[Babel] Setting Overview

[Mobius]

So you're planning a trip to New Jericho are you? The City of Rain, the City of Man.

Yah I've ready all the screeds too "there's no place closer to Heaven" and you know what they may be right but there's also no place closer to Hell or farther from God.  So come to New Jericho; see the sights, take in a show, brush up against the angels if that's your thing but whatever you do don't leave your safe well lit hotel unless it's to go on one of those board-of-tourism vetted tours that end at corporate approved gift shops.

Because there are a hundred and fifty million desperate souls here and not one of them is going to think twice when a tourist steps into the shadows never to return.  They'll call it a random act of violence, another casualty of the drug war or the street gangs. Wrong place, wrong time.  But the truth is there are places no one should ever go.  Places where sin pools and the darkness is no longer still.

So just remember that. When you're out at a club and some beautiful little angle slides up besides you; her body beyond perfect, wings purest white and track marks running down her arm.  The burning desire in her eyes is not for you and while her friends would no doubt love to meet you, you don't want to meet them.

This is a setting/system I have been working over in my head for a long time now and that after a few resent conceptual breakthroughs I think is ready to graduate to "woking project" status.

It is a Biblical (or maybe post-biblical)/Cyberpunk setting that centers around New Jericho in the year 17A.B (approximately 2067 although that date is not set in stone).  In the 17 years since Zero Hour, when the Tower of Babel went online and God abandoned Heaven, it has grown from a lifeless chunk of Nevada desert to the largest most influential city in Creation.

Most of the angels have descended to Earth and first time find must find their own way.  Many have risen to great heights while others have sunk to the deepest lows. 

Their children, the Nephilim, are coming of age and coming into their power (think the kids from Akira).

Players take to roll of Sin Eaters.  Angels, Nephilm, or Cybernetically Enhanced Humans who have learned that with the absence of God sin, the darkness that was upon the face of the deep before all things, has started to corrupt the foundations of the world and brings with it horrors know as the Uncreated.  And when they are not fighting unfathomable nonentities from outside of space and time there are the usual collection of day-to-day problems in a cyberpunk setting; greedy corporations, corrupt governments, finding an all night dry cleaner who's able to get all of that blood out.

Anyways that is the very, very brief setting overview.  I'm trying hard to pair it down into reasonable sections but its all so interconnected that turns out to be rather difficult.  My first question is does this setting appeal to anyone and what would you like to know more about.  My second is what doesn't work for you and why?

All feedback is appreciated!

[Ar Kayon]

I love scary cities for setting concepts, like Akira.  Your introduction really pulled me in; my only criticism of it is that there are some grammatical errors.

150 million people seems unfathomably huge.  I live in New York City with 8 million people, and that is immense.  However, I can see how such a swollen population could create uncontrollable chaos and miles upon miles of slums. 

In the Nevada desert, I could imagine water would be extremely scarce and valuable to the dessicated people living there, controlled by ruthless gangsters.

[Ar Kayon]

I have a few questions:
1. Why did God abandon heaven?

2. The Tower of Babel went online?  What does that mean?

3. What abilities do the players have?

4. What will gameplay mechanics be like?

[Mobius]

I love scary cities for setting concepts, like Akira.  Your introduction really pulled me in; my only criticism of it is that there are some grammatical errors.

I'm glad you liked it!  Grammar has always been one of my week points, fortunately I know a very good editor so when I'm done with my rough draft I'll have some help on that point.

150 million people seems unfathomably huge.  I live in New York City with 8 million people, and that is immense.  However, I can see how such a swollen population could create uncontrollable chaos and miles upon miles of slums. 

150 million is the high estimate and it includes what would traditionally be called the metro area but yes everything about New Jericho is massive.  In place of apartment buildings there are nearly self contained arcologies 40 stories tall and a mile long.  Skyscrapers are monoliths that vanish into ever churning storm clouds.  The slums are horrible, some little more then tent cities that and go on and on.

In the Nevada desert, I could imagine water would be extremely scarce and valuable to the dessicated people living there, controlled by ruthless gangsters.

Lack of water is not the problem New Jericho faces. It is known as the City of Rain because when Babel, which it grew up around after Zero Hour, breached the sky to reach Heaven it left a weeping wound in the sky. At approximately 1000 feet Babel disappears into storm and clouds that constantly surround and sweep away from it. As a result it is always raining in New Jericho. A rare clear day would be erratic showers and partially cloudy. Continuous moderate to heavy rains are the norm and torrential rains that last for days are not uncommon.

