Dark Points of Interference

This struck me. I immediately applied this to every thinker I dislike. Typing it out, I realised he was talking about me.

“Much greater is the evil which lies in the pompous retinue of technical terms – scientific expressions and metaphors, which these systems carry in their train, and which like a rabble – like the baggage of an army broken away from it's chief – hang about in all directions. Any critic who has not adopted a system, either because he has not found one to please him, or because he has not yet been able to make himself master of one, will at least occasionally make use of one, as one would use a ruler, to show the blunders committed by a general.

The most of them are incapable of reasoning without using as a help here and there some shreds of scientific military theory. The smallest of these fragments, consisting in mere scientific words and metaphors, are often nothing more than ornamental flourishes of critical narration.

Now it is the nature of things that all technical and scientific expressions which belong to a system lose their property, if they ever had any, as soon as they are distorted, and used as general axioms, or as small crystalline talismans, which have more power of demonstration than simple speech.

Thus it has come to pass that our theoretical and critical books, instead of being straightforward, intelligible dissertations, in which the author always knows at leas what he says and the reader what he reads, are brimful of these technical terms, which form dark points of interference where author and reader part company.

But frequently they are something worse, being nothing but hollow shells without any kernel. The author himself has no clear perception of what he means, contents himself with vague ideas, which if expressed in plain language would be unsatisfactory even to himself.”

Carl von Clausewitz

On War, book two

(paragraph gaps added by me, dude was German, he liked density)

Senor de la Horda

A few weeks ago some friends and I were hanging around waiting to play Microscope. We spotted some 40K products in the corner and, driven by my buried adolescent self, I went to have a look. 

The most important thing I discovered is that almost every language in the world describes the agents of the dark Future where there are No Hugs better than English. Each box of deathtoys has a translation of the contents in several languages and every single language in the world sounds cooler than mine.

It's payday and I just picked up the latest issue of White Dwarf, which is now a slightly dull corporatised magazine with nice photos. But there is still gold in the margins if you look for it.

Empire Witch Hunter - Hexenjager des Imperiums

       OR!             Cazador de Brujas

Empire Master Engineer - Maestro Ingeniero

Orcs & Goblins Mangler Squig - Garrapato Despachurrador

The Swarmlord - Senor de la Horda

Spacewolves Thunderwolf Cavalry - Caballeria Lobo de Trueno

Beastmen Ghorgon - Ecatombe degli Uominbestia

Old Snow

I don't know if my memory has always been poor but the everyday things sleet through my hand like old snow. Perhaps because of this, I have an obsession with memory and with the history of thinking about memory.

(blah blah blah, it's long, fair warning)

Syllables

This may be somewhat useful for people.

Playing Ghost/Echo I gave players ten syllables each to equip their characters.

So you can have a sword – 1 syllable, or a Kendachi Monoblade – 6 syllables.

For D&D type games this could be linked to Charisma, with each point giving you another syllable of description. This is in the long tradition of making-charisma-useful.

Would probably work better with story-games and/or chilled out players. Though if combined with a LOTFP simple encumbrance rule and with banning magical items I think it could function quite well.

I'm pretty sure I half-stole this idea from someone in the OSR, it's a bit like Zack S's syllables-for-price idea. Or someone trading character points for syllables of description during char-gen. Anyway, if its you I stole it from, sorry.

'I burn down the space elevator'

AP reports are usually utterly boring to anyone who wasn't there so the rest of this is behind a break.

Everyone else has already made intelligent comments about the system we used, Ghost/Echo.

I wrote this as a standard relation of events but it was too long and too dull. Instead, here are a series of history fragments from 'To The Stars'

To The Stars

A Microscope - derived shared world timeline for gaming in.

The idea is that we play different games each week, place them in a particular point in the timeline, and gradually fill in the details.

After trying numerous free online Timeline creators and finding tham all bugged to fuck, I am simply posting this on my blog.

