Idea for a new Campiagn Setting: Dead Man's Hand

[Catharz]

Oh fuck yea! This is awesome! Am I to assume that the Maizenians are inspired by the corn husk society, e.g. agrarians from outer space?


Although it's a bit east for the setting, it would also be cool to have Wood People. Combine the rim-dwelling giants, the masked medicine society that embodies them, the Iroquois culture that created them, and the Ents of Tolkien. You could even make them shape-shifters to fit with the 'nature spirit' stories, able to take the form of floating long-haired masks or woodland giants.


Actually, I'm beginning to really like the idea of most American Indian-equivalents in this setting as extraterrestrials. It fits with the Katsina, the Husk-faces, and the Rim-dwellers.

[Edit] Also, if you go with the whole elemental thing, rim dwellers and maizenians would be the natural enemies of the Ifrit. [/Edit]

[Username17]

Continued...

The Sidhe
"Ride into the sunset? I am the sunset."

The Sidhe come from the far west of the Old World, and usually have hair as yellow as the sun of noon or red as the sun of dusk. Sidhe average 1.5m in height, and cast no shadows.

Sidhe flesh burns in contact with iron, and perhaps as a result the Sidhe are known far and wide as master craftsmen in silver, copper, and wood. Sidhe breathe in a continuous stream in and out and this is easily mistaken for them not breathing at all. Sidhe bodies have no striated muscle in them, and as a result Sidhe can stand in any position virtually indefinitely without growing tired.

While Sidhe peoples live throughout the West of the Old World, from the Burning Empire to Vanheim, the nations which are truly Sidhe dominated are the Kingdom of the Sun King on the mainland, and the islands of Tir na nOg. The Sun King demands all of his subjects bend knee to the high pontiff, while the Queen of the Emerald Islands demands that her subjects do not do so. These edicts have brought the Sun King into confrontation with Tir on several occasions, as well as with Vanheim and even his own Lutin subjects. Neither the Sun King nor the high pontiff have much power in the West, though they stand tall in alliance in the Old World.

Inspiration: British, French, Irish

The Vanir
"i'm looking for a man."

The Vanir are an aloof and musically inclined people known for seamanship, swordsmanship, and austerity. A somber and precise people, the average Van stands 1.8m tall. Vanir are quite flammable but they don't have blood and do not bleed when cut.

Most Vanir have long since rebelled against the High Pontiff and Burning Empire, and there are now independent nations of Van all over the Old World. The United Provinces of Vanheim and the Helheim Republic are both relatively non-interventionist republics that are quite wealthy and powerful. Van colonies make up a significant fraction of the segments of Union territories and many of those who go out West from the Union are Vanir.

All Vanir have perfect pitch, but most of them subscribe to religious views which discourage song and dance. The stereotypical Van is both flat of affect and exacting of tone – making them persuasive and unnerving.

Inspiration: Nederlanders, Belgians, Burgundians

The Jotun
"Do you wish to anger me little man!?"

The Jotun stand an impressive 3m tall and are almost as shaggy as wolves. Jotun can stand any amount of cold, and their mere presence chills the air. In the West, Jotun are forced to wear heavy furs during the height of summer to keep the heat off of their bodies to stave off a painful softening of their flesh.

Jotun traditionally drink heavily, and their men grow long and scraggly beards. Where once they were feared as warriors across the Old World, the time of the Jotun has mostly passed. The advancement of the gun has largely outpaced the manifest size and strength of the mighty Jotun hirdmen. The Jotun are now largely a figure of fun in popular literature and the Jotun mostly colonize out of the way lands in the frozen north of the Mid West.

When Jotun become very old they gradually transform into huge dire wolves, forcing them to move even farther into the wilderness lest hey be hunted by their own kin.

Inspiration: Norse, Danes, Cossacks.

---

Actually, the Maizenians were based on Mayan nd Aztec lore regrding humans (or at least royal humans) having been made out of corn and blood. They would flatten their foreheads with boards and do their hair up in curls to look more like corn. I was going to just run with that and have the Mesoamericans running around being photo-synthetic and made out of corn. But there's no particular reason that the New World Natives couldn't also be from space instead of Northeast Asia.

