07-03-2019, 03:22 PM | #121 | |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu
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07-03-2019, 04:51 PM | #122 |
Join Date: Oct 2011
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Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu
Answer 66 Two of Five trading houses on Calledron
The Swarm of Lambent Reciprocity has its primary office on Calledron in the city of Jamselmar; a previous archmage thought her city should be lit like midday at all times and the SoLR obligingly built and maintain a light network. Subsequent archmages of Jamselmar think the think is a pointless waste of money but don't cancel it for fear of looking less competent than their predecessors (maintaining relations with the SoLR doesn't hurt either). The Swarm's core business is light and heat; Ton is a steady market for light sources, and pays in esoterica that can be resold on Calledron. Tonic worldsuits are helpful in breaking through the vacuum in Eddy to reach and harvest the sunstones. Gnomon is their binge and bust market; during a 5-year winter or string of very long nights, they make money hand over fist and fund expansions and endowments; during a long summer, they tighten their belts. They have several inhabited minor cosmi locked in darkness and/or cold as captive markets. They mount expeditions into the skull, perhaps even the sinuses, but have yet to discover a portal there that would make it a stable market. As the name implies, the Swarm are majority chanovat, and all management and supervisory positions are chanovat. They treat their many non-chanovat employees reasonably, however. They are a large and diverse combine, though, that grows exotic plants in greenhouses away from prying eyes and trades whatever looks like it will make a quick profit in their travels. The Swarm primarily uses the Madrigal Network; their buzzing multipart harmonies, sounding like a battle royale conducted with hurdy-gurdys, cause opening along different paths and to different minor cosmi than the singing of humans, hawk-people or mer. They are always buying alchemical ingredients for both their core products, communion fluid and maintenance. Non-chanovat employees who sing well enough to use the Network are among their very well compensated employees even if not management. They sort of have to be, since singing at the level required is, like professional sports, something most performers will be able to do for about ten years of their life. The SoLR contribute fairly extensively to local choral music as a way to spot potential new employees (and inspire public goodwill). The Untarnished Combine, by contrast, are among the oldest commercial concerns among the Imperials. They began as a panicked reaction to the Keeper of Graves barring access to the Oppuhan realm of the dead. There appears to be an afterlife in Fragment that is both ecumenical and largely non-toxic, of course, but the Untarnished weren't having any of that. They swiftly developed a technique for extracting a human soul from a living body and housing it within an elaborate constructed device; their name comes from the fact that these constructs must be made from gold, with crystals and gems embedded. It is often whispered that they couldn't have worked that out through trial and error in time and they must have learned it from the Debauched Reveler, and that further their management still honor him, willingly or out of necessity by contract. Most of the Untarnished business is conservative by nature - importing food and construction materials, exporting cash crops grown on Calledron plantations, but in two centuries they've learned a thing or two about soul transfer. They'd never sell a paying customer a new body, of course - that would be an abomination, wouldn't it? - but a piece of a soul, well, that wouldn't be so bad, yes? Some lovers go to them to create a permanent bond by exchanging small pieces of their souls; others go to have a piece of their soul removed or discarded, such as their memory of a crime, or something new added, such as the courage of a tiger. Some of this work could be considered therapeutic; most of it really couldn't. But for enough money, the Untarnished may be able to sell you a new personality. In days past, the century-old souls that abandoned flesh for gold were the directors and managers of the Untarnished still, and the goal of employees (which most could not meet) was to earn enough to afford a body of gold, the transfer procedure and storage and maintenance in perpetuity. After two centuries, there are more such souls than management positions, and many of them gather dust in archives now. Question 99 What is Calledron's currency like? Is it backed by anything, in a polycosm where nearly anything could be found behind the next portal? Who makes it - mints, banks? Is it widely accepted beyond Calledron? If not, is there any currency that is used, or is it strictly barter between different polities? |
07-04-2019, 01:08 AM | #123 | |||
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu
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You're talking about mundane items which may accumulate magical significance through some symbolic event. A pewter fork is not just a pewter fork if it was used to stab out the eye of a murderer, for example. There's nothing wrong with this magical paradigm per se, it's just that it's different to the axioms that were laid out further upthread (see Answer 21). With your idea, for example, how would a Ton Alchemist turn a Calledronite blade into a soul-stealer? And does it lend itself to some of the industrial scale production that we've implied the Alchemists are capable of? The Temper bit is great though- it's given me some character ideas. We just need to massage the other part of the formula into line with what we've got. Maybe just add a fifth element to the formula- a power substance with some appropriate qualities. Quote:
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ETA: And by the way, don't forget to quote the question you're answering, guys. It helps make sense for the punters following along at home.