A giant canal network crisscrosses the city channeling the water and ultimately taking it out into the desert where it has solved much of the water shortage problems in the south west and Northern Mexico. Insistently this has also made New Jericho the bottled water capital of the world because who cares about Spring Water when you can get it straight from Heaven.

I'll answer your other questions in my next post.  Thanks again for taking the time to ready and comment on my idea.

[Mobius]

I have a few questions:
1. Why did God abandon heaven?

No one is sure although there are many ideas.  Theologians have been greatly aided in the study of God by being able to talk to the angels and the common consensus is that God's actions reveal a Creator who values Free Will above all things.  The leading theory is that the Almighty left because staying would in many ways mean the end of humanities free will or at least its willingness to exercise it.

Another theory, primarily held by apocalyptic fringe groups, is that God had finally had enough and is leaving man to his fate.  Some Sin Eaters have come to accept this view as well when confronted with the horrors Sin brings. 

2. The Tower of Babel went online?  What does that mean?

That is the most common way people refer to its "activation" at Zero Hour.  The only parties that would know the exact events of that moment are either gone (God) or not talking (The Mobius Corporation, builders of Babel).  The term is also a reference to Babel being the center of the Wired, a computer* network Mobius introduced that rapidly became the backbone of the Recovering Worlds communications infrastructure.

*Anyone who knows anything about computers point out that while the Wired is presented as a computer network there is no way it really is, at least not as the laws of computing and physics were understood before Zero Hour.

3. What abilities do the players have?

It depends on what type of character they choose to play.
Humans are "core skill" heavy and have the most resources which they can use to by cybernetics.  There are basically two paths they can follow although nothing mechanically prevents them from trying both the attributes and skills required don't overlap.

Physical: Combat skills and upgrades.  Cybernetics to make them faster, tougher, stronger.  More or less what you see in Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, or Shost in the Shell.

Wired:  The network that everything is connected to.  Almost all humans in the Recovering World are hooked into the Wired through cyber-modems.  Brain implants that allow for instant wireless access and communication.  The most extreme have gotten a hold of an extremely dangerous and illegal mod knows as the Lucifer Chip. Know as Soul Hackers they are able to go deeper into the Wired then should be possible and even affect the physical world through it but at substantial risk to there sanity, life, and soul.

Angles are also core skill heavy but instead of Cybernetics they are gifted with tremendous Strength, Constitution, Presence and beauty.  Some still remember clearly the Glory of God and can use that power to armor themselves, bless their weapons, heal the sick, and sway the emotions of others.

Nephilim are the children of Angels and Humans.  They are able to sense and control the underpinnings of creation calling forth and shaping fire, force, earth, etc, or twisting the minds and flesh of others.  They have the most powerful and spectacular abilities but have to be careful about Resonance which can build up as a result of using them and injure or even kill them.

4. What will gameplay mechanics be like?

While I am still working on the system it is d10 based.  The most common roll is a skill roll where you roll a d10 for each rank you have in the skill against a target number set by a corresponding attribute and count the successes.

For example someone with rank 4 Medical and  and Intelligence of 3 would roll 4 dice vs a target number of 7.  If he had a Intelligence of 4 he'd roll 4 dice vs a target number of 6.  (The TN is always 10 - Attribute minimum 2).

Unaugmented humans have attributes ranging from 1-5.

In cases where there is no attribute to set the target number it is always 7.

[Mobius]

Questions:

Why are you doing cyberpunk and biblical they don't make sense together uggggghhhhhh

I like both of them and they work as well together as cyberpunk and fantasy (Shadowrun), or cthulhu and giant robots (cthulhutech).

If you don't mind why don't you think they make any sense together?

[Vulpinoid]

Why are you doing cyberpunk and biblical they don't make sense together uggggghhhhhh

For a simple answer to this, see Neon Genesis Evangelion. (Actually, once you watch the entire show you might not see this as a simple answer).

For an even simpler example.....watch The Matrix. If you don't get the biblical overtones in that, you don't know your Bible. Seriously.

Biblical tropes have linked to numerous genres in the past. I've seen it quite a bit in Sci-Fi (consider Dune as another high profile example, with it's OC Bible). I've actually met quite a few Australian Sci-Fi authors who have tried to rebel against putting biblical aspects into their novels...but apparently the publishers keep saying that the American mid-west is where the most sci-fi is sold in the world and the American mid-west loves it biblical parallels and morality tales (Yes I'm paraphrasing a bit, but that's what I've heard at least three prominent Sci-Fi authors state).

I'd argue that it's not that they don't make sense together, but that many of the ideas are already too intertwined. If you're going to set up an environment like this for a game, why not use Buddhist or Hindu dogma (they've still got beings akin to angelic messengers and near divine immortals who oversee certain aspects of the world).

