Pandora's Thoughts

[Bankuei]

I'm starting up a PBP game of Sorcerer, called Pandora's Thoughts, with a couple of my friends, I thought I'd share this after checking out the Not Here thread.

Basic premise:
"Ideas are dangerous", an old saying, whose philosophy has led to oppression and genocide throughout history...but, what if ideas are dangerous, in the Lovecraftian sense?  Instead of Deep, Dark truths threatening our world, it's Deep, Dark Untruths, trying desperately to become true.  

Premise is "How far will you go for those you love?"  along with a minor theme of "Who do you really love?"(in terms of relationships, demons, and duty).

Setting:

The Seven Sleepers dream up our reality.  That which is Impossible, the Neverwill, desperately wants to become possible, no necessary to our reality.  In order to do so, the Neverwill use the imaginations of the unbalanced and desperate as a gateway into our existance.  Protecting our world is the Guardians, demons dreamt up by the Sleepers to guard their reality.

Humanity:
Humanity is empathy and connection with those you care about.  The reality of the world might be dreamt up, but those that live in it are real and a connection grounding you to what is real.  

Both Guardians and the Neverwill rely on human belief in order to "bypass" reality, so both require a great amount of dedication on the part of the sorcerer to maintain existance.  Both tend to have emotional related needs and desires, although the sorts differ greatly.

Guardians

Guardians are the exceptions to the rule of reality that the Dreamers allow to exist in order to protect it.  Guardians are always Passers, mostly human, but not all, and most dwell in the 3-8 Power range.  

Guardians are emotionally needy, often with stuff like Needs Affection, Needs Nurturing, Needs to be spoiled, etc.  Think of the Guardians needs as kids or relationships with co-dependants.  This alone stresses Humanity, as the Guardian relationship competes with the other ones.

Guardian sorcery is a bitch, requiring that you Contact the Sleepers, and rip up a bit of reality in order to Summon a Guardian.  Oh, yeah, failures during Contact result in permanent losses in Humanity(going loopy), by the number of successes by which you've failed.  Failing during summoning only counts as Successes+Power  in lethal damage.  Needless to say, most Guardian sorcerers inherit their demon from someone else.  Colorwise, sorcery involves speaking in a funky tongue that always sounds as if its reverbrating through space/time.

0 Humanity with a Guardian means you've become the servant, not the master, and will probably get killed in the line of duty of fighting the Neverwill, jumping in front of a bullet to protect your Power 12 demon...

The Neverwill

The Neverwill are impossible things, and can only exist when someone believes in what is not possible over that which is.  In other words, someone who's at least slightly unbalanced.  Neverwill are always Possessors, Parasites(Idle Hands), or Inconspicous demons(think poltergeist types).  

Neverwill sorcery is electic and random.  It's rituals are scattered amongst the hooh-hah of new age crystal therapy, so-called satanism, and whatever  is the mystical fad of the time.  Since so much of it is watered down and it tends to be exposed to flaky folks instead of serious ones, it tends to keep the Neverwill sorcerers in small numbers.

Neverwill demons' Needs are usually emotional, and based around whatever purpose they were summoned for or emotional mind state the person summoned them in.  For example, a demon summoned in order to empower a geek to beat up a bully will probably enjoy power tripping.  One summoned to get back at a girl who stole your man will probably enjoy causing emotional pain.

The Neverwill hope to drive Humanity to 0, so the sorcerer believes completely and totally in them.  At Humanity 0, the sorcerer also has the ability to "Summon" a body for them, in other words, transform them into Passers, at which point, they will hunt down the Sleepers, kill them, and take their place and re-write reality.

The style:

Take anime, Lovecraft, and Hellboy, mix, bake, enjoy.  Anime references include X, Demon City Shinjuku, Akira, Shamanic Princess, and Silent Moebius.   Don't forget a little bit of Fight Club too.  Action, action, action, with classic anime melodrama.

The players will play a group of Guardian sorcerers fending off the advances of the Neverwill, although I can see this setting getting used again for mixed groups(yaay conflict) or Neverwill sorcery(yaay damnation, Sorcerer style).

Chris

[Bob McNamee]

At 0 Humanity for the Neverwill...you could have the Sorceror become the body for the Demon, thus becoming a Passer Demon...
An Idea anyway...

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Bob's idea makes sense to me, and tightens up the context of play a little, if that seems desirable.

My only concern with this setup is that I'm not sure how the sorcerers are anything but these "guardian guys" in the sense of many modern games. Are they still people who have to worry about other real people and their personal concerns?