As to Iriquois Wooden people who wear masks that make them transform into other people, I'm totally in favor of that. Do you remember what they were called? Also, I think there should probably be the Salmon people and the acorn people of the Northwest and far West respectively - though of course neither are terribly important for most of the Western stuff you want to do (exept for the gold rush of course).

-Username17

[Prak]

geez... I feel kinda bad that you're putting sdo much work into this frank... but it looks great! Maybe I'll earn my keep by doing up the mage-weapons...

[Username17]

The Deep Ones
"Ia Ia, I get right on it, monkey boy."

If a Deep One was standing erect it would usually crest 1.7m by a slight margin. However, a Deep One's naturally hunched posture makes them rarely crest 1.3m. A Deep One's body is frog-like in appearance, with slit-pupiled eyes placed squarely on top of their head and an enormous maw that appears to always be smiling. Deep Ones breath water as easily as air and can resist pressures that would be unthinkable for virtually any other living creature.

The culture of the Deep Ones goes back thousands of years and the Deep Ones considered themselves "civilized" when the Sidhe were busy hitting each other's naked forms with rocks. However, theirs is an empire in decline. The emperors of the deep have long rejected change and the other powers of the Old World have now completely overshadowed them in almost all fields of endeavor. Fine clay and cloth products once producible only beneath the waves have been replicated by Svartalf artisans, and reefs belonging to the Empire are now openly fought over by surface powers as exploitive markets. A river of gold no longer pours into the sea like it once did.

And so it is of little surprise that Deep Ones come out to the West (even though for them the trek is to the East) looking for work. Fearing that the uncounted hordes from beneath the waves might completely overrun the virgin lands, many groups and nations take open steps to limit the immigration of female Deep Ones. Thus it is mostly male Deep Ones that make it to the West to work on the Great Rails – massive multidimensional constructs of steel and memory that haul goods across the great planes from civilized lands to the interior.

Inspiration: Chinese, H.P. Lovecraft

Lutin
"I found a penny yesterday. It is worth money."

The Lutin stand less than half a meter tall and have elaborately colored insect-like wings coming out of their back. While a Lutin cannot remain aloft for long, they can run at tremendous speed with wing assistance. Lutin have small antennae on their heads which emerge from their pastel-colored hair. These allow them to hear sounds much higher in pitch than other peoples. Lutin smell like flowers, to the extent that they can be tracked by this phenomenon.

The Lutin have never had major holdings in the Old World. Lutin lands have been conquered and reconquered by emperors from the North, South, and East. Banners flown by Loci, Ifrit, and Sidhe have been placed over Lutin cities time and time again.

The cube square law works in the favor of Lutin, who can lift several times their own (extremely modest) weight. Most people dismiss Lutin because of their stature, and they have the reputation of being thieves, jovially useless hobos, and vapid entertainers.

Inspiration: Basques, Occitans, Gypsies

Duszek
"Boo."

The measurable height of the Duszek varies with the length of their shadow. As their shadow grows, more of their body becomes ephemeral and difficult to see. At noon and at night, a Duszek stands an imposing 2m tall. At the cusp of sunrise and sunset, only about a centimeter of a Duszek is capable of touching or being touched by objects. Because of their difficulties in touching things for part of the day, Duszek are wont to cover themselves with chalk or birch ash, as these materials are immune to this particular facet of their existence. Caster shells similarly penetrate the incorporeality of the Duszek at late day, so their reputation as unstoppable ghost faced stranglers is of late somewhat undeserved.

Duszeck have several layers of sharpened teeth like a shark and new ones are constantly coming in to replace the teeth which fall out. Duszek do not have finger nails, and use their mouths for many tasks that others turn to hands for. The Duszek have a separate right and left lower jaw and move them independently.

The Duszek are divided in loyalty between the high pontiff and the eastern patriarch, but most of them come from lands under the grip of the Czar and his Winter Court. Most Duszek come to the West by heading East across the seas and the Czar's interest in the New World is mostly limited to hunting and fishing along the Western Coast.

Inspiration: Poles, Russians

---

And the Iroquois guys are going to be called Hahgwehd. They wear wooden masks because they don't have faces and are otherwise unable to talk.

-Username17

[Catharz]

Ok, so some real-world info:
Iroquois religion was divided into two branches, female and male.
The women were members of the corn husk societies, and made masks out of corn husks. The corn husk masks represented agriculturalists from either the other size of the world (the world being flat) or outer space. These corny spacewomen taught the Iroquois how to farm.

