Under Some Weird Sun

[Mr. Mister]

The day the nations crumbled, from prion pandemic, from unrestrained deluge, from nuclear detonation and from social termination

Was the day the revenants clawed, bone-fingered, through the frozen earth and shambled on crooked blue-white feet towards vengeance
they came with black murmur and hoarse whisper; rasping knowledge of death and desolation

Was the day the forgotten, elderly gods with beards like glacial flows pushed aside the storm clouds and slaughtered each other live on 386 news channels
their young rose up like so many lanterns into the tempetuous twilight to begin a reign anew

Was the day angels, their many heads adorned with manes of shimmering lions, carved a path through the veils binding the world
while they sung absolute rapture, snatched those they considered worthy from their beds like screech owls upon shivering mice

Was the day

Was the day the purring transmissions of Them reached the SETI projects, though by now the astronomers were gone, hurrying to the safety of wood and ancestral cave
held within each blip was a million technological advancements, scientific understanding and planetary, exploratory discovery

Was the day when all fables and fantastic lies meandered through the lives of mankind, half-changed by the reinterpretation of modern minds, now broken, and swept up old magic like dust and sprinkled it over dreams, releasing hearts and masking hearts in equal measure

Was the day, above all these phenomenons, the day when all nations died and left the children of Earth to their own devises, to find guidance where they could

The last of humanity looked about them by the break of peculiar indigo dawn and among their shrieking fear and limitless exhaustion, all noted this:
The End of Everything is Only the Beginning



By panpomma at 2009-11-02

===
The last fragments of recorded history place the End at some point in the winter of 2074AD. A unremarkable date for the most mesmerising moment in history, one which is still completely unknowable and will stay that way.
What is considered fact is magic, by whatever name you wish to deliever it, has been let slip and now cries havoc. It has brought with it, or was herded by, demons and angels, fey and jotun and vampires and lares, cunning coyote-man, long forgotten hiisi and any other creature manifest from human mind; though, indeed, some are unique in their disposistion, true mind-takers and eternity-burners.

The year is now 2141AD, sixty-seven years since the End. But it's not the end, people still live, as do they die. Some times in great numbers. Still, people live.
Kingdoms rise even now; though they face challenges no people have before, they can be overcome. Humanity can still have a place on this Earth. But...it may take a hero's baring to hold these new societies aloft from the tainting touch of sinister gentry, calculating aliens and grasping deva children looking to use mortal kind against one another.
===

===
The known world consists of the Capital of the South, Gundown, Old Man, the City that Knows No Rest, the Capital of the North, Skelington and little else for civilised man.

Not everyone is civil. The open sea has captured the three city states, but there is life known elsewhere, for the anarchic Merryden, the Town-Fleet, brings the Engers haunting tales of life outside Eng, the lands beyond the veilings of fog and storm, if they are to be believed...
The Ire, a country not all there, where some Engers claim descent; that their forefathers fled when the inhuman spirits they consorted with turned on them...
Of Mount Megiddo, that rose out of the waves and is roost to warrior cherubs, djinn and apocalyptic seers or of the expansive, leech-like mega-structure that is Jong-Li, with its flame crafters and earth drinkers.
Of Neue, of Red Ico, of Severidge and of the free lands of the Brasils far far away...
===


Hello all! Thanks for reading. I've taken the plunge into rpg design, it'll be a slow process (what you've read is as much as I've written, the rest is in my 'ed) but who knows, some day their might be a another nice little free game on the web.

Right now, I'd like people's comments on the overall idea, which is, "a more serious Gamma World, where survivors have gone beyond tribes and into baronies and kingdoms, with a more adventurous, fantastic, though perhaps slightly gothic-horror feel rather than simply comic book science gone bad."
I'm sure this has been done, but with a fairly open system and good scene setting on my part, I think it could be fun. :]

Another concept is anything can exist here, but it will be changed by being real, if you get me, a dragon would create a absolute wasteland with its fiery breath and all the food it would have to eat and say, some magical creatures like centaurs would simply be killed off because they don't "work" well in the real world (Eg. they aren't balanced, which stomach do they use?, Who shoes them?).

So, what do ya think? Would you play it?

[Catelf]

I think i'd play it.
If you want input other than that, consider this:
Centaurs do not have to be shoed, unless they'd travel much along the hardened roads of some kingdoms... but why should they?
If the Devas has returned, so has the Zoroastrians(which Really isn't better, even if they think so), and they've started war against each others, and the world that has forgotten them. Oh, and they define themselves as "Heroes", and their opponents as "Evil".
Unicorns Will be hunted (and killed, if possible) by Humans, because their horns is obviously holding great Power.

If it is supposed to be more "Real", then do so, it is a great idea.