Most importantly, where's the arrogance? Am I missing it, or is it unspoken, that a given sorcerer has chosen this situation for a reason that arises from a personal agenda? (and yes, altruism is a personal agenda) I'd like to know more about that.

I grappled with a lot of similar issues in writing Demon Cops, and I think the result flies only because we can all understand the "cop" conundrum, with or without demons.

Best,
Ron

[Bankuei]

My only concern with this setup is that I'm not sure how the sorcerers are anything but these "guardian guys" in the sense of many modern games. Are they still people who have to worry about other real people and their personal concerns?

That's exactly what the melodramatic anime focus is on, and the reason Humanity is about connection with those you care about.  It takes the classic superhero bit of "How do I save the world, and still have a girlfriend/family/whatever?"  

Take for instance, a character with a Guardian that's always demanding attention, time, whatever form of emotional support, and then on top of that, is intentionally or not, sabotaging your other relationships...On the lighter side of things, it could simply be family relations and keeping the secret(Elliot and ET), or it could get as nasty as the jealous girlfriend issue.  Also pulling in the John Woo tip, you will have friends and family who really do need you (having kids, operations, court cases, etc.) at the same time massive problems are popping off.  Making a choice between relationships and demons is going to be the source of Humanity checks.

What I'm really looking at doing is building R-maps around the players characters, and having the opposition serve as the "invaders" instead of the usual protagonist jumping into the R-map, and watching the pc's try to hold their lives together and do their duty.  I fully intend their connections and relationships to be a big source of bangs and drivers in this game to put the pressure on, much more than the villians.

Although, in all honesty, the Guardian bit is really designed for fun instead of the usual deep Sorcerer play.  The moral questions come up when dealing with the Neverwill, even in fighting them.   How do you deal with a kid who's using his demon Columbine style to get back at a molester?  How do you deal with a peace negotiator whose demon is helping quell the nuclear powered tensions between India and Pakistan?  What do you do when these folks hit 0 Humanity?

Similar to cop shows, you're dealing with a lot of folks who are endangering the public for reasons they believe to be worthwhile(or not), and just like many cop/legal shows, how do you balance what is "morally" right with what must be done?  

Most importantly, where's the arrogance? Am I missing it, or is it unspoken, that a given sorcerer has chosen this situation for a reason that arises from a personal agenda? (and yes, altruism is a personal agenda) I'd like to know more about that.

I'd definitely put it at the altruism/personal ideal sort of thing.  Really it comes to the simple question of choosing between your ideals and those you care about, and the thin line of how far you'll go either way.  I think one aspect that few people consider is that the Neverwill aren't necessarily evil, and might not create a worse reality, but instead a better one.  There is definitely a level of arrogance in deciding that what we've got now is better than anything that could be.  "World Peace" is a possible Neverwill demon as much as anything Lovecraft could have dreamed up.

Also, I do intend on running this same setting with a mixed batch of sorcerers later on, and watching the conflict between them, as the Neverwill tend to fit the classic Sorcerer type outcast rebel heros, while the Guardians fit the classic just cause types.  Right now I just want to introduce the players into the moral conundrums of trying to figure out "What is right?" in these situations.

Since this was also inspired by Demon Cops, Ron, could you clarify for me where the "arrogance" lies in Demon Cops?  

Thanks for the input,
Chris

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Chris,

In Demon Cops, the arrogance lies exactly where it does for any cop show, and less relevantly, for real cops: Who are you to represent Justice?

To answer that for real, one must tap into some kind of arrogance, whether healthy or unhealthy.

And it's no good talking about "the Law," because a cop has to deal with real people and real hassles all the time before the Law gets involved at all, if at all. He or she has to be a cop without the Law in Action, every day.

This is why a cop is unlike a lawyer, D.A., judge, or politician - he or she operates at the interface of the Law/Society as an abstraction (not a force) and the seething, complex connections among real people.

Best,
Ron

[Bankuei]

Thanks Ron,

I guess then we were both thinking along similar lines, although my version is a little more veiled I suppose.  I really intend on throwing the nasty moral curveballs my players way and seeing how they deal with it.  

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice about issues or things that may be important to focus on?

Chris

[Nev the Deranged]

Heh.. the concept you describe sounds like a sort of bizarre fusion of anime like No Need for Tenchi!, 3x3 Eyes, and any of Rumiko Takahashi's whacked out "supernatural situational drama" anime.  The "how do you maintain your interpersonal relationships while also dealing with demons (or aliens or whatever)" theme is almost a subclass of it's own in anime.

