Resources for well imagined undersea societies

[tantric]

I'm looking for FRPG resources that describe undersea societies in detail, particularly ones that explain how such societies deal with the technological challenges. Thanks.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by tantric

I'm looking for FRPG resources that describe undersea societies in detail, particularly ones that explain how such societies deal with the technological challenges. Thanks.

Fantasy rather than SF? FRPGs are not noted for going into detail about technology.

[Icelander]

The realms of Serôs in WotC's Sea of Fallen Stars is pretty neat. Magic is very common there, so the tech level is something like TL0+2 to TL0+3 in GURPS terms. This means that there are pretty much no technological solutions, but rather magical ones, including using natural resources that would be accounted supernatural on our world.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by tantric

I'm looking for FRPG resources that describe undersea societies in detail, particularly ones that explain how such societies deal with the technological challenges. Thanks.

There's stuff on this in GURPS Atlantis. Pyramid #3/26 is "Underwater Adventures"

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by tantric

I'm looking for FRPG resources that describe undersea societies in detail, particularly ones that explain how such societies deal with the technological challenges. Thanks.

Do you mean societies of land-dwellers moved underwater, or societies of beings that evolved down there?

[Flyndaran]

Undersea is even more vague that saying on land. What type of undersea environment do you mean? Near surface coral shelfs, abyssal deep, twilight zone, free floating or seabed, and so on?

As to resources, the ocean is full of all sorts of life, so chemicals and organic materials are abundant. The only way to get metals would be through distant hard to find places like black or white smokers. Black smokers can get you some interesting iron sulfides in organic form even from certain shelled animals.

[tantric]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Undersea is even more vague that saying on land. What type of undersea environment do you mean? Near surface coral shelfs, abyssal deep, twilight zone, free floating or seabed, and so on?

As to resources, the ocean is full of all sorts of life, so chemicals and organic materials are abundant. The only way to get metals would be through distant hard to find places like black or white smokers. Black smokers can get you some interesting iron sulfides in organic form even from certain shelled animals.

Good point. I'm working on a civilization of sapient cephalopods that mostly live in the littoral zones. They are psychics, but also have a material technological base. Their home sea is so storm wracked that they sell their services to other races for the submarine transport of goods. The question is, how exactly would they build these capsules?

This is important because I want to run a fantasy pirate campaign. Aw, to heck with it - I'm just gonna post my campaign material.

[tantric]

The Nautilus Empire

The Nautilus Empire is a society of psychic cephalopods that controls the littoral zone of the Stormy Sea. They are a polymorphic race, having 21 basic body types. The basal race of the Empire is more closely related to octopi and squid than the mundane chambered nautilus, but the form most often encountered by surface dwellers is physically similar to a nautilus, thus the name. The majority of the aquatic morphs resemble cuttlefish.

Nautilus towns center around Commentalities, the sessile female form that stores the race-memory of the Empire. Commentalities are hidden underneath 100m diameter domes of symbiotic coral, sponges and macroalgae, all carefully arranged by Attendants. Surrounding this are concentric rings of hollow mounds, built from stone and held together by domestic corals and sponges. There are fields of kelp and other macroalgaes arranged around the cities. As the Nautili are entirely carnivorous, the algaes are foodstock for various domestic species of crustaceans, fish and enchinoderms.

The Nautilus Empire facilitates trade across the Stormy Sea. They build/grow submersible capsules that are capable of taking dryland cargo and passengers (though not particularly comfortably). These capsules are carried by the Transporter morphs, which resemble a cross between a cuttlefish and manta ray. All capsule crossing the Stormy Sea dock for a period of days at Storm Port. The Nautili take payment in ingots of metal or precious stones.

Stormport is a undersea dome atop a submerged seamount in the middle of the StormySea. It is noted for its hospitality - all amenities are provided gratis by the Empire. There are several thousand permanent drylander residents, culled from Patala, Tenmongoku and the Centrality. Stormport is known for two things, art and psionics. The Nautili absolutely venerate art, and are thus delighted to sponsor a small expat community of artists, even if most drylander art is incomprehensible to them. The AcademieSorcerian has built a small adjunct school in Stormport for the study of the psychic arts.

Stormport, and possibly the whole enterprise of trade, has a secondary purpose: it is a drylander zoo. A specially developed Commentality under the city scans the minds of all passers through.


The Nautili are absolutely obsessed with art. There are four branches of art: Psisymphonics, Illusionart, Music and Sculpture. Each of these has several schools, though they do not recognize individual artists as such. Nautili have been known to fight wars over artistic differences. At least once a day a town will have an Exhibit or Concert, and everyone will stop to listen.

There's lots more, but you get the picture....

[hari]

Nice. This reminds me of ideas I've had for living spaceships. They are piloted by psis, shaped like manta rays, and submersible, docking in water.

What if psis, or psi artists for that matter, were able to direct the growth of calcium deposits on the Transporter morphs? They could manipulate the shells to be larger, making space to store stuff. Or... you could have Transporter morphs with an extra stomach with a whale blow hole like opening to get in. Those are the lines I think along. But you use the word capsule?... Are you thinking of capsules that big strong Transporters drag behind them? I'm mainly only thinking of psi manipulation of material to shape it into a capsule. Or... the capsules are another life form?

I had the thought that it would be hard to feed so large an organized population on meat (1 pound of meat requires 10 feed to grow). Then I thought, hey, they live in the littoral zone, right? Why not have some of them live as nomads further from shore and deeper from the surface as herders. Undersea cowboys, fishboys.

I'm also wondering, how will piracy work? Will it be underwater piracy?

[Flyndaran]

Giant clams and other shells? The passengers don't need to be able to see out if they aren't the ones steering.