CAPITALS are long periods of time. The whole thing should take fifty to 100 thousand years, so there is a lot of figurative space between the lines. 


We played for three hours and the whole of human civilisation collapsed twice.

The Rise of a People to the Stars

***********BEGINNING***************NOTHING BEFORE THIS POINT**********

MAN HEADS TO THE NEIGHBOURING PLANETS - dark

NATION STATES ON THE FIRST WORLD BATTLE FOR LOW ORBIT SUPREMACY

(HOT/COLD WARS) – dark

• Echelon Zero's artificial consciousness emerges from a soup of logic and thought. - light
• First recorded rampant echelon system – dark

STRANGE WAR WITH THE HIDEOUS MURDERING BUG THINGS – dark

• Ill fated echelon 3 series used against the HMBT's – light
• 'Blueprints' for Zero Point Way-station stolen by spies – dark

FOUNDATION OF ZERO POINT WAYSTATION IN OORT CLOUD – light

• Ten million ships fly past Zero Point Way-station during opening ceremony – light

APEX TECH COLLAPSES ON EARTH – dark

ZERO POINT BECOMES CONSTANTINOPLE-STYLE REMNANT OF A FALLEN CULTURE – light

• The last message arrives from a collapsing technological planet – dark
• The last message is received by Zygmunt Blank, the final Soldier-Scholar, Edward Roosevelt, an Engineer and the sculptor Absolom Faringer. In a nihilistic rage Blank kills Absolom Faringer and out of regret he dedicates himself to preserving Absoloms art. Roosevelt attempts to bring Blank to justice but is himself murdered in the sculpture garden on Zero Point. The only witnesses are Roosevelt’s son Archibald and an Gene-engineered Velociraptor named Spielberg. The sublime Art of Faringer sparks a human renaissance that ultimately returns mankind to the stars. The future of mankind was midwived by murder. Both light and dark.

EXPEDITIONS HEAD INTO THE VOID SEEKING TO BRING NEW LIFE – light

• Archibald Roosevelt agrees to be the founding genome in order to re-establish humanity because it is the right thing to do. - light

RECOLONISATION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM – light

FIRST SCHWÄRM LADEN WAR – light?

• Destruction of Zero Point Way-Station – dark
• Bo Lucas, insane Space Marine, destroys Zero Point whilst under the incompetent command of Sebastian Fortesque during the battle against the Schwärm Laden. Echelon V was the artificial intelligence occupying the defending ship. - dark
• Karl-4 the Hyper-Neanderthal President of Humanity is persuaded to let Echelon VII lead the Ontological-Warhead strike by Stanislaw Brock the Grand Hierophant of Earth. Echelon VII will encode humanity in the Sun's Corona then seed Jupiter with self-creating nanoswarms that will transform the Jovian mass into a Hypermind that can re-constitute and recreate mankind. Sigmund Ross - Chief Warlock, and mutated psychic, and Augustus Schwarzkopf, 11-Star General of the United Military of Mankind, decide not to accept the offer and will stay and to fight to the death - dark
• The Echelon VII series leads the final strike against the Schwärm Laden proto-realm - light
• Ontological warheads are used against the Schwärm Laden for the first time – light

ECHELON IX RECREATES THE HUMAN RACE - light

• Sigmund Ross returns from Proxima Centauri – dark

THE FOUNDING OF AN INTERSTELLAR EMPIRE – light

*************END*********NOTHING BEOND THIS POINT*********************

TERRA BORGES

Terra Borges

A challenge by Noisms to create a campaign world based on a random selection of animals/monsters. I used borges 'Book of Imaginary Beings.'

This is what I got:-

Odradek

Chonchon

The Chinese Phoenix

Goofang

Griffin

The Tigers of Annam

The Norns

The Lunar Hare

Valkyrie

Roperite

Every species is intelligent and has a culture.

So, there were years of Strange Global Aurora when every sky was lit by colour. When it ended, mythical beings had returned from space, animals had taken strange new forms, much of humanity had been poisoned by evil sorcerers and a dark thread existed hidden in the world.

