Ken Hood's Sleeping Imperium

[virgil]

Anyone ever hear about Ken Hood, his Sleeping Imperium setting in particular, along with the d20 work he did before he dropped off the face of the Earth?

I keep thinking there's more of his setting work, or even his d20 design for the setting, still floating around. I remember something about Enunciators and a vague recollection of them being even closer to Jack Vance's ideas on magic than D&D ever was.

[Catharz]

For some reason I read it as 'Sleeping Emporium'.

[Cielingcat]

I expected the God-Emperor of Mankind, and all I got was a request.

I think that might just be heresy.

[Bigode]

I could send a PM to virgileso, but, on the off chance someone else is interested: I have a lot of Ken Hood's work, including the part about the enunciators. What I've to say about it is that the psionics system is quite interesting (though more on the side of "story" abilities, as the combat stuff isn't so balanced), the Sleeping Imperium setting is very cool, and some people may lay their stomachs' contents on the floor upon seeing Ken didn't even care about making spellcasters be balanced (you bet, they're threatened storywise), which is about the sole (very) negative remark I have. Anyone interested, drop me an e-mail.

[virgil]

Heh, I actually like to see alot of the people here rant about flaws in a system, so I wouldn't consider it a bad thing to make it public. Either way, I would like to see it again.

My roommate actually remembers it better. From what he recalls, the caster was drastically more powerful than everyone else, but was balanced on the following caveats: he could only cast a spell about three times a day, & he had a very real chance of having horrible things happen to him (ranging from being crippled for a day to being dead across all of space and time).

[Bigode]

Heh, if I made a rant, I agree there wouldn't be much of a reason not to make it public; I was actually offering to send you the material itself, since, last time I checked, it was scattered among multiple addresses which I don't remember, some of which are likely to have already ceased existing. I don't have much of a rant to make, because the most pungent points were already made, and my recollection isn't terribly sharp to be honest - if you wanna read it yourself, it's available, though. Lastly, your roomate's has it right.

[virgil]

Well, here's a question for you. After a bit of searching, I finally found something online myself. How much is missing from this site?

http://www.angelfire.com/games4/doctorw ... r][br]Just from a cursory glance, I can tell that balance is looking it'll be non-existant, because I don't think Hood ever actually finished his work. Hell, there's a weapon that the 'paladins' get, where one of the settings is a tiny nuclear blast (20d6 in a 50' radius, Reflex 15 for half).

[RandomCasualty]

Yeah after reading that site, I don't really have any interest in the setting, mainly cause like every damn thing is some weird ass word that I can't even pronounce... I mean wtf?

[virgil]

The structure of some of the stuff is reminiscent of something, not sure what. There was one quote I found where it was stated that he enjoyed technobabble and the like, and I can't say I disagree with him; especially since the base concepts behind most of his stuff I recognize as old sci-fi concepts. I believed he calls it "the Scientific American ouiji board".

Edit: Found the Enunciator stuff! It's a skill-based magic system, and the setting doesn't have magic items to my knowledge. You can get a synergy bonus to the skill if you have Knowledge (Math) & Knowledge (Planes), and you cannot take Skill Focus/Emphasis with this skill. There do exist mystical texts that emphasize particular spells, and grant anywhere from a +1 to a +4 circumstance bonus to memorization (of that exact spell).

Memorization is a base DC 15 for 5th level spells, and the DC goes up by 1 per spell level, and another +1 for every caster level higher than your character level (if you want a damage spell do actually do anything); and this is effective spell level, as you can add any metamagic feat you want and use the modified spell level for the DC calculation. The DC goes up by +2 for every uncast spell from the prior day still memorized, and for every attempt to memorize past the first for that.

You have a (Spell Level - 5)% chance of causing a major mishap, which requires a skill check (DC 15+spell level) to prevent. Your character is pretty much dead in some Lovecraftian way.

If you ever actually fail to memorize a spell, you must make two Will saves. The first, DC 10+spell level, will make you unable to cast magic or use psionics (also skill based system) for 1d4 days if you fail the save. If you fail the second one, DC 5+spell level, you're practically an NPC for 3 months (or a coma) unless someone casts heal or limited wish (limited wish has an inherent 10% chance for cataclysmic mishap, 15% for wish).

Let me see, with what he's provided as available...
Race: Thot (human bred to be a scholar)
Starting Intelligence: 18+2 racial
Starting Skills: Enunciator, Knowledge (math), Knowledge (planes)
Starting Feat: Enunciator Spell Mastery (choose 5 spells, get a +2 bonus to memorize each),
Starting Trait: Signature Spell (+2 to memorize a specific spell)
Final Total: +13 to memorize a specific spell, +11 for four other spells

[Username17]

Are you fvcking kidding me? A DC 17 skill check to prevent a mishap from a 7th level spell?