Men were members of the masked medicine societies, and made masks of cedar. These masks represented rim dwellers and forest spirits. The rim dwellers were powerful freaky-looking magic-using giants, similar to the firbolg. They're called rim dwellers because they live at the edge of the earth. One of the more famous individuals is Crooked Nose, so named because of an unfortunate run-in with the creator.

The nature spirits basically look like floating masks or head, with long flowing hair. Unlike the rim dwellers, the spirits lived in the same woods as the Iroquois, and could often be seen doing their woodland spirit things.

IIRC the cedar masks weren't so much a possession thing as the Katsinas, but contained or invoked the idea and power of the appropriate individual rim dweller or spirit. They were painted red, black, or red and black based on when the tree from which the living mask was to be carved called out to the carver.

Anyway, my previous suggestion was basically blending and bastardizing all that together.


[Edit]
The masks are basswood, not cedar.
The nature spirits are "Joga", but I can't find the Iroquois for "rim dweller".
[/Edit]

[Username17]

Having given it more thought, I have come to the conclusion that size should modify the extra damage threshold. That is, if you get a hit, you do basic weapon damage. If you get extra hits you do more damage. +1, +3, +6, +10, +15....

But if you hit something small, like a mosquito or a rat, the damage threshold is moved in your favor. So instead, the hits past grazing hit on a small character would go +3, +6, +10, +15, +21. Actual mosquitos would shift things several boxes over, so anything past a grazing hit would crush themm utterly.

And if you hit larger creatures, you have to get more hits before damage starts accumulating. So on a large character your damage for extra hits would be: +0, +1, +3, +6, +10. Very large monsters would shift things a couple times over, which would basically require you to blast away with large weapons.

---

The actual attack roll is basically going to be Agility + Face Shooting (or whatever the skill is actually called) +/- Weapon Accuracy (+0 for a standard pistol) - Target's Reaction +/- Modifiers.

So while the Lutin (who are small) would seem to get hosed, it's actually not so bad for them. They get a -1 penalty to your to-hit roll and a Reaction bonus, so long as they aren't being sneak attacked (denying their Reaction), the average damage per attack isn't overall affected much (people get less hits, and the remaining hits count for more damage).

-Username17

[Username17]

Skriatok
"Stay away you greedy meddling giants! I know what you want. You can't have it!"

Skriatok stand a mere 1.2m on average and have skin the texture and sheen of marble. They gain nutrition from little other than moss and alcohol, though their demands of these substances are surprisingly modest considering. Most Skriatok allow lichen to grow on their bodies, which in turn mostly limits itself to positions other races grow hair. The specific gravity of a Skriatok is usually about 3 and they sink rapidly in water. Skriatok do not freeze or burn at any practically achievable temperature.

If a Skriatok fails to touch reasonably pure gold for three whole days, he will transform into inanimate stone with the rising of the sun on the fourth day – and remain a statue until gold is again touched to its form. On the other hand, a Skriatok who touches more than a modest amount of gold every day for a month will find himself growing, with his appetites outpacing his increase in size. It is telling that the Czar of the Winter Court is a hulking monstrosity of 4 meters who must drain down a vodka barrel every day.

Skriatok have a reputation for being greedy, unfriendly, jealous, and mean. This is not unwarranted as Skriatok are frequently subjected to paranoid delusions that others will attempt to part them from their gold, their vodka, or their rock algae.

Inspiration: Russians, Slovaks

Slavery in the New World

Slavery is an ugly institution, but not a particularly new one. Some of the first records detail the capture and sale of slaves, and even then it is clear that the idea of slavery predates even the writings of the Deep Ones. Slavery is not even new to the New World. Hundreds of years before the first Oceanid claimed the New World (ironically for the Burning Empire of the Ifrit Sultan), Maizenian priests commanded work crews of thousands of slaves to erect temples to their gods. But it is undeniable fact that the New World has seen the institution of slavery raised from an ad hoc affair to a brutal international institution whose ramifications will be clearly visible in demographics for a thousand years.

