[Idea] Codex original lore initiative

[flabbyjack]

Both sci-fi and fantasy together in one glorious setting.

In the land of swords, the man with the lasergun is King.

Ideally, a fantasy setting featuring 'lost technology' or somesuch, sky's the limit but start out slowly and expand one or more particular sci-fi concepts for increased epic-ness in story arc.

 

[DraQ]

*poof*

A) Sci-Fi or B) Fantasy.

B)

No offence, but I definitely woulkdn't want to cooperate with some of you guys, trying to make what can reasonably pass for resonable Sci-Fi.

I tentatively vote for A) scifi.

(...)

An interstellar civilization that relies on magic. Space ships were never invented. Travel between planets requires a wizard casting teleport or dimension door or the like. This favors small groups and amounts of goods being transported. So planets need to be self sufficient (no factory planets vs farming planets). Wizards are highly valuable, but it can be dangerous being a wizard because there are many groups that would love to have their own teleport machine and would not mind using coercion to get what they want.

There. Case in point.


Of course, fantasy doesn't mean the usual faux medieval herpaderp.

I'd opt for either something more advanced (up to and including diesel or even lamppunk equivalents) or something far more primitive (bronze stuff, if present is already high end, iron is fucking daedric).

Some HPL-like accents are definitely welcome, though possibly as background.
Same with weird fiction.

Too restrictive, no steampunk, no Cyberpunk, even if can be considered a sub-genre of Sci-Fi, no Chtulu mythos, and we even had a prehistoric LP once here, in my opinion it should be better to frame it in a different manner, for example is in the past or the future, there is magic or not, our Earth or an imaginary one.
Here in a more ordained manner:

1. Magic? Y/N
2. Technology? None, Stone Age, Medieval, Actual, Advanced, Steam, Cyber, Post sci-fi (advanced sci-fi tech existed but is lost tech), Anomalous (what and how?).
3. Space travel? Y/N
4. Guns? Y/N
5. Multidimensional? Y/N
6. Supernatural and Super Beings? None, Mutants, Spirits, Demons, Super Humans, Demigods, Godlike, Gods, Dragons.

Just to give an idea, can be improved, of course.

Improv'd.

 

[tuluse]

My idea wasn't meant to be pure sci fi, I specifically said I didn't like that restriction.

 

[DraQ]

I've been toying with certain idea for quite some time, but it's sketchy.

The basis was a bit of a fantasy take on something STALKER-esque with liberal amounts of weird fiction, some HPL and rather rigorous approach to physics (meaning laws of physics generally apply unless explicitly broken and breaking gets specified in more or less rigorously scientific terms from author's PoV).

You have a world that's been torn up by some cataclysm disrupting a lot about how the universe works. This had disruptive effect on its civilizations, but also opened up opportunities. Stretches of this world have been rendered not just non-habitable, but downright nasty. From places where timespace loops back on itself in various highly noneuclidean ways, to places where the iron in your blood may suddenly decide to grab some electrons from its surroundings and go unusually non-reactive crystalizing in form of thin, dendritic, gray-sliver filaments sprouting out of your pale, pale corpse, ordered matter may get spontaneously repeated, objects may suddenly shine out all their heat in form of short wavelength radiation, or maybe it's just colde there - and absolute zero lies quite a bit lower.
OTOH such places may contain items and beings that retain their unusual qualities when removed from there, or alter mundane items- and beings passing through, and thus be very useful in both magic and creating anachronistically powerful technology.

Now, another thing is that it isn't one world.