V

[Mobius]

I'd argue that it's not that they don't make sense together, but that many of the ideas are already too intertwined. If you're going to set up an environment like this for a game, why not use Buddhist or Hindu dogma (they've still got beings akin to angelic messengers and near divine immortals who oversee certain aspects of the world).

V

Well for one the idea of sin is central to the game and, as far as I know neither Buddhism or Hindu have exactly that concept.  There is Karma but that is not at all what I am going for.

Christian thought puts mankind at the center of the Universe, we alone are made in God's image.  Ultimately the theme of the game is us recognizing that and taking responsibility for our future.  Yes there are angels but they struggle to find a place in our world.  With God seemingly gone we will sink or swim by our actions.

The fight against sin is the main way that conflict is played out.  Sin doesn't just happen it is brought into the world when we harm one another.

[Vulpinoid]

Well for one the idea of sin is central to the game and, as far as I know neither Buddhism or Hindu have exactly that concept.  There is Karma but that is not at all what I am going for.

You're right in a way, there is a concept of wrongdoing (such as putting the self before the community...or putting the self before the world) in both of these religions, but it's not quite sin as a Judaeo-Christian perspective would see it. I could argue further, but that won't help you with your game. You seem to have a good solid concept for the environment and this has the potential to set up some nice supporting mechanisms within the system. So I'm not going to distract further with dogma and ideology.

With that in mind it looks like this setting is designed to play out moralist dilemmas. With scenes depicting a characters struggle against taking the easy option (and probably the sinful option), versus taking the harder option (which is typically the moral high ground).

A bit sanity loss in Cthulhu, over the course of play, the characters who retain their virtue will probably fall behind those who give into their base desires...but on the other hand, those who give in to their sin verge ever closer to damnation (they just don't know where or when).

Some mechanisms to look at in this regard might be Ron Edward's Sorceror, or White Wolf's Vampire for their respective takes on the Humanity concept. Your angels might have something different to humanity (perhaps a "divine purpose" value), but both humans and angels gradually slide away toward sin once they start acting too selfishly, eventually becoming damned in one way or another depending on the ways they have sinned.

I'm just tossing ideas out there, it sounds like an interesting concept you've got.

V

[Mobius]

Well for one the idea of sin is central to the game and, as far as I know neither Buddhism or Hindu have exactly that concept.  There is Karma but that is not at all what I am going for.

You're right in a way, there is a concept of wrongdoing (such as putting the self before the community...or putting the self before the world) in both of these religions, but it's not quite sin as a Judaeo-Christian perspective would see it. I could argue further, but that won't help you with your game. You seem to have a good solid concept for the environment and this has the potential to set up some nice supporting mechanisms within the system. So I'm not going to distract further with dogma and ideology.

With that in mind it looks like this setting is designed to play out moralist dilemmas. With scenes depicting a characters struggle against taking the easy option (and probably the sinful option), versus taking the harder option (which is typically the moral high ground).

A bit sanity loss in Cthulhu, over the course of play, the characters who retain their virtue will probably fall behind those who give into their base desires...but on the other hand, those who give in to their sin verge ever closer to damnation (they just don't know where or when).

Some mechanisms to look at in this regard might be Ron Edward's Sorceror, or White Wolf's Vampire for their respective takes on the Humanity concept. Your angels might have something different to humanity (perhaps a "divine purpose" value), but both humans and angels gradually slide away toward sin once they start acting too selfishly, eventually becoming damned in one way or another depending on the ways they have sinned.

I'm just tossing ideas out there, it sounds like an interesting concept you've got.

V

Thanks and you are spot on about the setting being designed to play out moralist dilemmas.  My current idea for how to handle sin (which is not set in stone) is that, similar to Vampire's Humanity, it is rated from 1-10 with 1 being nearly sinless and 10 being almost totally lost to it.

There will be one of more stats representing Empathy and other virtues that can be used to try resist gaining sin as long as they are appropriately role-played.

Unlike Humanity, who's loss never had much bite to it in my opinion, many of the most terrifying opponents in the setting, manifestations of the Uncreated, Demons, etc, will gain bonus to certain abilities based of your sin score.  So for example they could have an attack called Torments of Hell that does 2 + the targets sin score damage.

[Ron Edwards]

Guys, don't respond to stupid posts.

Fortunately your own ensuing discussion was nifty and good, but the post (which is now in the Inactive File) should simply be reported to me without responding to it. The guy was yanking your chain.

Best, Ron