Setting Generating Game (Feb 2015)

[ericthered]

We tried this on the forums before, and I kind of liked the results. The game works like this:

Each turn consists of answering the last question, then asking the next one. The answer must be constrained to the question, though answering 'kind of' and explaining your loophole is fine. Questions should ask for more than simple yes or no though. A sample question would be:

Are there any aliens, and if there are, why haven't they contacted us?

Questions are not allowed to state anything. For example, the above question could be construed to mean that aliens haven't contacted earth. I am allowed to say "Yes, there are, and they contacted earth in the 1600's".

This game works best when there are a few surprising answers, lots of detail, and an effort to make the pieces fit together.

When playing this game in RL, we go around a circle. As that's not around here, the first poster gets to answer the question. please post the answer and the question at the same time. No posting an answer and then editing in a question! If two people answer the same question, and the answers don't conflict, its fine to keep both of the answers. Otherwise, the first post takes it. Please try to let multiple people play.

Lets see what world we get today?

[ericthered]

Q1: What General Tech Level (high,low,ultra) will the main society in this setting be at -- and is there anything they are particularly good at?

[PTTG]

It's a low-tech (TL3, if I may be so specific) society with advanced mathematics and logistics. Farming, math, and transportation techs might be one TL more than the baseline. Cities are going to be very impressive on this world because they have the food supplies to be large and the engineering knowledge to build tall...

Q2: What the mana level of the world, and does the main society use magic at all? Are they even aware of it?

[patchwork]

The default mana level is None; Sanctity, however, is a default Low with patches of other levels (and Sanctity could be used to create zones with mana, although that would be a bizarre decision). Thus, all Magery comes with the Pact limitation and involves entering into an explicit agreement with something big. There are several (many?) possible agencies to enter a Pact with. Everyone is aware that magic works this way. The dominant society approves of some things you can enter a Pact with but not others.

Q3: what are the limits that magic can't get around? That no Pact can countenance?

[Phantasm]

A) Magic has two main limitations: It cannot conjure permanent materials from nothingness, including food and water; such things last only an hour before disappearing. It also cannot halt or reverse time, though it can subdue or accelerate time's effects.

Q) Given these, what sapient species other than humans are there in this world, and are they able to communicate with humans?

[Gold & Appel Inc]

A) Humans are the only fleshy sapients in the world besides the talking parrots (who can definitely communicate, and tend to do so to excess in some opinions), but every significant place or thing has a sapient spirit with widely-varying degrees of intelligence and ability to communicate (some can make their will known through subtle signs, while others can just tell you what they want if you're a Medium), and the most powerful of these are among the entities that a magic pact can be sworn to.

Q) What is the most powerful or otherwise important national entity, and why? These guys are all organized and stuff, but somebody stands out, right?

[Daigoro]

A) The city-states of the region had been progressing just fine with low-level antagonism and small-scale conflict for the last century or so, otherwise prospering and relishing their boom in artistic and mercantile pursuits, until around a decade ago, when the horizons darkened with a thousand sails of the Dogfleet, a barbarian horde hailing from the previously unregarded Naga Isles. Now almost every coastal city-state is under their rule or pays tribute, and their advance continues inland, yet little is still known of their homeland or origins.

Q) What military, technological, spiritual or magical advance has allowed their conquest to be successful?

(Sorry if this has suddenly gotten into setting specifics when we were still settling broader brushstrokes.)

[William]

A) The ruling place-spirit of the Naga Isles (which does, in fact, take the shape of a naga when it chooses to manifest) struck a terrible bargain with the usually utterly implacable Ruler of the Oceans. From its point of view, it sacrificed a limb, though from another point of view it was a massacre -- a civil conflict among the islands ended with the triggering of a volcanic inferno that consumed an entire island and its population, dragging it below the waves. For this sacrifice the ocean granted the victorious Dogfleet power to conquer, for a short while -- authority to command wind and storm, lightning and flood, even where weather should be under the control of another nation's spirit. The one hope is that everyone knows the power is going to run out sooner or later...

Q) What do the commanders of the Fleet intend to try, to cement their conquests for future generations?

[LemmingLord]

A: each sentient city state has an artifact of power that is the "heart," of that power center... The dogfleet wants to take control of or destroy all of these so it can hold power over the powerful, with no city state able to stand in their way without threat of the destruction of the heart of that power.

Q: what are some ways the dogfleet commanders can learn what are the hearts of each city state?

[patchwork]

A: It's going to take good old-fashioned legwork. Divination magic is unlikely to work directly because the items in question will be well scryguarded or scrywalled; "what is this city/sanctity-zone's keystone?" is unlikely to give an answer, "who knows where the keystone is?" MIGHT. This means either turning the guardians of the local keystone with offers of temporal or magical power, or...sending someone in to join their cult and make the requisite Pact with the full knowledge that they will betray that Pact later. The latter strategy is risky because it might take too long and the new mage may decide to turn on them and stand with her new friends; the former is a gamble, trying to find what will turn the guardians.
Researching the history of the local cults and just getting a medium to point at big things and then destroy those things...might work, but the Dogfleet would prefer to build a lasting empire, not simply level the places it's rolling into.

Q: how does the Dogfleet govern itself internally? Pirate democracy? Polynesian island monarchy? (how's that working out on the mainland?) Naga spirit theocracy? Pro-trade or noble savage warrior? What does the order they're imposing on the city-states look like?