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

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

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

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

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

Per wrote:
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

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

Vulpinoid wrote:
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