I also see definite Clive Barker flavorings in the mix, especially with the names and the underlying conflict.  the Thief of Always comes immediately to mind, along with Weaveworld, Hellraiser, and... well, crap, almost anything he wrote.  "Neverwill" sounds classically Barkerian.  Which is cool.  I'd almost like it better if the other names were more along this "darkly whimsical" line.  After all, "Sleepers" and "Guardians" are pretty cliche compared to "Neverwill".  Not to dis the ideas, because I think they're cool.  I just like nifty names =>

Also bits of Holdstock's Mythago setting, and Dark Cities Underground by... um... I forget who (memory like swiss cheese dammit).  Oh yeah, and Darwinia too.

So, would players have to all play one one side of the conflict (Guardians or Neverwill)?  Or can humans even tell the difference between them?  Do humans even know about the conflict or do they just naively go about their business?  Or maybe some of all of the above.
[/u][/i]

[Ron Edwards]

Ditto to what the Nevman said. I want to know all the answers to his questions.

Nev, we simply must get you hooked up with Sean Wipfli (unodiablo). You two in one room will probably summon a demon by sheer ineffable energy-release.

Best,
Ron

[Bankuei]

Heh.. the concept you describe sounds like a sort of bizarre fusion of anime like No Need for Tenchi!, 3x3 Eyes, and any of Rumiko Takahashi's whacked out "supernatural situational drama" anime. The "how do you maintain your interpersonal relationships while also dealing with demons (or aliens or whatever)" theme is almost a subclass of it's own in anime.

Exactly where I'm coming from.  There's far too many cases of demon chicks, ninja chicks and robot gals type anime that pretty much sum up the same situation, although you can also apply the same stuff from Pokemon, Digimon, and the newer Transformers stuff.  

Basically you have a character that's full of superpower and is emotionally needy and demanding, and screws up the rest of your life.  At its best, its simply a needy girlfriend or such, at its worst, its Fatal Attraction or some other form of obsessive emotional domination game.  A perfect example of someone hitting humanity 0 in this would be Sharon Apple's manager from Macross Plus, who commits suicide in a hynotized craze over his virtual idol girlfriend.

My friends and I involved in this game are all familiar with this stuff, so perhaps that's why the idea behind it is so easy for us to grasp, and might be harder for other folks to get.

Actually instead of Barker,  my main influence for the Sleepers was Hellboy.  I really loved the scene where the crazed sorcerer is trying to call up his Gods, and somewhere, deep in the cosmos at the edge of some nebula, a group of aliens scientists scream, "What the hell are they doing!?! Don't they know what they'll awaken?" as they sit in their "Bad God" monitering station...

On note of the Neverwill, there's two influences behind that...first is Lovecraft, of course, with the basic idea that insanity isn't just bad for the person going crazy, but could leave the entire universe screwed up.  The second idea was Ron's line about Sorcerer being made for the kinds of players who actually think about people being able to access some horrible power... and just shuddering....

The idea that any loopy guy out there with some crappy new age/alien conspiracy book and enough willpower and little rationality could create something that should not be, that wants to alter our reality for its personal political needs, scares the hell out of me.  The idea of just how unbalanced, how desperate, that kind of person would be gives me the hibby-jibbies, and it makes me shudder.

I agree that the term Guardians is pretty lame, but I couldn't really think up something that would appropriately fit at the time.  If I come up with one later, I'm sure I'll put something up about it.  I'm open to suggestions.

The main thing that I think is very interesting about them is that they are sort of the Sleepers exceptions to the rule, the black ops team of impossibilities allowed to exist and break the laws of physics and causality in order to prevent other impossibilities from upsetting the status quo.  The Guardians serve the Sleepers, not the humans, and humans are pretty much just in the middle of the political conflict because, for whatever reason, they have been gifted with imagination and the ability to bring these things forth.

The sorcerers who work with Guardians are basically considered disposable.  Of course, the sorcerers think they're protecting "their" reality, so they're willing to take those risks.

Humanity as a whole is unaware of the conflict, although I see the Guardian sorcerers working as a secret society, spread across the globe, intent on keeping their world intact and passing on the knowledge to a chosen few to protect it.  

Since Guardians are all passers of some sort, humans would only see them as individuals with funky powers.  Most of the Neverwill are possessors or parasites, so folks would also see someone with funky powers(although probably multiple personalities as far as they're concerned).  A few Neverwill manifest as inconspicous things, always invisible, but detectable as a weird Matrix style ripple in space, a sound(screeching, church bells, whatever), or wind, or something that basically allows them to work as poltergeists or Carrie-style powers.  Again, people would just think that the sorcerer controlling them has funky magic powers.

As far as players go, I wouldn't necessarily force all the players to play one type of sorcerer, except depending on where I want the conflict to focus.  