A Dark, Hidden God

The Odradek's look like a spool of thread, they are the dark hidden gods of the setting. No-one notices them as they harrow the empty spaces between the moments. They eat the thread of the Norns. Odradeks live in a government of touch, their tribes are Carresments and the Empress of all the Odradeks is the Ambulatrix. Odradek names are shaped of the silence between spoken syllables, magic spells are actually Odadrek names. That is why they sound different to each person. The words change but the indrawn breaths and micromutes between each phenome are always the same. Few people know this. Each Odradek can consume a small part of reality, when you speak its name, that is what happens. This looks to most like magic, but really is just the twisting and expulsions of the meta-weave as it struggles to repair and re-balance the world. Like flushed skin after a strike, or like bleeding after a cut.

Chonchons are the only remains of one third of humanity.

It's not a bad as it looks, really.

 They were created when evil sorcerers poisoned all of mankind to war against the FengHuang. They can only be seen by each other, unless they wish it, making them deadly predators on the other creatures. Despite this, most Chonchon have gone back to Human-style societies because it makes things more interesting and they get to live in functional groups. The Chonchon have invisible cities inside mountains of smokey volcanic glass. They have visible tribes who trade with FengHuang, Griffins, Norn, Lunar Hares and Roperites . The visible tribes police the occasional predators of the unseen tribes who use their invisibility and magic to prey on other species. Chonchons might be invisible magic flying heads but they are still human. They care about the same kinds of things, have politics, art e.t.c. The original evil Chonchons thought that by transforming mankind en-mass they would produce an army of monsters. They were wrong, humanity transformed fell back into strange versions of the patterns of their original selves. The epic pettiness of mankind saved it from disaster. Chonchon historians generally regard the change as a good or neutral thing. They have a very positivist/whigish attitude and believe that most of human history was just a long run up to the inevitable point when people lost their bodies, grew wings and learned magic.

PC Chonchons will probably be from one of the visible tribes who are assigned to interact with the outside world. They may have a special mission or be the equivilent of rangers, sent out to learn, grow character or keep a general watch on things happening outside.

The Chinese Pheonix, or FengHuang. 

Can't really see the third limb in this picture.

 These are man-sized birds with long necks, a third claw comes from the middle of their chest and can manipulate objects. These birds of perfect harmony used to live on earth in the early ages of ancient China. They disliked the nature of growing civilisation and migrated to live in the Sun. They bred there until migrating back to earth in a mass coronal ejection. This brief tide from the sun spread strange Aurora across each horizon of earth, from this fell perfect intelligent birds who could only act in correctness with each other. FengHuang roll a natural 20 for Wisdom every time. The Return of the FengHuang woke the Griffins, Tigers, Goofang and Valkyries. The FengHuang need only what birds need, but they value harmony above all else. This leads them to trade pieces of their wisdom to other species in order to produce a more perfect world. Their version of perfection may not match that shared by others. When they trade wisdom by giving information, it cannot be retrieved. This means that old FengHuang that interact too much with the world can gradually be reduced to something near the level of an average, intelligent bird. This has happened to many since the FengHuang returned from the sun.

PC FengHuang are probably these 'fallen' birds. They will go on adventures in order to regain their wisdom. They do this the same way anyone gains wisdom, by putting themselves through a wide series of strange and important events in the hope that this will lead to personal growth. As they become more wise, FengHuang can see more of the nature of the world, but they are less able to use this knowledge. XP gains them strange powers, but using these powers loses them XP.

Goofang or LibertyFish are fish that swim backwards. They are huge man-sized intelligent lungfish.

FOR JUSTICE!