So you're a 7th level character, you have 10 ranks, you have +4 in Synergy, and you have a +4 Attribute bonus. You make that check on a -1. Is there something I'm missing that would prevent you from pulling out 9th level spells as an 8th level character?

-Username17

[virgil]

Reminder, this stuff was designed before Persistant metamagic feats were created (if I'm not mistaken, might be). But yeah, he fully intended 9th level spells to be flung around at that level, and the ever-increasing +2 DC for memorization to slow you down with the threat of death if you fail the skill check.

This is the source for my friend's opinion where you're totally awesome three times a day, then you explode.

Edit: My bad. The formula to stop the cataclysmic failure when it rears its head is 16+spell level, so DC 23 for 9th level spells (DC 21 for 7th level spells).

[Immortius]

Only news I've been able to scrounge up on Kenneth in general is:

Sleeping Imperium (Removed 12/28/03)
There had been an archive of the Sleeping Imperium material created by Kenneth Hood, a science fantasy setting with adaptations for d20 and FUDGE. However, the author has requested it to be taken off the web since the site could cause difficulty in finding a publisher for fiction based on the same material.

The best piece of work was always the psychic system.

I think I've lost all the PDFs I used to have of his work, but I still have hard copies of his Skills-N-Feats Martial Arts System and Grim-N-Gritty Hit Point and Combat Rules.

Edit: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t ... br][br]All his d20 rules are on that thread.

[Judging__Eagle]

So... it's basically a less dystopian Warhammer 40k world? Where the Emperor is still alive?

That's what I get at least.

[virgil]

If I was familiar in any real fashion with Warhammer 40k, I could answer that question. All I can say is that it's set in an ultra-far future where humanity had reached a state where they could literally change the nature of stars or even add an extra layer of reality (thus the equivalent to the Border Ethereal was made). These humans, or Precursors, ascended and left behind a few scattered traces of their existance; including humans who hadn't evolved with the Precursors.

The universe is old, dying, & temporally unsound (history changes itself, and some people remember waking up to a green sun instead of a yellow one). The Emperor helps protect humanity, and is trying to bring the race to the level of the Precursors through eugenics and psionic development.

I believe the day-to-day tech level is about 18th century Europe, with weapon technology being some kind of organic stuff that ranges in power from 20th century firearms to those highly advanced nuke-on-a-sticks that the paladins get, not counting remnants sort of floating around. I believe nymphs (in full d20 stats) are supposed to be the Precursor equivalent to porn magazines (not even video), and are generally violent because of the millenia of neglect and degradation of their programming.

[MrWaeseL]

1184806859[/unixtime]]Reminder, this stuff was designed before Persistant metamagic feats were created (if I'm not mistaken, might be). But yeah, he fully intended 9th level spells to be flung around at that level, and the ever-increasing +2 DC for memorization to slow you down with the threat of death if you fail the skill check.

This is the source for my friend's opinion where you're totally awesome three times a day, then you explode.

Edit: My bad. The formula to stop the cataclysmic failure when it rears its head is 16+spell level, so DC 23 for 9th level spells (DC 21 for 7th level spells).

So...either you break the game, or you die? That's some grade A designin' right there

[virgil]

Not quite like that, you would just end up making your bonus sufficiently high to be able to cast your spells as often as possible until you actually needed to roll higher than a 1 on the d20, then stop casting spells for the day. The theoretical build above, at level 2, would be able to memorize two 5th level spells a day, or one 7th level spell a day.

Heck, you could just avoid casting spells above 5th level until you got a skill bonus high enough to automatically avoid the cataclysmic failure; of which there's a single feat to give you a +4 bonus to avoid such.

Because the setting assumes a skill-based psionic system, you'd still be able to other stuff, just without as many tricks as the Psychic Class itself, and you'd cast some really big spell a couple times a day.

Oh, and from what I've heard on the grapevine, Ken Hood got tired of trying to work the d20 system around the setting; and moved onto FUDGE for a very short bit before he vanished from the internet.

[Cielingcat]

1184874284[/unixtime]]I believe nymphs (in full d20 stats) are supposed to be the Precursor equivalent to porn magazines (not even video), and are generally violent because of the centuries of neglect and degradation of their programming.

What's... what's the video equivalent?

[virgil]

They took that with them when they ascended :tonguesmile:

This is part of the beauty of the setting, it satiates my inner-nerd's desire for techno-babble, and leaves just enough vagaries for the imagination to make it better than any writer could actually describe. It's like good horror, only for sci-fi.

The mechanics on the other hand...well...you've heard about the magic part. I still need to read the psionics stuff, but it seems to be largely skill-based and causes subdual damage to balance it out. But since Ken Hood never sat down and finished one thing, all of his work is kinda unfinished.