The first Ifrit expeditions to the New World happily captured and enslaved whole villages of the native inhabitants, continuing a practice that was commonplace in the Burning Empire. At that time wealthy Ifrit would think nothing of keeping slaves of Lutin, Sidhe, or each other. The Sidhe, similarly kept Lutin and other Sidhe as slaves as a regular occurrence. As colonies began being established in the New World, the colonial powers such as Tir na nOg and the Burning Empire brought other Old Worlders in chains, and supplemented their slave numbers with locally kidnapped peoples.

With the rise of the plantation system, and the extremely lethal work environs of the Oak Swamps and the Southern silver mines, using Sidhe or even natives as primary slave sources began to strain the limits and a new source of slaves was found in the South of the Old World. Anansi and Wakyambi could be kidnapped en masse from their homes and dragged across the seas to fulfill the ravenous demands for slaves. Modern slave taking became so effective that taking Sidhe, Lutin, or Ifrit as slaves became unnecessary, and eventually it was outlawed practically everywhere.

During the time frame of Dead Man's Hand, slavery is on the way out. Slave revolts all over the world are making progress, and abolitionist movements are major political forces on every continent. Furthermore, the skilled labor needs of modern magitech and steam industry are incompatible with slave holding societies: and these new technologies and production methods out produce the slave holding production methods at every turn. But even with the writing on the wall, slave holders are not allowing "their" way of life to go without a fight. Even as popular pinion and economic reality turns more and more strongly against the practice, slave holders are becoming more and more ruthlessly murderous to hold on to the people that they own. In the unincorporated areas of the West, slavers have been known to assault towns believed to have an abolitionist electoral bias. Open war seems inevitable.

Something to keep in mind when you consider the Anansi and the Wakyambi is that they are as a group in the West because of slavery. While free Anansi and Wakyambi certainly exist, practically every one of them is either an escaped slave or the descendent of escaped slaves. While many generations of Sidhe struggled under the yokes of cruel masters, there were also many Sidhe who never tasted either end of the whip. Slavery is a horrible part of the West, and the mere presence of a Wakyambi is a bitter reminder of its cruel past, its brutal reality, and its ghastly legacy.

Anansi
"Don't throw me in the briar patch!"

An Anansi adult stands 1.4m tall and its skin is covered with stripes, dots, and more amorphous contrast markings in brown and pale cream. Anansi can secrete their choice of sticky and non-sticky webbing from spinnerets in their lower back and have venomous fangs. Anansi have two thumbs of each hand and their joints have in general more degrees of rotation than do those of other races. Anansi think nothing of turning their heads to look behind them, and their hands can reach any part of their back without strain.

Anansi pride themselves on their trickery, leading to unfavorable stereotypes among other races as Happy-Go-Lucky folks who don't (or can't) care about big things and are too simple to be allowed to wander free; or as dishonest and cunning natural thieves who can't be allowed to freely interact with civilization. Despite the contradictions, many people hold both stereotypes to be true.

In their native lands it is said that Anansi worshipped strange gods and lived in trees. There are few Anansi in the West who could tell you how much of that was true. Anansi in the West have long since been stripped of their names, their stories have been outlawed, and their web tapestries burned.

Inspiration: African Americans

Wakyambi
""

The Wakyambi measure an average of 1.8m tall and have arms which are longer in proportion to their bodies than other sapient races. Seemingly deathly thin, Wakyambi have no eyes, and navigate through feeling perturbations in low frequency sound. Wakyambi normally hum continuously at a frequency at or below the minimum frequency others can hear.

The gold-rich empires and kingdoms of the Wakyambi are by-and-large in flames. The colonial powers of the Old World arm bandits and rape gangs up and down the coast in exchange for slaves, lawlessness and anarchy rule those lands. Even recently free Wakyambi in the West rarely want to return to their homes – there is nothing to return home to.

Wakyambi communicate mostly through a rich song that is largely below the range that other races can hear. It is frequent practice in some slave holding areas to scar the vocal chords of Wakyambi slaves in order to prevent them from being able to secretly plot against their masters. This practice leaves the Wakyambi incapable of supplementing the low frequency sound which surrounds them and thus makes it extremely difficult for them to get around.

Inspiration: African Americans

---

OK, that's pretty much the Old Worlders taken care of. Once the Natives are together, we can move on to Bestiary. I think Unicorn riders and Aurochs is an important step here.