They move backwards to avoid the fates woven by the Norns. This means they have true freedom. Goofang always save against magic so long as they move backwards. When they are moving backwards, they always fail initiative. Their flippers are very flexible, they can hold items in their tail-fin which they can use to manipulate things behind them or arc over their bodies to do thing in front of them. They have big goggle eyes on the sides of their heads which means moving backwards isn't as much of a chore as you would think. Almost 360 vision. They can prance around in quite a delicate manner on their forefins. They can swim, but slowly, as they will try to do that backwards as well. All Goofang are heroic bastards, they cannot stand the idea of another intelligent creature captured or enslaved and will happily leave their vast mud-tribes in order to ensure liberty and do good. They are like the knights or paladins of Terra Borges

Griffin These are just Griffins.

 

The guy with the Lyre is probably just an employee to provide mood music while fighting is done.

They start as dog sized from the egg. As they grow through man size they can use their front talons to grasp and hold objects but as they get bigger their talons harden and extend. They lose intelligence as they level up and gain hit dice. Eventually they become potential monsters. Young griffins are quite civilised and urbane, they wear clothes, spectacles, read and smoke pipes. They can walk about on their hind legs if they wish and glide a bit. Griffins live in FengHuang or Chonchon cities. They are big into culture in their middle years and usually have salons and the like. May well go adventuring for the aesthetic experience or to discover lost or new forms of art.

The Tigers of Annam are the judges and maintainers of alignment. They are also Tigers, so they can fuck you up. Pale Blue True Neutral Tigers that hunt divergent actions. Ultra-clever but utterly pitiless like real tigers. They know about the threefold alignment model and believe in it. If you step outside the narrow confines of your alignment (I.e act in an interesting way) then they can sense it and will come after you. They have the intelligence of a supercomputer but the emotional and self-awareness of a forum troll. Anything that cannot be explained in the most reductive terms, they cannot understand.

NORN-FU

 The Norns are human women who survived the Chonchon poisoning. They can needle-out strands of the world and re-weave it. Norns know Kung Fu but with thread. Threads can do different stuff depending on how they weave it. Like Wonder Womans truth telling lasoo thread, healing thread, hunting thread, thread of invisibity thread for finding of things. Thread takes exactly as long to weave as actual thread and once its been used once then that's it, weaving for them is like Vancian spell selection. They need to think in advance about what they will weave. Odradeks ar natural enemies of the Norns. Norns work by tying things together, ideas, places, people, space, time. Odradeks do the opposite. Norns know that Odradeks exist but do not know what they are and cannot find their true form. Think of them as deamons. Two natures of the Thread, the Norns creating, and the Odradeks feeding off its destrucion. Two different kinds of magic.

Lunar Hares come from the moon of course.

Dude knows Alchemy.

They returned when they saw the FengHuang come back from the sun, riding their coronal flare. Silvery man-sized Hares that know the alchemy of the moon. Alchemist/cleric/scientists. Of course these guys are also from ancient China, they moved to the moon around the time of the first Emperor. Now they are back and can do Medieval-style-but-it-works medicine and science.

Valkyrie's are lone hero’s who exchange their lives with those who die in heroic circumstances. If someone dies hard doing the right thing but has noble work left undone then one of the selectors of the dead will choose to swap places with them. The soul go's off to wherever but the body gets back up with a completely new personality (usually female). Valkyries cannot bring their memories of the afterlife with them but they know what they are and have a deep sense of purpose. If your character dies,and if they were noble, they can get straight back up with a new personality.( 80% chance female). Valkeries always start out as brave, puer and good, but they have never faced the temptations of the physical world before and can get corrupted fast.

Roperites are crazed, evil miniphants that hunt with prehensile, looped proboscis. Cruel, smart, wolf-like predatory elephants the size of ponies.

An evil that cannot end.

They range around in packs and strangle things with their fierce noses. They have a power structure, and keep slaves and rule cities and have tools. Imagine if Wolves were also Mongols, or if wolves were intelligent and could use tools and one of them was like the Wolf Genghis Khan and lead them in gleeful warfare against the rest of the world. They are, obviously, enemies of the Goofangs. The Goofangs and the Roperites have like a Mongols/Teutonic Knights thing going on except its elpholves and backwards lungfish knights.