Autocthonia
Still having a terrible time getting writing done. I've got notes for a novel, but the idea needs to be at least 20% cooler.
In the meantime, I bought a couple of cheap book for the RPG "Exalted", since I like the setting if not the rules. One (about ocean adventures) is junk, but the other is the first part of a guide to Autocthonia. That's a setting where magitech communist robots battle robo-cancer gremlins and plot escape from the body of the dying machine god they live in. I wrote this kind of for practice, kind of as how I'd introduce a game campaign I have an idea for:
"It's Oil Shift, when the city dims her lights to save essence. The clang of the factories continues as the populat caste works to make quota on transistors, nutrient paste and crossbows. Two priest-caste workers of the Transcendant Electric Order are praying over a series of steetlights that jut out from the steel streets. Meanwhile, steam elementals hover around a grate like ghostly birds and shoo away bums. A regulator patrols the nearby tram station, wearing a diamond necklace harvested from the endless tunnels outside the city cavern. Oil, electricity, metal, steam, and crystal: these are the elements of the Great Maker's body.
"Also, smoke. As seen now, wafting up from a manhole cover just before the horrors arrive.
"You're one of the people nearby, these or someone else, each with their own soulgem implanted in their forehead in case of death. Who are you and what are you doing the moment you notice the smoke?"
So you'd all meet on the street... and die heroically while learning a bit about the setting, and get reincarnated into a batch of Alchemical (human-souled robot) heroes assigned to investigate an enemy nation's superweapon.
Related thing: An entry from someone describing their worst RPG experience. Useful advice implied there for us GMs!
I'd like to try running a short Pathfinder game but am intimidated by the mechanics since I'm so used to freeform and the like.
In the meantime, I bought a couple of cheap book for the RPG "Exalted", since I like the setting if not the rules. One (about ocean adventures) is junk, but the other is the first part of a guide to Autocthonia. That's a setting where magitech communist robots battle robo-cancer gremlins and plot escape from the body of the dying machine god they live in. I wrote this kind of for practice, kind of as how I'd introduce a game campaign I have an idea for:
"It's Oil Shift, when the city dims her lights to save essence. The clang of the factories continues as the populat caste works to make quota on transistors, nutrient paste and crossbows. Two priest-caste workers of the Transcendant Electric Order are praying over a series of steetlights that jut out from the steel streets. Meanwhile, steam elementals hover around a grate like ghostly birds and shoo away bums. A regulator patrols the nearby tram station, wearing a diamond necklace harvested from the endless tunnels outside the city cavern. Oil, electricity, metal, steam, and crystal: these are the elements of the Great Maker's body.
"Also, smoke. As seen now, wafting up from a manhole cover just before the horrors arrive.
"You're one of the people nearby, these or someone else, each with their own soulgem implanted in their forehead in case of death. Who are you and what are you doing the moment you notice the smoke?"
So you'd all meet on the street... and die heroically while learning a bit about the setting, and get reincarnated into a batch of Alchemical (human-souled robot) heroes assigned to investigate an enemy nation's superweapon.
Related thing: An entry from someone describing their worst RPG experience. Useful advice implied there for us GMs!
I'd like to try running a short Pathfinder game but am intimidated by the mechanics since I'm so used to freeform and the like.