Sorcerer Setting Idea: Feedback Very Welcome!

[Ian Christiansen]

Post Apocalyptic Setting: TechnoWizards

Humanity is:  Empathy
0 Humanity means:   You no longer care about anything. Life's only purpose is to survive the day, and you really don't even care about that anymore...
Sorcery is:  A complex combination of occult rituals and mechanical and/or electrical engineering. A computer is required for Contact/Summoning, and can be quite helpful in other rituals as well. Satellites still in orbit provide full-time accessible wireless internet to anyone with the gear, like sorcerers. Every sorcerer will start the game with his/her own mobile computer device.
Demons are:  Constructs with highly evolved Artificial Intelligence. The A.I. must be downloaded (summoned) from the cyber-world in which it lives, and the construct must either be found or built by the sorcerer. Their ideal is a world filled with and run by machines, and the living are simply tools that must be used to further this dream. Types available are Objects (weapons, armor, etc.), Parasites (artificial limbs, for example), Passers (androids), and Inconspicuous (like an internal microchip or a computer virus).


This is an idea I started to fall in love with while working up a few setting ideas for my upcoming visit to the good ol' USA. There isn't much originality here I suppose, but I was really enjoying the combination of elements as I kept writing. I'm not sure about post-apocalyptic or not, but I was very inspired by the movie Casshern when thinking of the world it should take place in. Perhaps near-apocalyptic would be a better term?

Please feel free to throw any thoughts you have at me here... maybe you've played something similar, or maybe you've always wanted to. Perhaps you think the idea stinks... feel free to share any thoughts as to why that may be as well!

Cheers,
Ian

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ian!

My uncertainty lies in the same zone as yours: the day-to-day experience of the world. Would anyone have a computer, for instance, and the sorcerers just happen to have the big/special ones? Or is access to that sort of equipment and the ability to (mis-)use it the essence of Lore in the first place?

Do people shuffle across blasted wastelands, wrapped in rags and wearing respirator masks? Or do they go to work in tall glassy buildings, punching numbers?

Once you get that set of imagery, and related stuff, under way in your head, then you can compose the lists of descriptors. That's a big step in prepping a Sorcerer setting.

Best, Ron

[Ian Christiansen]

Hey Ron!

I was thinking about that a lot while I tried to go to sleep last night, and I'm now thinking to scrap the post-apocalypse idea... at least for now. Rather, I'm likely gonna go for a futuristic setting that is perhaps on the brink of apocalypse due to long running wars between major world superpowers.

The film that quite recently inspired me takes place in a very scientifically advanced future after a fifty year war between the European Union and the Eastern Federation. The latter had won, and formed a new world superpower of Eurasia. Interestingly enough, I don't recall any mention of the Americas. The world had been ravaged by nuclear and biological weapons but it wasn't yet a total wasteland, rather a land on the brink. That appeals to me, and it also allows for lots of cool tech like robot armies and wicked tanks and jets. I'm thinking the computers will be very advanced from what we have now, therefore making them very small and light and perhaps having some easily rechargeable and long-lasting powersource. Hmm... perhaps some will even have 'internal' computers... that's an interesting idea.

Anyway, my brain was really just spitting this stuff up last night. Today I'm gonna work more on descriptors and setting specifics. It should be a slow afternoon, and I'm gonna take my books to work with me.

Thanks a million,
Ian

[Ian Christiansen]

So today I ironed out some more specifics for my idea, and I've decided to heavily plagiarize the setting from the film Casshern:

It's the somewhat distant future and the long war between the Eastern Federation and the European Union has finally come to an end. With the unconditional surrender of the remaining EU forces, the Federation of Eurasia is formed under the leadership of the Eastern Federation conquerors. The government is intolerant and tyrannical however, and 'terrorist' groups all over the remnants of Europe violently resist the new regime and it's armies or robots, cyborgs, and genetically heightened human beings.

The future is very bleak for Eurasia, as much of the land has been devastated by nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Despite the end of the Eurasian War, fighting still rages in many parts of the Federation, and large parts of the population are suffering from contamination sickness.

So I reckon parts of the setting would be very apocalyptic looking (mostly the ruins of Europe), but then others would still be very intact and advanced (like the metropolises of the conquering Eastern Federation). I don't even know if my players in Chicago will want to go with this setting yet (I've presented a couple others), and I'm still awaiting further feedback from them. Meanwhile, I'll keep working on this anyway, as hopefully someday someone will want to play it.

Oh, and I decided Lore is a specialized knowledge of manipulating code. I figure that the Demon AI exists in a hidden part of the cyberworld. Only Sorcerers have the ability to manipulate the code that gives them access to this hidden 'Ethernet'... for current lack of a better term. The level of their knowledge is of course dependent on their score.

Now my descriptors so far:

Stamina
Juicer (chemically heightened)
Cybernetically Enhanced (cyborgs)
Military Training
Martial Regime
Genetically Engineered
Brawler
Sickly (negative descriptor)

Will
Academic Elite
Survivor
Inboard Computer (cyborgs)
Forceful Personality
Cool as Hell
Clever Instincts
Simpleton (negative descriptor)

Lore
Hacker
Computer Programmer/Engineer
Gearhead
Webmaster
Techie
Novice (similar to Naif)

Cover
Engineer (mechanical, electrical, etc.)
Soldier
Technician
Refugee
Doctor
Scientist
Scavenger/Salvager

Price
Cyborg
Cynical
Scarred
Tech Reliant
Addiction
Socially Inept
Physically Weak
Technophobic

[Per Fischer]

Ian, this is...interesting, to say the least. Tell me more about this devastated Europe and the life here - a broken down western Europe with eastern cities still intact sounds intriguing. I see Hong Kong the mega-city and finance/media/whatever capital held up against the ruins of Paris, Prague and London. Maybe hordes of refugees across central EU trying to get east.

