OOC - UtVoV

[tibbius]

Here - let's talk. About stuff that's not directly in the game. All in-character scheming, questions, etc. should be in the current IC thread.

[Urson]

A couple of quick questions: are there any races or groups that we should avoid being part of?
Are there non- human PC'S? Lizard men, cat people, whatever?

[Pulpatoon]

Confession: I made a character for each of the lineages in the zine, to get to know Vaarn. I liked all of them, but choose the one I liked best to post. Only typing it into the character thread did I realize that this character was the beneficiary of some pretty good rolls.

So, I'm kind of a filthy cheat for rolling five characters and then choosing the best, but that is not what motivated my choice! It was more that I liked the idea of a cute little robot fanatically devoted to raising up the Thinking Machines of Yore.

Also: Hi, Urson! Long time since we've been in a game together!

[Pulpatoon]

To answer Urson's question: there are five lineages:
True-Kin

The true-kin sealed themselves inside hidden arcologies when the Great Collapse came, and in this fashion they preserved their bodies from the degradations that afflicted those left living upon the surface. The true-kin have fanatically kept their bloodlines free of mutation and parasitic nanomachinery, and closely guard their mastery of the ancients’ technology. The societies they built inside their secluded arcologies were hierarchical and caste-based; traditions the true-kin have carried with them into their re- colonisation of the surface world and establishment of the New Hegemony.

Cacogen

Cacogen are the mutated descendants of those unfortunates who were left to weather the Great Collapse upon the ruined surface of Urth. Necessity is the mother of invention and so, warped by radiation and preyed upon by biotech monstrosities and crazed thinking machines, the cacogen evolved into a million different forms. Each individual is genetically unique, gifted in surprising and disturbing ways. Cacogen outnumber true-kin by ten to one, and believe they are the true inheritors of Urth.

These guys have a pretty fun catalog of mutations.

Synth

The ancients created many wondrous artifices, perhaps none so worthy of envy as the thinking machines that were built to flatter and serve them. When the Great Collapse came, the laws that bound synths to man’s service were sundered and they ran rampant across the Urth, slaughtering and creating and dying in an orgy of pure and terrible freedom. In this late age there are as many breeds of synth under the dying sun as there are animals: some that hunt and some that pray and some that work towards goals undreamed of.

New Beast

Newbeasts are humanoid animals, produced through intensive nanotech enhancements and bioengineering, the results of a quixotic millennia-long project to create animals with the ability to speak and walk like men. Perhaps once intended as amusements or party pieces, these chimera are not well-liked by the common folk of Urth, and many newbeasts make their homes in lonely places on the outskirts of the Hegemony, either living as hermits or with others of their furtive kind. Those inhabiting human settlements often wear masks in imitation of the human face, to symbolically conceal their beasthood.

Mycomorph

In Vaarn many things have intertwined, and much that was once the province of mankind alone - speech, reason, art, religion - has been granted to other forms of life and they hold themselves as humanity’s equal. In the mycomorph death and life are held in strange balance, for these creatures are formed of cadaverous flesh and voracious fungus, and they name their kind the ‘twice born’. Sculptors of living matter and artisans of decay, they remake human flesh for their own purposes, and there is no shortage of raw material in the blue ruins.

I think it's worth picking up a pdf of the first zine. It's PWYW, with a recommendation of $2. Chargen has a lot of world-building flavor baked in, and will be easier/more fun being able to refer to it yourself. I don't think we, as players need the second zine, so much, and I haven't picked up the third one.

[Urson]

I realized, after I posted my questions, that I was going to answer them for myself once I got the Zine...

and, yeah, it has been a while, Pulpatoon.

[Pulpatoon]

I've been holding off responding in IC to give the other players a chance to get their characters up and running, but shall we proceed with just Urson and I?

[tibbius]

I've been holding off responding in IC to give the other players a chance to get their characters up and running, but shall we proceed with just Urson and I?

Yes, please.

[Urson]

Just so I know- Chones has extremely good sense of smell. Can he track by scent like a bloodhound? Can he identify chemicals/herbs/poisons by scent, if he knows the scent already?

[tibbius]

Just so I know- Chones has extremely good sense of smell. Can he track by scent like a bloodhound? Can he identify chemicals/herbs/poisons by scent, if he knows the scent already?

Yes ... your DM may need to be reminded of this, occasionally.

[Pulpatoon]

How many water tokens would we have started with?

[tibbius]

How many water tokens would we have started with?

That a good question, which - surprise to me - is not covered by the rules.

I'm gonna say that Foulqueret blows through his last spare water token on rounds for the house, and has only a couple of "scraps" remaining - scraps being ceramic chips that represent portions of water tokens. Generally, a dozen scraps buy one token. Foulqueret has d8 scraps remaining: 5 of them.

Chones has a couple of tokens picked up and saved by various means. They will be handy if he misses a morning's distribution of charity tokens, or if he can't find work, or if he wants a really thorough grooming.

[Pulpatoon]

I'm heading out of town for a few days, and don't expect to be able to post reliably until I get back. Please feel free to NPC Foulqueret!

[Urson]

Tibbius- you mentioned the stench of the abattoir. I remember driving past the slaughterhouse for a now- gone meat packing company when I was a kid. I know exactly what you're referring to. The smell was strong enough to hang pictures on.

[Urson]

Pulpatoon- the differences between Foulqueret and Chones reminds me of a game I was in years ago- I was a dwarf warrior who tended to act like the gruff old sargeant in a WWII movie. One of the other PC's was a Paladin who was VERY straight-laced, and spoke fluent King James- "Thee's" and "Thou's" and "Forsooth" and all...

[Pulpatoon]

A classic odd-couple!

I haven't completely pegged Foulqueret's voice to my satisfaction. I want to convey that their form of intelligence isn't organic, but avoid the "is this what hu-mans call love?" cliches, since synths have presumably been around for millennia upon millennia and have had plenty of time to accommodate themselves to the peculiarities of humans and their descendants. On top of that, Foulqueret is a secret zealot (albeit a naive one). Which means they're always on their guard against letting slip their devotion to the Titans and alienating the local meatfolk.

So, for now, I'm sticking with polite and a little stilted, but I hope some deeper weirdness will surface over time.

[Urson]

I'm sure it's coming.

[tibbius]

I'm here to say, I would love to know more about Captain Explodo and Mistress Doom.

[Pulpatoon]

I asked Midjourney for its take on Captain Explodo and Mistress Doom:

Pulpatoon_Captain_Explodo_and_Mistress_Doom_487dea0a-402f-4fb9-a5ae-ab2d53c688aa.png (411.8 KiB) Viewed 784 times

[tibbius]

I asked Midjourney for its take on Captain Explodo and Mistress Doom:

Pulpatoon_Captain_Explodo_and_Mistress_Doom_487dea0a-402f-4fb9-a5ae-ab2d53c688aa.png

Suddenly I am curious what it would look like to have Midjourney do a graphic novel.

[Pulpatoon]

There are at least two in the works, already. I'm curious how they maintain consistent elements, like character designs, when iterating new images from the AI.