-Username17

[Username17]

Native Magics

Magitech, domestic livestock, and steel were entirely unknown in the New World before the arrival of settlers from the Old. Nevertheless, native societies existed for hundreds, even thousands of years before they were "discovered". The magic used by each tribe is very different, and even within each tribe the magical capabilities of Shaman vary spectacularly. Native magic is not Magitech, it does not appear in books and seems to follow few rules.

Each Shaman has their own particular tricks which are usually kept well hidden from others, even within the same tribe. Some of it seems to be a boon, other magic appears to be quite baleful. All of it is mysterious, and most of all personal to the shaman invoking it.

Kachinas
"All of life is a dance. We dance because we are alive. How can you live and not dance?"

The Kachinas are a collection of tribes whose people resemble statues made out of cornhusks, feathers, and plaster. While they are living things, the first colonial explorers to meet them mistook the Kachinas for machines. Kachinas stand an average of 1.7m tall, and speak a language wild gesticulations and wooden-sounding clacks.

Kachinas are virtually incapable of standing still. Every moment of the day they are dancing, or fidgeting, or running. The muscles of the Kachina are tied together in a massive spring-like system where it is literally less effort to continue moving than it is to stop. Also, the lungs of a Kachina are unpowered and open to the air through a series of holes in the chest. If a Kachina were to stop moving, it would be unable to breathe (barring a strong wind).

The Kachinas are generally agriculturalists. They live in adobe villages and grow maize.

Kachina Magic: The magic of the Kachina people is very somatic. Specific dances cause specific events, and the Kachina Shamans are able to use these dances to control the weather six months out of the year. More powerful magic requires more Shamans and longer dances. Most magic dances govern wind, water, and maize – which are considered to be the elements of life.

Inspiration: Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo

---

Each of the tribes gets their own Magic write-up because they don't use the normal system of steam-punk devices and magitech that everyone form the Old World does.

-Username17

[Lago_AM3P]

Am I just being too overly sensitive for finding this topic offensive, especially the description on races?

Seriously.

[erik]

Perhaps.

For this setting you've got your deluge of conquerers and explorers, your native peoples, and a variety of displaced oppressed people. If I didn't have an underpinning that I was already passingly familiar with, I'd have a really freakin hard time keeping it all straight once a dozen different cultures are introduced. In fact, without the pointers to something that I am familar with, I probably would have a hard time keeping interest due to that added difficulty.

It may be a bit brusque in the initial presentation (paraphrasing unfavorably, Africans = Beastmen), and stuff like that could piss people off who aren't taking it with a couple dashes of salt as a simple explanation of how the mixed up fantasy-west culture fits together, but rather are presuming that real people are being equated with unflattering fantasy races. Given that this is on the roleplaying board, I imagine most of us are likely to view it in the context of fictional world building and roleplaying, and not trying to make implications about real world schtuff (since this isn't in the MPSIMS forum).

With the blocked race introductions it comes off much more cleanly (as I'm sure it was intended) as an explanation of how to fit the fantasy races all together, and as a very simple guide of how they may interact.

[CalibronXXX]

The write-ups on the Africans inspired races gave me a bit of an unconscious twinge, but I got over it after a second; So yes you're probably being a little over-sensitive if this stuff legitimately offends you.

[Bigode]

Lago: I understand your position, and I did expect bad things to happen when a blanket "African = beastman" equation was given in page 1, but, at the moment ...

Are Frank's texts not making each race be worthy in its own way? Are them not making slavery be the gutwrenching thing it still is? Are them advocating any idea the fictional characters involved (or, much worse, the real people involved) had (still have)? No, they are giving a setting where bad things happen - is that not expected to happen in a game after adventuring (after all, you are in the Navy, and know better than me that "adventuring", i.e., facestabbing, isn't the "merry" thing one does out of lack of something more interesting - it's either righting a wrong or being one)?

Though I must admit it still sounds strange that Frank's taking this, since he's "uncomfortable with giving racial modifiers to black people", and that is essentially what he's doing (even though for a fictional setting). But, well, Frank: even though I did expect things to come out worse at the start, what's actually turning out's awesome - thanks.

[Catharz]

I find this a lot less offensive than the idea of a setting in which Europeans are "human", Amerindians are "orcs", and Africans are "beastmen".

