New Year/New Setting: GURPS world design 'game'

[combatmedic]

Yeah, this one is not a hard sci fi setting. We have made some nods to 'realism' but I don't think we need to get carried away with that. This is not to say that further scientific input is undesirable. Bring in this stuff as you please, guys. We have already established certain facts, though. Let's not let a hard sci fi approach overturn those. You can explain or elaborate fantastic features, but try not to simply cancel things by saying 'that's impossible.'

If we reach a point of serious disagreement about a given facet of the world, we could discuss the idea for a few posts, and then resolve it with a simple vote. If a tie develops, I could act as a tie-breaker (if no one objects).

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

Cut out the plant life that lets you mass-produce paper, whichever ones those are, and you cut the dispersion of knowledge.

Perhaps cutting yourself with the special metals or minerals of whatever helps you cast spells, as the metal disperses through your veins. Or some such.

Right, so most people are stuck with parchment, and books are expensive?

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

What magnetic field there is would be very weak. Before the Mariner mission it was believed that it was impossible for a tide-locked planet to have a magnetic field at all, Mercury's is ~1% of Earth's, though Mercury isn't actually tide-locked it's day is 2/3 of it's year.

So compasses and a magnetosphere are out, an ionosphere is also tenuous.

Similarly, I doubt a tide-locked planet can have a moon, it would be lost long before it became tide-locked. At best maybe a recently captured comet.

For that matter, to have the time necessary for a habitable planet to become tide-locked requires a long-lived star, anything G-type would be long burnt out. This star is definitely a red dwarf.

A very late impactor struck a 3:2 resonator against its rotation, creating a new moon, leaving a great mass asymmetry, and lubricating the interior. The final settling of the heavy elements drive enough interior circulation to make the magnetic field.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

A very late impactor struck a 3:2 resonator against its rotation, creating a new moon, leaving a great mass asymmetry, and lubricating the interior. The final settling of the heavy elements drive enough interior circulation to make the magnetic field.

We should use this mainly because you typed 'lubricating the interior.'

:)

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by BrockNicholson

The people living on the day sight appear as reptiles, but are in fact shapechangers. For reasons unknown to the human inhabitants they always present a reptilian appearance when dealing with anyone in the twilight zone.

The reptilians are a type of eusocial draconic race (like ants or bees), with a number of castes ranging from atavistic giant salamanders, used as riding animals, as guard beasts and for labour, to the queen, a full-blown fantasy dragon. The queen is the only egg-layer in the race and generates all the lower castes herself.

The shapechangers are members of the higher castes, who can take a humanoid reptilian shape, a dragon shape, or even appear as human if necessary. They can also mimic other lower reptilian forms, such as the salamanders or sand-worms (a form useful for surviving heat waves or sandstorms).

There are many reptilian towns and cities across the day-side, but each one is a single hive-clan with its own queen. To outsiders, these settlements appear to be inhabitated solely by reptilians, while the queen and more draconic castes remain a protected secret.

[Daigoro]

Dayside human settlements are slowly encroaching further into the sunlight. The cities have long, high, dual construction walls, consisting of a tough, lower outside battlement, for defense, and a much higher thin inner wall, which provides shade for the growing city on the other side. Each yard of elevation of the shade wall can give tens or hundreds of yards of inhabitable space on the shaded side, depending on the latitude of the settlement.

Topping these walls are sails and masts of more light-weight construction which provide further shade, but which are easily damaged by severe weather. The shade provided by these is for the industrial and agricultural fringe of the settlements, but may also be occupied by the dregs and lower classes of society.

Thus, the dayward settlements have a band-like social structure, with the older and more affluent parts of town located closer to the cool protection of the wall.

Older and larger cities may have several shade walls, with remnant old walls left standing while newer walls were built dayward for expansion of the city.

[Daigoro]

I'm interested to hear ideas on how the humans got here, who they were enslaved to, and why they're now free.