[Toneblind]

Also, I put it to you that a dragon's breath isn't primarily a weapon. The dragon's breath is methane that is created by the rotting meat in the dragon's digestive system, and builds up in a special chamber outside the stomach. This serves two distinct purposes; firstly, it acts as a flying aid - buoying up the dragon's already surprisingly light frame (due to a unique 'honeycomb' patterning of the dragon's bone and marrow) and secondly it aids in the reproductive cycle. Certain reptiles already use varying temperatures to determine the sex of their offspring (crocodiles in particular), and the dragons simply use this as a basis. they build what is generally referred to as a 'cairn', a pile of rocks surrounding the eggs, and the dragon carefully uses it's fire to heat up the eggs and necessary to produce offspring of the desired gender. This also allows dragons to survive in climates that would not normally be habitual to lizards (such as the dragonis louhi, or Mountain Dragon). Interesting, the legend of dragons guarding great hoards of gold is false - the prefer platinum. They scrape the metal with their teeth, coating them in it, and the chemical reaction of the platinum and methane causes the famous dragon fire.

... or something like that

[Mr. Mister]

I think i'd play it.
If you want input other than that, consider this:
Centaurs do not have to be shoed, unless they'd travel much along the hardened roads of some kingdoms... but why should they?
If the Devas has returned, so has the Zoroastrians(which Really isn't better, even if they think so), and they've started war against each others, and the world that has forgotten them. Oh, and they define themselves as "Heroes", and their opponents as "Evil".
Unicorns Will be hunted (and killed, if possible) by Humans, because their horns is obviously holding great Power.

If it is supposed to be more "Real", then do so, it is a great idea.

Thank you for the comment catelf!
I guess centaurs don't have to be shoed, I'm just saying just how easy is it too live with such an impossible body?...sorry for being so vague, I'm just making this up as I go along!

What I'm getting at is when an imaginary/mythical creature forms in the real world, it may go through a number of changes in order for it to make sense in the universe.
- Zombies eventually split open from over eating, since they don't actually break down and use what they eat.
- Kitsune, fox-shapeshifters, may be able to take the shape of a woman, but always have the mind of an animal.
- Dwarves would become albinos over time since they rarely leave their caves, perhaps they are blind.

However powerful creatures like gods or fairy form perfectly, they can only be defeated by the strange rules they live by, such as or the sphinx with its riddle before it can eat you.

Oh, and thanks for reminding me about unicorns, hadn't thought of them yet. Wouldn't it be ironic with unicorn horns only grant power to those of pure of heart, as in, not the person that just bloody killed it.

TONEBLIIINNNNNNNND. Thats just the sort of thing I'm thinking about, thank you. *bows*

[Mr. Mister]

Damn, the moment I choose to create a game I get conscipted into even more work than usual, 6am 'til 7pm today folks. Phew!

So instead of showing anything of interest (its still just a jumble of sentenses on notepad) I'll just throw down some bullshitdo and basics of the game.

The world ends.

Things from the human imagination appear, from al-mi'raj right through to ziz. However, they are not as we imagined them, as they condense against the window that is reality, their bodies have to comform to its rules (as best they can) which means some poor creatures can end up royaly fucked which other loose a great deal of power. Some end up worse, the legendary barghest was said to be able to kill a man with its stare, which is fine for an imaginary thing, but in real life a barghest is more feared than a pack of giants.

So, mankind rebuilds.

Most are simply humans. Their lineage is always mixed, while racism is still present, this is not the time or place to be divided by colour. Most people in the standard setting (Eng), are descended from British people.

Gene-fixed humans, or designer babies, are not uncommon within cities. These people were the beginning of the so called Transhuman Revolution which ended with the rest of the world. They are handsome, healthy people without recessive genes and are generally bright. However, they were hardly born with the apocalypse in mind, so whethor they fair well or die is up to the individual, just like any human. Once part of the "upper class", they can be looked down on, but many of the people that knew of such as thing are dead.

A number of humanity are people tainted by radiation, magic or some other infection, known broadly as mutants or the Cursed. They were once normal and often have strong enough ties that they are not feared or hated for the change that has overcome them. Most mutations are terrible for the victim, such as deformities like scaled skin, growths or worse. They rarely become important members of any society.

However, some of these mutants, called simply the Blessed, look perfectly normal and have useful abilities like hightened strength, senses or the ability to survive in poisonous enviroments. They are rarely disliked as they are so like humans as to be indistingusable, some Blessed don't even know they are. Big tough Steve, once knocked out a bull in one punch? So? Many are sort after for specialist jobs, extra-fast mutants as messengers ect.

Others still are newmen, shadowmen or wiremen, non-humans that didn't exist before the End, they were conjured from the dream stuff like the monsters, they generally keep this a secret if possible, they are not fully human and have many strange abilities or traits, such as having no insides, fast healing, an extremely long tongue or even stranger things. No newman ever looks truely human, their eyes may be too far apart, they could have pointed ears or odd colourings on their body. Many humans have been hunted down because they had a birth mark or a disease that marked them a newman, who knows which ones were?