[Nihlin]

1187734851[/unixtime]]I find this a lot less offensive than the idea of a setting in which Europeans are "human", Amerindians are "orcs", and Africans are "beastmen".

Yeah, the position that nobody gets to be human if anyone isn't human works for me. So, minorities are weird non-human creatures, and so is everyone and everything else. Much better than human white Europeans and monstrous everything else.

[Prak]

1187735189[/unixtime]]

1187734851[/unixtime]]I find this a lot less offensive than the idea of a setting in which Europeans are "human", Amerindians are "orcs", and Africans are "beastmen".

Yeah, the position that nobody gets to be human if anyone isn't human works for me. So, minorities are weird non-human creatures, and so is everyone and everything else. Much better than human white Europeans and monstrous everything else.

yeah, it nicely sidesteps my initial feared pit fall of equating role to role in things like, "well, the europeans weren't anything special, so they're human, the native americans were looked at as unintelligent savages, so orcs will do, and africans were slaves, so lets use something tribal and unsavory". I like the way it's turning out with no one being normal or human.

[Fuzzy_logic]

If you're going to have primitive/ bestial creatures stand in for blacks, perhaps make them in some way cursed?

bestial slaves might go down easier if their bestial status is caused by their captors. Like, they're lycanthropes deliberately infected. Or, They used ot have firnedly animal spirits like the Daemons of Golden Compass, but when the demons are killed, the animal traits reside in the man,

Or, they grow steadily sicker and less human when deprived of some magical material...

[Catharz]

I have no idea what the "inspirations" for a lot of these are. Obviously Ananzi, Katchina, and Sidhe are African, Hopi/Zuni/"Pueblo", and Celtic. What are the stories that the Romani pixies, Wakyambi, and Skriatok are from?

Seriously Frank, your knowledge of folklore must be immense. Care to enlighten us a bit more?

1187655416[/unixtime]] The colonial powers of the Old World arm bandits and rape gangs up and down the coast in exchange for slaves; lawlessness and anarchy rule those lands.

Keely said that you need a semicolon there instead of a comma, but she doesn't like sitting at my computer.

[cthulhu]

I too was nervous about 'Blacks=Beastmen' though I could see the objective .. I think.

The current races are god damn fantastic however. I love the little but BIG differences. What inspired the Duszek?

[Username17]

I have no idea what the "inspirations" for a lot of these are. Obviously Ananzi, Katchina, and Sidhe are African, Hopi/Zuni/"Pueblo", and Celtic. What are the stories that the Romani pixies, Wakyambi, and Skriatok are from?

The current races are god damn fantastic however. I love the little but BIG differences. What inspired the Duszek?

OK, the Lutin are French pixies. Pranksters, little people, flying butterfly winged pixies. Also they are giant green dudes with sharp teeth and shit, but that's folklore for you. Combining the folkloric constraints of being impish and small with the characteristic of being stupid and easy to take advantage of I found a common ground with the Romani, the Gascon, and the Basque - groups in the French lands who were portrayed as stupid and easy to take advantage of as part of institutionalized racism that took advantage of those groups. Basically I gave them the appearance of one version of the Lutin, and a social caste consistent with another. And then I gave them the location of people who were appropriately treated by the people whose name that is.

Wakyambi are big night walking, blood drinking, warrior ogres from African folklore. Basically all African folkloric creatures are extremely horrific as far as I can tell. Bloody histories make for bloody legends. In deference to their location I threw in some biological notes from bats (who walk the night) and elephants (who are associated with Wakyambi folklorically anyway). I took out the canibalism and the poison use because honestly I don't think it adds anything. The empires they pine over are recognizable as the Golden Kingdom of Mali - which was indeed essentially torn asunder by the slave trade.

Skriatok are Slovakian Leprechauns. Straight up. Gold filching, green wearing little people. From Slovakia. I don't know why - maybe it has something to do with the whole Indo-European thing? I mean hell, the Irish caste system and the Indic caste system aren't convergeant, they are divergeant. Anyhow, the fey folk in those stories have to leave you alone if you give them alcohol, and have a tendency to turn to stone in sunlight. Turning to stone in sunlight permanently, or every time the sun came up would be unplayable, so I simply grabbed another Slavic thing about spirit people having to do things in threes to turn and slipped in the gold escape to put things on an even keel.