If you're talking a mixed group of sorcerers in play, for the Guardians, its all about "What is right?" in terms of setting justice.  Stuff like having to kill/banish and deal with sorcerers and folks who are very sympathetic characters(kid on the rampage, insane bum, sorcerer using his power for world peace, etc.), the kind of stuff you get in cop/legal dramas.

When its the Neverwill, its always about the classic sorcerer question of "How far will you go?" except usually with an exploration of, "What has driven you this far, and is it worth it?"

Thanks for the interest.  Since its PBP, the players are dragging their feet, so I'll keep you updated if anything interesting develops.

Chris

[Nev the Deranged]

PBP = Play by post?  

I just remembered the other influence I was trying to think of- Neil Gaiman's novel Neverwhere naturally because it sounds like Neverwill.  But it also incorporated some of the themes/ideas.

I think this idea rocks, and is fraught with potential.  I have a few more questions.

Are the Sleepers the source of the classical god archetypes?  Does each Sleeper govern or appear to have influence over a particular paradigm set or area of reality?  IE. Gribbonath Who Dreams of War, Urkutsku Who Dreams of Science, Pelenar Who Dreams of Love, etc.  Would any of the classical Greco-Roman, Norse, Celtic, Hindi, Asian, etc. god archetypes fit the mold that the Sleepers create?  I guess what I'm asking is, are the gods people of past ages have worshipped "real" (Sleepers)?  Or perhaps they were Guardians and Neverwill... I mean, it's been long theorized both in real religious discussion as well as fantasy writing and role playing that gods derive their power from belief- which is exactly what the Neverwill are.  So wouldn't it stand to reason that ANY cult, even if it was completely made up, is a self-fulfilling endeavour?

Crap... L. Ron Hubbard is grinning real wide somewhere right now.

What about belief focused on a PERSON?  I mean, the Neverwill can take any form, any avatar or eidolon... so what if the bum on the corner believes he's Superman?  Does the Neverwill manifest as powers that come from him, or as an invisible entity that does things that make it seem like he has powers?

If everyone David Blaine levitates for believes he really can levitate... can he?  (if you haven't seen this guy, check out his Fearless DVD.. it's pretty sweet).

What is the definition of unbalanced?  What about a sociopath who gets an inkling of how this cosmic game works... is he (or she) unbalanced enough to create Neverwills... but using cold logical belief instead of emotional energy?  Now that would be scary.

How about instead of Guardians... maybe Regulators?  Troubleshooters?  hmm.. those don't ring right for the setting.  Oh, another question... since Guardians are allowed to exist outside the rules to accomplish specific tasks, are they persistent (IE continue to exist for multiple "missions") or do they vanish as soon as the task they were created for is accomplished, to keep as much of the natural order intact at any given time as possible?  Does the creation of Guardians/Neverwill cause cosmic imbalance by it's very nature?  Are the Sleepers themselves possibly unaware that they are part of a vast, impersonal machine and that it's simply a matter of action/reaction?  Are there Anti-Sleepers?  No, wait, you already answered that- the Neverwill's mission is to become strong enough to slay the Sleepers and take their places.

Usually in this scenario, there's at least one Dark Sleeper already, one Neverwill who accomplished the goal of replacing/corrupting an existing Sleeper and who serves as the main antagonist... which doesn't mean you should go that route here, as it's been done a jillion times already.

Oh, and just so you know Bankuei, I AM that person you describe, whom if Neverwill existed, would have you hiding on your cellar nailing the door shut and gnawing your fingernails off. =>

[Bankuei]

Hi Nev,

PBP does mean play by post, sorry for the lack of clarity there.

On note of the Gods/Sleepers issue, I'm pretty much avoiding that completely.  I'm not big into the Whitewolf, "Let's rewrite history according to our cosmology" type stuff.  I suspect the Sleepers are some "things" not very different than the Neverwill, who just happen to have control over our universe.  In otherwords, the only difference between the two is that of power.  It's a political struggle, and humans just happen to be on the benefited side of the Haves rather than the Have Nots in this case.

The Guardians themselves may have contributed to various angel/heroes of legend type stuff, but no one will no for sure.  One aspect that is interesting about the Guardians is that, yes, they do continue to exist as long as they are not Banished or destroyed, so they may have knowledge of history for thousands of years.  But they always lose memory of previous masters....so it's kind of spotty and funny that way.  Its sort of my excuse to introduce fun little plot kickers without having to fully explain how the Guardian can do, know, or remember something.