And sorcerers as freedom fighters in between?

I'd play it.

Per

[Ian Christiansen]

Tell me more about this devastated Europe and the life here - a broken down western Europe with eastern cities still intact sounds intriguing. I see Hong Kong the mega-city and finance/media/whatever capital held up against the ruins of Paris, Prague and London. Maybe hordes of refugees across central EU trying to get east.

And sorcerers as freedom fighters in between?

I'd play it.

Per

You got it, man! I didn't want to get too specific right off the bat so as to let the players help mold the world in their own way, but what you posted is very much in line with my own vision of it. I see the EF as being dominated primarily by Japan (computers/tech) and China (genetic engineering, biological experimentations), with their respective cities being the powerhouses of the Empire. Europe would be ruins for the most part, with refugees and the remnants of their civilization fighting to survive in the new order of Eurasia. I reckon there'd be a lot of sickness and mutation with all the biohazards left behind by the fighting, and also that the EF government is very intolerant in their treatment of anyone not of the right genetic stock (being the supremist master-race bastards that they are in my setting).

I'm currently toying with the idea of having Russia somehow involved with them as well... thinking that maybe they betrayed Europe (they always have kinda done their own thing) in some sort of deal with the Eastern Federation, only to be double-crossed at the end of the war themselves. After all, even if they did help in the fall of the EU, their still not of the right ancestry to be allowed a serious hand in shaping the future.

As for the sorcerers, that's up to what the group wants to do. I'm gonna be running this while I visit the US over Thanksgiving, and I will probably play with at least two different groups... one in Ohio and one in Chicago. One of my Ohio players has already expressed his interest in being one of those remnant EU freedom fighters: a former Russian Super-Agent (Price - Cyborg) angry at the betrayal of the vile EF government and disgusted by their handling of the conquered and the devastation that has been caused to the once great continent of Europe. If I get multiple players there I could see this as a good weld to get the sorcerers wanting to work together... standing up against the vicious overlords and trying to take a piece back. The other group may want to play the other side of the coin: sorcerers on the winning side of the war. Absolute power corrupts and all that...

The American question has been raised as well already, and there's no definite answer on that yet. Perhaps they've taken on an isolationist Fortress America stance and stayed out of the Eurasian War... content to watch the two sides weaken one another until they can sweep in and finish off what's left, claiming the Earth as their own. Maybe they just want to leave and be left alone... either way, I'm not currently thinking of them being at all involved in the immediate game world.

I hope that answers your question... I got a bit winded from my rambling. I'll be sure to try and post Actual Play results sometime after I've tested the scenario.

Cheers,
Ian

[Vulpinoid]

I guess it's because I'm from the land down under, but I'd be interested to see where Australia would fit into a setting like this.

Australia being a land that was desecrated by English for 200 years (well that's how some people describe it...), then colonized by successive groups from around the world..first came the other europeans, then various nationalities of asians...followed by those of middle eastern descent. Demographically the capital cities of Australia are some of the most multi-cultural societies on Earth (with Sydney possessing the largest chinese garden outside mainland china and the second largest chinatown (second only to that of San Fransisco).

In the current political climate, I guess it'd probably follow the russian model that you're currently looking at. Strong European ties, but trying to integrate with the asians as much as it can. Only a mixed ancestry would stand in the way of full integration in the EF.

V

[Ian Christiansen]

I guess it's because I'm from the land down under, but I'd be interested to see where Australia would fit into a setting like this.

Australia being a land that was desecrated by English for 200 years (well that's how some people describe it...), then colonized by successive groups from around the world..first came the other europeans, then various nationalities of asians...followed by those of middle eastern descent.

In the current political climate, I guess it'd probably follow the russian model that you're currently looking at. Strong European ties, but trying to integrate with the asians as much as it can. Only a mixed ancestry would stand in the way of full integration in the EF.

V

I suppose I'd leave that up to the group, really. As far as the game is concerned, Eurasia is the playing field and ultimately all that matters in the here and now. However, there is always the chance that the characters would want to escape to another continent (like North America or Australia), so I'll give it a thought.

Australia has been manipulated and destroyed (as a nation) by the EF. In deliberate irony, they have turned it (once again) into a prison colony. Think Battle Royale, with a bit of The Running Man thrown in, all for Continental Entertainment purposes. The eyes of the Federation are everywhere, but they really don't care what happens as long as it isn't a threat. Chaos reigns... and it's encouraged even more by the powers that be.

Someone is bound to ask the Irish question sooner or later (seeing as how I live there), so I'm gonna think it over. I don't think we'd have enough military power to even slightly concern a world power, seeing as how we can't even control our own drug gangs and paramilitary criminals. Oh, and the fact that we have less people than a good sized American city. Maybe Ireland has become a 'closed territory'. No one gets in... period. Is it because the island is untouched by the major weapons of the war? Maybe Dublin was destroyed (1/3rd of the population is there), but no other targets were necessary. Is it a living utopia? Or is it just a violently isolationist society? Again, I'd leave anything outside of continental Eurasia up to the players.

Hope that helps, V...
-Ian

Note: Ireland was supressed by England for 900 years. I'm just sayin'...