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07-04-2019, 06:01 AM | #124 | |
Join Date: Oct 2011
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Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu
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It does lend itself to workshop scaling but perhaps not factory scaling, which for me at least is the target we had in mind. The key is that a shop taskmaster must be an extremely perceptive judge of character. Timmy wants a job and gets in a lot of fights; is he a choleric or an antimelancholic or one of the mixes? You need to judge that correctly to know which line to put him on and what materials to give him. But Timmy doesn't need to understand anything about alchemy or himself to assemble things, so long as the shop steward does. Ironically, the taskmaster doesn't need to understand himself in order to be an effective taskmaster; she can successfully direct other people to do things she can't do herself because of the limits of self-perception. But since you have to actually know the worker on some level to correctly assign them a formula, the impersonal large-scale factory isn't really possible. The question about the life-stealing blade is cogent though. I'll have to think on that; not formulating this as specific questions and answers for the moment since, regrettably, while we are not an impasse I suspect we're not on the same page yet either. |
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07-04-2019, 01:40 PM | #125 | |||
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu
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As for Ton, the Alchemists were initially described as spending their time knee deep in the semi-molten effusions looking for "alchemical fortunes." So nothing in particular was named, but Ton isn't a totally barren place in terms of effective alchemical substances. They could be interesting but mundane chemicals, but they could also be magically charged. Quote:
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07-04-2019, 03:51 PM | #126 | ||
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu
I think Daigoro has made most of my points. His understanding of the magic described so far aligns very closely with mine. A few additional comments:
I never attached "Exotic" to the word substance. I think I implied it, but I didn't explicitly say it, and I should have. Quote:
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Question 100: So life lists and field guides like birders here. Who is the Audubon equivalent? That's awesome! Let us know what you end up using!
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07-05-2019, 12:08 AM | #127 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu
Sorry to make another bookkeeping post, but hitting the 100 question milestone I think it's time for a question recap.
I'm taking the liberty of expanding a couple of questions into Name 5s, as we'd just be asking the same question later anyway with other topics. Spoiler blocked for spammage. Name 5 Questions
Spoiler:
Standalone Questions
Spoiler:
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07-06-2019, 11:09 AM | #128 |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu
I built my second stained glass image, this time of Fragment. Getting the right point of view is tricky, I probably need to add buildings (and maybe even a boat), but this has been a difficult image, and I'm happy with what I've got so far.
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! |
07-06-2019, 12:15 PM | #129 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu
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In the last decades of the last reign of the last age of portal building civilisations, Ghuussa, the Last of the Nine Rebel Daevae, summoned his lieutenants and philosophers before him. "My vassals, injured, they die too readily. Aged or ill, they wither too soon. Each generation of warriors passes before they have their fullness of time in glorious battle. Find me a way to conquer this curse of mortality so that my liegemen may command the myriad realms." So spoke Ghuusa to his subordinates, not realising his impending fate, and they hastened to his command. The Academes of Geb, Mil, Ton, Jukh, Julh and Tez were established in farspread, magic-rich, unique and inaccessible realms. That was some seventeen centuries ago. When that age ended in high catastrophe, three fourths of Ton's special portals fell defunct. Being cut off from its rule and sister institutions, and said rule presumably falling to ruin, the Provost-Elixirs reformed the research settlement into an independent town with a particular mission. Since then, having control over its portal access and having a small but effective defense unit has meant the city has been able to retain that independence. --- Question 101 [ALC] - Ton's Defense What defenses does Ton have? Question 102 [ALC] - Ton's Mission What is Ton's particular stated mission? How goes their search for an elixir of life? Question 103 [MV] - Age of the Nine Rebel Daevae What else do we know about this civilisation? What other remnants are there?
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07-09-2019, 12:59 PM | #130 | |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: [GAME] Conceive a Cross Dimensional Fantasy Milieu
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Various military units are more or less likely to be called up, forming a sliding scale between "professionals" through "militia on paper". When needed, huge armies of militia do get called up, but many arch-mages find this erodes their personal power, and try to get the job done with the professional army and the top few tiers of semi-professional units. Leaders are technically appointed by higher leaders, but in practice appointments are a negotiation between the higher leader and those to be lead. At the highest levels personal arcane might matters as well. Questions 104: How have the imperials been able to increase their numbers so rapidly? What effects has it had on their society? Are subject peoples becoming imperials, or are they kept mostly separate?
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collaborative setting, game, setting, world building |
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