Finally their are echoes, the ghosts of memories, for instance, at sites of war thousands of soldier-shapes continue to fight. Which would be fine, but every once in a while one of them becomes real and wanders off. They can seem alive, but they are incapable of doing anything but their mission, be is a doctor echo offering tablets they don't have, or office clerk echo typing at a computer that is no longer there, to meet a deadline that has long since past.

One more thing, magic:
No wizard class. Humans can only cast spells by making pacts with powerful creatures in return for service.

Thoughts?

[Mr. Mister]

Aw man, I can't edit at the moment, I will do that when I can, tons of spelling mistakes. Sorry.
One more, one more thing!

LOCATIONS
The standard setting takes place in the flooded British Isles, though not precisely as you think the country should look, maybe mountains have grown over night and bits of Wales are floating in the air, I've applied handwavium to the shape of the land. Wizards most likely did it.

Skelington, the island-city of the north, a mix of all Yorkshire and Scottish areas, ruled over by the petty-kings.
-- Riddlewall, the city wall was built by goblins, newmen and other misshapen things to show loyalty to the city, many of the smaller ones live in the wall. Only city that doesn't kill non-humans on sight.

Old Man, Manchester basically, biggest city, trade state, lead by the Merchant Barons/gangsters.
--The Nomadic Ring, a open area around Old Man where "tamed" barbarians live, bikers.

Gundown, the island-city of the south, a mix of all southern England.
-- The Last Castle/Palace of Parliament, Gundown is a true democracy and their One Senate live and work in these massive stone towers.

Undone, sunken London.

Merryden, a fleet of ships stuck, roped and boarded togethor, part pirate, part navy run.

[Catelf]

Ach, the Edit ain't a problem, as far as i see it.
The question lies more in what you mean by "more Real".
A Zombie could just as well be the "said original" variant: A living human, belived dead, but really just heavily drugged to serve.
Or, the undead variant: Since they are dead, they also decay, and need to replace thiss loss, hence: Eating.
However, their stomach also decays, so they would need to eat enough, to take up enough into their system.
And was the Kitsune Really "only" foxes to begin with?
And even so, how intelligent IS Foxes, really?

And "Pure of heart"? Is that something you consider "real"?
But i have an idea there: When a Unicorn feels Fright, terror , pain, or is drugged, its Horn becomes tainted by this, and it can only puryfy it by itself, as long as it is still attached.to its Brow.
Horns from "agedead" Unicorns is extemely valuable.
So, what kind of "More Real" have you in mind?
I think your versin of "No Magic" is a really good one, though.

[Mr. Mister]

I think the trouble is I don't know "real" myself. :3
Its not that things have to make logical sense, its just that...

Okay, a purely fantastical mermaid is half fish, half beautiful woman, right?. Her top half is all woman, soft skin, breasts, flowing hair, a nice singing voice and below the waist she has a scaley fishes tail.
But in this game, a mermaid would have no hair, it would have rubbed away after years of constant swimming. Her fish half and human half would be better blended togethor, instead of a stark shift. As for beautiful and having a nice voice, well, she surely eats fishes raw and living under water, if she speaks at all, it would be whistles and hand signals.
...SO YEAH.

However, their won't be one type of monster each, like the zombie you mentioned, there will be mind-slave types and Dawn of the Dead types.

I think it will become clearer tomorrow when I have time to start creating the system.
Thanks for sticking with me friend. C:

[Catelf]

There is so many variants of "real", and what Fantasy, Sci-fi, and some Horror(the "Original" categories) tends to do, is that they tweak and/or Twist the known "Reality" into someting... different.
So, if one would speak of a Mermaids Hair in "Realified" Fantasy, there are are two more options, if you'd like:
Since Hair & Nails, and Naturally developed Armors is made from the same bodily material(as far as i know), the "Hair" may be really bony, big, "scales" instead, or or it may even be similar to a hedgehog's Spines.
Or, their hair may have become strong as spiderweb, but slightly thicker, and therefor stronger against water tear.

But one thing is, we have a kind of crucial point here:
I do not want to feel like i'm "butting in", and i feel a bit like that right now.....
so, i have a question(it is a multiple choise, not a yes/no):
Do you want suggestions and comments like the "Mermaid thing" above until you say "that is enough", OR
do you want that kind of input, only when you specifically ask for it?

I ask, because i may have LOTS of ideas on "Realified" Fantasy Beings.... and like to contribute, wherever i can.
(I have my own project going on here as well...)
So, what System do you intend to use?
      Catelf

[Mr. Mister]

Crap! Haha, always busy when you want to make a game...

Okay, I'll come back to this when I can, meanwhile I'll keep posting here. *tips hat*