging the soul emotionally and discussion of the emotional themes of music is common. Next time: Regional breakdowns. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Jan 24, 2022 |
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Jan 24, 2022 13:28
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Mors Rattus posted:
This begs for "average nomad fan, average haqqislam enjoyer" meme
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Jan 24, 2022 13:47
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I do like the idea of Haqqislam having incredibly serious sports channels dedicated to board games.
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Jan 24, 2022 13:53
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There has to be a sect of radical posthumanists who consider the human form but a patch of dirt given form by Allah on which to grow your own unique freaky garden.
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Jan 24, 2022 14:07
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Probably, they’re just not the mainstream view.
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Jan 24, 2022 14:12
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Infinity RPG: Haqqislam The Garden State The Al Medinat Caliphate is the heartland of Bourak and Haqqislam, the most successfully terraformed place on the entire planet. It is lush and green, and while the climate remains hot and dry at the equator, you'd never know it to look at the rest of the region. The beauty is only interrupted by the frequent sight of terraforming towers, which the locals consider to be symbols of a greater future still. Many Haqqislamites travel to Al Medinat each year, looking for work or study at the excellent universities, theatres, art galleries or similar. Often, the region is seen as the cultural center of the entire planet, celebrating everything the people of Bourak create. The only city with a notably expanded writeup is Medina, the capital. The city is designed to shine under the sun, and to keep the skyline more uniform and the heat from being a problem, much of the construction is underground rather than as giant skyscrapers. The dome of the Great Mosque dominates many views of the city, and there are hundreds of minarets throughout Medina. The city has over ten million inhabitants, and about that many pilgrims travel through each year to worship at the Great Mosque. While religious worship is important, though, it's not all the city has. It is also a city of zoos, museums and galleries showcasing the history and culture of Bourak and Earth, as well as art and culture from across the Human Sphere. Poets, artists and imams give public lectures and performances in its many parks. (Oh yeah, Haqqislam accepts that people can be imams again, which is cool. They have greatly reduced authority but are respected scholars and community leaders.) Medina, when originally built, was intended to be the center of a new holy land and a pilgrimage site for those who came across space. Therefore, it was constructed as much as a symbol as it was a place to live, not intended just for functionality but also to welcome people from across human cultures. It was cosmopolitan from the start, incorporating the ideas and values of the homelands of all of the people of Haqqislam. The outer edges often come off as chaotic and unplanned suburbs, with little collections of homes and businesses built close together and few paved roads, but this is actually intentional, meant as a place where new immigrants can get acclimated without feeling cramped and stuffed into tight quarters in the city proper. Inside the city, there is nothing quite so ubiquitous or culturally important as the coffe house. Public spaces and coffee houses near them are common, and these cafes are often much larger than on other planets, intended not just to serve coffee but also to be communal gathering spots. They are often sponsors of Philosophy Teams, organized groups that meet to debate each other on various issues in a friendly (but competitive) way. Many coffee houses host local poets or philosophers to entertain people with readings, bring in musicians at night to play, and often have various board games around for patrons to play as they try rare teas and coffees. The University of Medine is widely recognized as the best on the planet, with some of the most sophisticated research labs in the Human Sphere. It receives frequent donations from many wealthy families and businesses, and so there really aren't any underfunded departments, either, with guest lecturers brought in from all over the Sphere and students getting access to the cutting edge of works on art, technology and philosophy. The university consistently breaks its own records on enrollment numbers, and graduation from it is a major point of prestige. However, competition is very strong and many students end up burning out due to the high standards and intensity of the study programs. The families of dropouts often attempt to conceal that their children ever went there to avoid the stigma and shame of failure, but even just having attended tends to mean the dropouts can find a place to study at one of the many other schools on Bourak. The Sword of Allah has significant facilities in the city, most notably the Fortress Almanzor, whose huge communication towers are easily spotted on the skyline near the Great Mosque. This is the nerve center for the Sword's operations throughout the Human Sphere, receiving a constant data feed from the Eye of Allah satellite network as well as messages from couriers traveling across space. Hundreds of soldiers and civilian analysts work to track all this information constantly, allowing the generals in charge to plan wide-ranging strategy. The city is also home to a number of defensive regiments, like the 3rd Janissary Corps and the 5th Desert Combat Wing, though the place has never really come under direct military threat. If