Originally Posted by Rasputin

Cut out the plant life that lets you mass-produce paper, whichever ones those are, and you cut the dispersion of knowledge.

Perhaps cutting yourself with the special metals or minerals of whatever helps you cast spells, as the metal disperses through your veins. Or some such.

I'm sure you could posit other forms of written communication, such as embroidery or engraving, if you lacked paper analogues.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I'm interested to hear ideas on how the humans got here, who they were enslaved to, and why they're now free.

Well, we know (from a previous post) that the humans were brought to the world as slave soldiers (and presumably support personnel- thus women as well as men) by one (or both?) sides in a war between the 'great powers' of day and night sides.

Beyond that...

[BrockNicholson]

The reptilians have no concept of personal property. Each clan has a deeply held belief, almost religious in nature, which allocates specific territory to specific queens. Queens never interfere with each other's territory and will sacrifice entire "hives" to protect their own. Territory a queen has claimed extends "forever" vertically, but is marked in a manner which is clear to other dragons horizontally.

A small number of reptilians have converted to the human religion and rejected the rigid system of their own species. These reptilians typically present as human at all times and have infiltrated human society for the purpose of spreading reptilian magi-tech. The queens have dispatched agents who also present as human to prevent such heresy from spreading.

[Maz]

The Dragon-queens is at least one side who bought the humans with them.

At first they where meant only to be used as servants and entertainment. The dragons valued the human creative nature, their variety and individuality. There where no other sub-reptilian creatures at the time. The queens are immortal and saw no reason for spawns.
The humans where left mostly to their own device as long as they served the dragon queens wishes. Slowly a human society started to form in the dayside around the dragon queens.

But then came the war, and the queens started to use the humans as soldiers. They lost their freedom as they became a tool, instead of a toy. but with the loss of freedom came a stronger desire for freedom and the humans started to rebel. The humans free will became problematic instead of endearing. The dragons decided to make better soldiers by infusing part of themselves with the humans, the reptilian races where created. A strict class/race society where everyone and everything had a place. What was left of the humans fled. Fled to the twillight zone, the neutral ground between the warring factions.


No humans remember this origin as is. But rumours of the dragons as both enemies and allies are abundant in mythology and stories, although few but children and fools believe they exist at all, not anymore at least.

Lost artifacts of ancient human cultures might be found in the deserts of the dayside. A time where the humans where more free and had better understanding of magic as they lived alongside the dragons. Some artifacts might be "dragonkillers". Designed during the brief human revolt against the dragons. They are extremely rare thought.


The dragons, being immortal, remember well, and some miss the humans, other loathe them for their rebellion.

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Gaming notes.
Renegade reptilians who might know of some of this might be extraordinary dangerous and so would be hunted down even more by the reptialians if they tried to live with the humans.
Players could play as reptilians ordered to hunt down such renegades only to maybe start uncovering the truth themselves.
Players could be humans who find ancient artifacts and start searching for knowledge only to get the attention of dragon-queens with opposite opinions on humans.

The fact that dragons respect each others territory might mean that an underhand dragon might encourage a group of humans to retrieve something for them on another dragons territory. It wouldn't really be breaking the territory... not really(!) It would of course be done through the shapechangers, maybe posing as humans. The group (the PC's) might not even know who or what they are working for before something slips.

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Addition.
The dragons need the light to be all-powerful.
The closer to the darkside they get the more power they lose. This is part of the reason the humans where used as soldiers. This is also the reason the humans can live "safely" in the twillight zone. This also goes for the reptilians, but to a lesser extend.

This would also explain why the shapechangers almost always appear as reptiles to the humans. As it is closer to the darkness few of them have the power to keep up their change and will revert to their normal reptilian-state. A few does however. Possibly linked to how "humane" they are in terms of individuality and free thought. Which is also the most likely to want to hide among the humans.

[In game terms the dragons and all the reptilians would have some form of "light-requirement" limitation on all of their abilities.]