Duszek are Polish fairies, but they are also ghosts. So the same word pops up when you're talking about floating sheets with eyes that pass through walls and also when you're talking about little girls with dragonfly wings. Sigh. Straight incorporeality is unplayable, so I did a little digging and in Eastern European stuff the undead have their powers tied to their shadows - vampires and such are at full power at night and also at high noon. I combined that with the notion that sometimes they are incorporeal and sometimes they are not to get the variably solid thing they have going on. In deference to their appearance as floaty-marshmallow dudes I gave them the distinctive fingernail-less fingers, and the special mouth came in as a good "real world" look of the jack-o-lantern faces these guys have.

---

The folk process is taking things you like and leaving things you don't. Mixing and matching until you get a good story. D&D has conditioned us to expect a single word to refer to a single monster, but that's really not how things work. A single monster goes by multiple names (see: Catoblepas, Gorgon); while a single name refers to many different kinds of creatures (see: dragon, fairy).

So in looking through wildly disparate stories, and cross referencing with real-world historical analogues, I had to toss out a lot. You can't have "Duszek" mean everything that it actually means, because it means more than one thing. But you can make something cool that uses elements from a lot of versions of the Duszek, and then future storytellers will reference that work and so on.

Am I just being too overly sensitive for finding this topic offensive, especially the description on races?

Not really. The year is 1854 or so, and things are really offensive. People, real live human beings who can talk are owned as property and repeatedly raped so that they will give birth to a new generation of people that will also be owned by the people who raped them. The Cherokee live in Oklahoma because white people wanted their gold mines and prosperous cities and fvcking took them away in gross violation of treaty.

The old west is a really offensive time and place. And if you can read about it and not have your heart catch in your throat a little bit there's something wrong with you.

And every time you have real human beings replaced with some sort of specifically non-human creature that on some level cheapens them. No matter what kind of magic powers you ascribe to them, the fact is that you're making them "non-human". On some level they just aren't as worthy in your story as they actually are in real life. The entire concept of the elf, regardless of the culture which spawned the legend, is a way to explain away the extermination of peoples.

The statement "There were great people here before, they had powers and culture, but they became small and live underground" is a fvcking euphamism for genocide. Every single race I have written up so far is itself a euphamism for genocide. The Wakyambi, the Sidhe, the Efreet, the Alfar - all of these are stories from the world to explain why there are remnants of cultures who are all fvcking dead.

In any language. In any civilization. In any corner of the world where you find stories of "elves" you are finding evidence of a crime so heinous and so massive that it defies description and becomes euphamistic legend. Everyone in this setting is an elf, and it's really offensive. It's supposed to be.

-Username17

[Lago_AM3P]

In any language. In any civilization. In any corner of the world where you find stories of "elves" you are finding evidence of a crime so heinous and so massive that it defies description and becomes euphamistic legend. Everyone in this setting is an elf, and it's really offensive. It's supposed to be.

What's the appeal of that kind of setting, though?

I'm not telling you that what you're doing is wrong or bad or anything. As some people might've guessed from posts, I like to play settings where even if the world is mind-bendingly evil it's very possible that your band of plucky heroes will be able to make a noticeable difference on the campaign setting by the world's end.

Unfortunately, this is almost thematically impossible in games like D&D and Shadowrun. That makes me feel bad. I guess I just got kind of depressed when I see a setting where your children and your children's children will be brainwashed by society to become slavers and mass murderers. I understand there's a RL basis for this and everything, but still.

[erik]

Mechanics wise, whereabouts do you see the number of Dice being had by characters?
And along with that, how high do you see the number of successes required for difficult tasks?

I'm imagining something like this:
1 Die= Utterly untrained and worst attribute
3 Dice= Minimally trained and/or somewhat skilled
5 Dice= Trained and/or skilled
8 Dice= Expert
11 Dice= World class
14 Dice= Friggin heroic

Difficulty vs. Successes required
1 Success= Easiest task possible that requires a check (2 Dice= 55% success)
2 Successes= Moderately Difficult (5 Dice= 54% success)
3 Successes= Tough (8 Dice= 53% success)
4 Successes= Very Tough (11 Dice= 53% success)
5 Successes= Heroic (14 Dice= 52% success)

If rerolls are allowed in this mechanic, it makes a fairly large impact, and makes the difficulties much less daunting. "Feats" that would allow one reroll in a particular skill per scene would be kind of neat.