it ever does, the 5th maintain Roc-class troop transports capable of moving up to 17 fully armored soldiers each to anywhere in the region within minutes. Medina also, for all its beauty and culture, has a thriving criminal underbelly. Many tell rumors and stories about the Medina Black Market and most people consider it an urban legend, but it's quite real and powerful, having avoided destruction by the law multiple times. While the idealists in the government would dearly love to crush it, but the Black Market is far too profitable for a number of powerful people and families for them to be allowed to. Everything is for sale if you know where to look, and the Black Market is a hotbed of information brokers and criminals for hire, often used by various corporations to strike out at each other or steal new developments. There's nowhere better to go for illegal Silk or bootleg products. But even the Medina Black Market isn't the worst you can find. That honor belongs to the Siyah Sokak, or 'black alley' - that is, the underground world of illegal medical work. Surgeons and doctors of the Siyah Sokak are often used as villains in Haqqislamite dramas, for they practice banned medical techniques and therapies and are willing to do anything for the right price, from psychosurgery to illegal combat augments to back alley Resurrections. Neither the Black Market nor the Siyah Sokak are easily found by those who don't have connections. They don't exist in any specific location, but are rather spread throughout the city - or in the case of the Siyah Sokak, across the entire planet, as the doctors move often between hiding places to avoid arrest. You just find their contacts in Medina, for the most part. The criminal surgeons of the Siyah Sokak use contacts throughout the underworld to evade detection, flying in to perform their work as needed and then returning to their secret homes. They are almost always extremely paranoid and ruthless about their own privacy, for being revealed as a member of the Siyah Sokak is one of the best ways to get killed on Bourak. The cops are notoriously rough with their arrests - but those are the lucky ones, as the Hassassins despise the crime doctors, seeing them as impediments to the Search for Knowledge, while most petty criminals look at them as arrogant assholes. It's no wonder they're so focused on concealing their identities. The biggest landmark in the entire city is easily the Great Mosque, with its four gigantic minarets that tower over the rest of the city. They're loaded with speakers, and their Call to Prayer can be heard from anywhere in the entirety of Medina. The architecture is designed to mix ancient tradition with modern techniques, and its brilliant dome shines with a halo of light at night, while in the day, the thousands of windows along the mosque are set up to ingeniously refract and reflect sunlight to provide the interior with glorious natural light that barely needs any help to illuminate the interior. The Mosque itself is split into the Outer Area, where modern technology is permitted to be used, and the Inner Chamber, where sermons are held and use of technology is forbidden. The imams that manage the Mosque generally believe it'd be better if they banned technology through the entire structure, but have ceded its use to the Outer Area because they know people need their modern conveniences. The Mosque also doubles as an emergency shelter for the city's entire population should it come under attack, though the massive tunnel and shelter network beneath it has never needed to be used. The city planners built it with the idea that the Mosque should always be central to the city's survival, even in times of war, after all. Rumor has it that the Black Market maintains itself out of a tunnel network that connects to the Mosque tunnels, or that government officials use the shelters to hold secret meetings for discussion of things they will not allow to be recorded. We move on to the Huriyyah Archipelago, a Caliphate subregion treated as an ongoing terraforming experiment. Each island is designed as a separate biosphere, to be used as testbeds for new techniques and technologies. Because of the enclosed nature of each island's ecosystem, they have been used to test the impact of introducing Earth species. They're also culturally distinct from most of the planet, largely due to descending heavily from Javanese and Malay settlers. Much of their money is made on tourism. Its only major city of note is Ferdous, which is rare for the region in that it was originally intended as a fishing and farming area, though much of its business has been retooled to allow tourists to go on exciting serpent-fishing trips now. It's also home to some of Bourak's best terraforming guilds, with many top scientists working out of it. What makes Ferdous interesting, though? That'd be illegal gladitorial lizard fighting leagues. The locals and tourists alike love to gamble on fights between captured examples of local wildlife. The most common fighters are Ezhdeha Tariki, large predatory lizards that usually get metal blades strapped onto their foreclaws to make them more dangerous. In theory, lizard fights are to first blood, but in practice, most don't end until one of the animals is dead. The law has been trying to crack down on the illegal fighting rings for years, but they've been almost entirely unsuccessful in doing so. Indeed, many suspect that the local cops are being bribed to look the other way, as their efforts are usually for show more than anything else. The Taba subcontinent is the other major subregion of Al Medinat. It sits on the equator, so it's full of desert and mountains that occasionally bloom with the rains. Rain is pretty infrequent and usually comes with violent flash floods and temporary lakes that eventually evaporate. These "ephemeral" lakes are the key to local ecosystems, with plants and animals quickly taking advantage of them when