As far as worship goes, nobody really knows about the relationship between the Sleepers and the Neverwill, except the funky cells of the order of folks who work with the Guardians.  Most, if not all, of the Neverwill sorcerers don't even know about the big picture, they're just puppets.

And to reiterate the issue about belief:  Its not just believing in someone strong enough.  It requires consciously choosing to believe something that you just know ISN'T true, over that which is.  Very few people can do that intentionally.  It means you have to have enough rationality to be able to determine the difference in the first place, but little enough stability to stop you from doing it.  That's my definition of unbalanced for this setting.

But people's belief cannot alter someone else.  Think of the Neverwill as imaginary friends, alternate personalities, or channeling the inner spirit of the Teletubbies, etc.    So everyone could believe David Blaine levitates, but that won't change him.  He's still him.  But if someone believed he was in mental contact with David Blaine...that guy might contact something.  It wouldn't be David Blaine, but it might say it is, and worse yet, it might say the real David Blaine is the fake, the imposter, and either try to get to use that body as a host, or else try to off him so there'd "Be room in this world for me, the real David Blaine..."

What about belief focused on a PERSON? I mean, the Neverwill can take any form, any avatar or eidolon... so what if the bum on the corner believes he's Superman? Does the Neverwill manifest as powers that come from him, or as an invisible entity that does things that make it seem like he has powers?

Well, remember that the Neverwill don't actually have physical forms.  Either they are possessing someone, a parasite in someone, or else a funky "not-really-there" kinda force like a poltergeist.  But as far as someone else is concerned, the host for the Neverwill would seem to be beyond human, or that weird force would come across as funky telekinetic type powers.

There's an important rule to keep in mind about this game though:  Demons do not want to be widely known.  My logic behind this one, is the Guardians are exceptions to reality, the more people know of them, the more likely people are to access Neverwill.  The Neverwill know they're hunted, the more people know about weird shit happening, the more likely the Guardians will show up.

Does the creation of Guardians/Neverwill cause cosmic imbalance by it's very nature?

Good question, and that's one of the things I want my players to start asking.  It's sort of like the question behind Minority Report, "Can justice be established through unjust means?", and likewise, can the players hold down reality with things that clearly violate it?

As far as the idea of "Anti-sleepers" and "Dark Sleepers" its not about being good or evil.  Its a political game, either these things are in power, or they're not.  The Sleepers are the ones in power, and our laws of physics and our world happens to work the way it does, because its the best environment for them to exist.  If a Neverwill got in power, its just as likely that things would become "better" as much as "worse", its just that there is no way to really predict that.  And since most of the sorcerers who conjure up these things are desperate and wacky, there's a good chance that these things will create a world that is "not good" in some fashion.

I'm sure there's been power shifts before, but no one would ever know.

I'm glad you find this setting fun, and I hope you check out Ron's Quickplay rules for Sorcerer if you like it this much.  Sorcerer is great for allowing you to come up with settings that allow you to explore whatever it is that you consider meaningful.  Once you check out the Humanity rules, you'll see that this setting really becomes interesting.

Oh, and just so you know Bankuei, I AM that person you describe, whom if Neverwill existed, would have you hiding on your cellar nailing the door shut and gnawing your fingernails off. =>

I hope not, otherwise I'd recommend that you seek therapy :P
By the way, I wouldn't nail the door shut.  I'd just stay armed. :)

Chris

[Nev the Deranged]

So, the Sleepers/Guardians/Neverwill are all pretty much the same kinds of beings, just different goals and power levels.  So it's quite possible that Neverwill forces HAVE accomplished a coup or two in the past and replaced one or more Sleepers... only to take up the same torch borne by the deposed.  Sort of like the idealistic young man who takes up politics to change the system and then decides making the rules to benefit himself isn't so bad once he's on the inside.

It's also cool that nobody would remember such things, in the classic sense of the Faerykin who are immortal, yet utterly careless.  Why remember yesterday?   It was just like today.  Why think of tomorrow?  It will be just like today.  Whatever we are doing today is all that is important.  Not that in this setting the Sleepers couldn't have long term goals... I just think that concept of blase immortality is amusing.

More than once I have seen the concept played out that all the "great works" of Faery were accomplished by men... the Fae have no use for such things beyond their immediate beauty.

Okay, I'm getting off track here... gotta go finish laundry and showering >.<

Anybody here read Mark Oakley's Thieves and Kings indie comic?  Lots of cool Sorcery stuff in there, particularly along the lines of ultra-long-term shifts in the cosmic order starting on the interpersonal scale and working up to rock the foundations of reality... would be cool for the concept of victories from seemingly unrelated contests carrying over and cascading down the ages to affect events years or even eons later.

Okay, toodles!