I expect attributes are likely to run from 1 die to 6 dice (and racial mods not to be more than -1 die or +1 or 2 dice).
and skills to go from 0 dice to 6 dice.

With proper fancy equipment (say, up to another +6 dice), a very focused character should be capable of laying down epic noise and average characters would be running around with 3-5 dice in their untrained areas.

Does that sound bout right?

[Username17]

Unfortunately, this is almost thematically impossible in games like D&D and Shadowrun. That makes me feel bad. I guess I just got kind of depressed when I see a setting where your children and your children's children will be brainwashed by society to become slavers and mass murderers. I understand there's a RL basis for this and everything, but still.

That's not entirely fair. It's about 1854. If things go according to human histry (which they may or may not), the Emancipation Proclamation will happen in 11 years. In our world not did open war seem inevitable, it actually happened, and the slave holding population lost.

This is the time of Bleeding Kansas. Each of the new territories in the West can vote to be Slave or Free. The Free Territories (which have more people) respond by shipping people to the west in order to rock the vote. The Slave Territories (who have more evil) respond by sending killers out to murder people in the west that are agitating a pro-Free vote.

This is the time of John Brown, Mammy Pleasant, and Chief John Ross. There are lots of things you can do to make the world a better place. Lots of them were done by real people, and they really worked.

-Username17

[CalibronXXX]

1187763935[/unixtime]]*unpleasant truths*

Now you're almost making me glad that history was never my best subject.

[Catharz]

So, some Katchina issues:

1) What are Katchina children like? Reproduction may be highly mysterious, but the children themselves should be present and visible. Katchina society is highly role-based, so I see three possibilities.

The first, I think, is the least interesting. Katchina are born into a role. The role is either determined at birth (and they are molded to fit that role), or they are born already in the shape they will hold for life.

The second, the one I like the best is that they are born looking human, but with off-black and off-white stripes.

After they come of age, they descend into their Kiva and after a full day emerge at dawn in their adult form.

Lastliy, Katchinas could self-create, changing their forms with their roles.

Division of labor is highly caste-based among the Katchina, but and individual's caste is determined by consensus rather than parentage. Despite caste-based division of labor, everyone participates in farming.

Three castes are most likely to be encountered by outsiders: The Clowns, the Runners, and the Ogres. In times of peace, these three groups act as enforcers of the social order. Clowns use humor and humiliation, Runners use punishment, and Ogres use intimidation, but all exist to ensure that the greater good is the primary concern of all.

In times of conflict, they serve a different purpose. Although the land the Katchinas live in is fertile only because of their powerful rain magic, in times of famine their farms are tempting targets. Thus, Runners can fulfill the role of scouts and skirmishers, Ogres that of heavy infantry, and Clowns 'special operations.' In defense as in peace, all will contribute. Cloud and Plant Katchinas provide support in the form of torrential rains, lightning, and pollen which causes itching and hallucination. Although the Katchinas seem a very friendly people, the sight of rank upon rank performing their war dances is sufficiently intimidating that many enemy forces will break rank and run before any fighting has begun.

The Ifrit learned the ferocity of cornered Katchina first hand when they tried to take over Taos. Flash flooding did much to dampen the conquistador's fire, and the poison spread by Assassin Fly Girl took it's toll as well. By the time the Koshares began their urine dance, the Ifrit were ready to sue for peace, but the Ogres were not easily placated. When the Metchika-New Spanish army arrived to learn the fate of their compatriots, all they found was a field full of ripe corn and a line of glowering Ogres.

It is hard for one village to fight a continental army, however, and things have not been easy for the people of Taos since. The Ifrit, outnumbering the villagers five to one, took over and laid down the law. The kivas have been covered up, and all dances have been banned. No children can be born or brought into adulthood, and crops are beginning to fail without the needed rain. To make matters worse, the Ifrit have put a 75% tax on what little food is produced to support their occupation...



Sorry if the editing on this is shitty, I just typed it all into the 'quick reply' box.

[Prak]

1187803637[/unixtime]]

1187763935[/unixtime]]*unpleasant truths*

Now you're almost making me glad that history was never my best subject.

really? He's making me like this setting idea more and more...