they form. The largest ephemeral lakebed is Lake Mundafen, which has become a cultural center for the nomadic Murabid tribes that live in Taba. They have no permanent settlements, but tribes frequently camp along the lakeshore, whether it's wet or not, and use it as a hub for meetings and trading. The region is also home to three Jewish kibbutzim along the lakeshore. Karmia ('vineyard'), Matzuba ('pyramid') and Zikim ('point of light') are farming settlements that also serve to help man the boats when the lake fills up. They are home to thousands of Jewish settlers who have been given ownership of much of the land in exchange for a pledge to support the Search for Knowledge by studying and reporting on the effects of terraforming in the region. They've been so successful that there's now a regional branch of the Terraformation Institute in Karmia. The ruins of the old city of 'Amal have been abandoned, and the landscape around them is true wasteland, thanks to the terraforming failure that caused a massive ecological collapse. In recent years it's seen more use as a frequent set for Maya dramas, mostly those about survival, Bouraki history or post-apocalyptic settings. There are a few people still living in the ruins, who simultaneously appreciate the company because they can make some money helping the film crews survive in the ruins and hate them because they tend to act as if they own the place and don't really care what the small number of locals want. The coastal city of Ongut, on the other hand, is notable for two things: fish and horses. The massive, carefully cared for grasslands around the city are home to many horse ranches, where the ongoing breeding of the expensive and beloved Arabians continues. The fishermen head out into the straits to catch serpents, particularly the purple Fasji, which are about seventy centimeters long and the primary meat of the city. Because of the sheer amount of serpents, the fishermen don't usually compete over territory, either, and the locals tend to be very friendly. Fasji are notable for needing great care to properly prepare, as their venom sacs, if sliced, will ruin the meat. The venom is rarely fatal, mostly causing cramps and mild seizures, but some folks do die each year, mostly due the effects hitting them at a very bad time. Fish may feed the city, but horses are what it is famous for. The Arabians of Ongut are known across the entire planet, and the horse racing circuit of all of Bourak centers on Ongut. The best horses are said to come from stables of the Qasr and Al-Malaz ranching dynasties, and the competition between the two families is vicious. Brawls between those who favor one stable over the other are common on race days, along with a lot of cash betting (and accompanying money laundering). Race days in general are a hotbed of spycraft, adventure and chaos, as all kinds of people gather to watch the excitement. The main stables all have their own colors, which are worn by fans as a point of pride, hung from windows, and more. It's not just the races, either - horses that aren't fast enough to race or kept for stud purposes are typically used for the sport of Buzkashi, in which two mounted teams attempt to get an objective trophy from the center of the field into their respective goals. Buzkashi has very few rules, and injuries are common, whether due to punching other riders, being kicked by a horse or being hit by a horsewhip. Indeed, it isn't even rare for people to die while playing, given how violent the fights for control of the trophy can get. (What is the trophy? Well, in the common Afghan sport on modern Earth, usually a goat carcass.) Ongut's rich and powerful tend to recruit muscle and bodyguards from those who play Buzkashi, so it's a good way to get famous as a mercenary. There's another city, Saif, but nothing of special note there. Next time: Funduq
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Jan 24, 2022 19:20
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NutritiousSnack posted:I honestly think Avatar and PtbA aren't going to fit. Maybe if you separate the kung-fu and bending ala Lancer with mecha combat and social stuff I'm curious why you think the system and setting won't mix, out of curiosity? What do you think PbtA lacks for Avatar? What would you want from an Avatar game?
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Jan 24, 2022 21:09
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All I want from an Avatar game is for the four elements to be distinct and have different applications. The show even set it up in kind of a gamey way (fire=offense oriented, water = healing, etc.)
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Jan 24, 2022 21:32
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Why would anyone want an Avatar game? That movie was terrible!
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Jan 24, 2022 21:54
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Covok posted:I'm curious why you think the system and setting won't mix, out of curiosity? PtbA isn't good for action, it's good to great at emulating at genre, mood, and storytelling. Which okay is HALF of what makes Avatar work, but the cinematic fights of Avatar or (other) kung-fu or battle manga can't be replicated or really played that way. Kids in general are going to jump in expecting the system to emulate the later and it won't.
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Jan 25, 2022 01:34
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Avatar RPG obviously should have been built as an Exalted hack.
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Jan 25, 2022 06:38
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Devorum posted:Avatar RPG obviously should have been built as an Exalted hack. Godbound hack! Just make each type of bending a Word.
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Jan 25, 2022 08:40
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