There are multiple variants of this world that generally diverged quite a while back (to the point of having significantly different geographies) or were subjected to different environments. In those worlds different intelligent beings evolved and fromed their civilizations, and some of the areas of torn space are large and stable enough to allow for passable portals (not necessarily looking like portals - I'm imagining something more along the lines of entering the land of impossible geometry, following what looks like, well, terrain, albeit with some unhealthy-looking twists of perspective, and going out of such land in completely different world). Of course intense xenophobia and some violence followed, the thing is that anomalous areas generally make effective enough barriers against massed military incursion although they may be traversible by smaller groups. Given how different different species are in terms of civilization and thinking patterns (I'm not speaking of dwarves vs elves here, I'm speaking of spectrum where the most familiar you can count on may very well be really alien furries), not only they can offer valuable commodities to each other, but also may develop different forms of magical or advanced tech stuff based on anomalies, so amidst fear, incomprehension, quite a bit of mutual killing and cases of different species being denounced as abominations (often mutually), at least some trade and non-violent relations flourish.

Then there are outsiders. Outsiders well, come from outside, and while, for example, forests of trees networked by symbiotic mushroom forming hive-brains and relying on 'effectors' in form of infected animals/sapients may be fucking weird, outsiders are from somewheres where even physics doesn't apply properly and even notions of space may be different - what about something that effectively treats our space as its Fourier transform? They are mostly completely incomprehensible and often destructive (though not necessarily consciously, some may for example be not even sentient or just trapped in the normal universe). There are different types of them, often coming from non-overlapping universes or even different representations of 'normal' multiverse, and they are tied to anomalous areas, some may even be capable of spreading them. They may also be summoned and utilized in various ways, but it generally requires right material components, may require right place, and can be very destructive and unpredictable, so it's better to stick with something with relatively simple behaviour and limited scale.

Thoughts?

 

[TheCatsofSanktPetersburg]

"I look up from my deathbed and see the burning sun. I see it's colorless light, it's distorting shape, it's deadly presence before I feel the fire engulf me and I scream.

I scream and I awake. I am still on my deathbed, my breathing frantic and my body frail. I look up to see the mural ceiling, a tainted red circle cut in the middle, it's outward spirals the shape of flames, a sing of death as iconic as that of skeleton.

I am dying and have been dying for ten days. I was my choice to come to this place, a voluntary exile to the burial tower. I has been our tradition since time immemorial that the dead be buried in the highest places in the city, as our tribute to the clouds.

I look out and see the floating cantons traverse the snowbound mountains, their agoras and living quarters carried on sacred moth wings and the thousand sail lines that interconnect them, pushing them forward everyday. There is much comfort to be had in knowing that we are approaching river valley, that there will be clouds above and rain for many months before we will need to move east, following the season monsoon. Already the rice farmers are preparing their paddies for rainfall and I know that my son will buy more servants this year to help him cultivate the harvest.

So take comfort and know that in these troubling times the city you've left behind will have days of feast and plenty.

Time and time again I've asked the Synedrion to pardon you, to recall you from your Exile, but dying men have no honor amongst young tyrants. I only pray that you will forgive this old man for his failure as a teacher and as a friend.

My obsession has grown heavy dear Mossairo, I dream the sun every night, I dream it's deadly touch, I dream it's haunting light. We are a superstitious people, and are prone to take such visions as sings of impending death (which is true in my case it seems), but I feel that they are much more than this. I feel these visions are a godsend, a task, a final riddle to untie, before I am to be buried inside the tower with my ancestors.

I urge you Mossairo to take forgo your war against the Bottanist party (forgive me for asking you this) and take upon yourself this mystery. My life will soon fade, but you have time to spare. Search for answers amongst the bedouins, speak to their wisemen, their storytellers, their mystics and use your logic to discern the truth. They often venture into the sunlight wastes for whatever reasons they might have. They ought to see the sun with less superstition then us, with less fright or fear and more insight.

I have never given you my blessing before, despite your petition for it. I've put you off, because I know such magic came at a cost, but I give it to you now and with that all the magic that my own son never deserved to inherit despite th..."



(the letter breaks off here, it is possible that it's final fragment was completed by someone else, possibly a friend of the teacher.)

 

[treave]

Unseen University (Discworld)

+

The Longest and Most Destructive Party Ever Held (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

=

A very, very large University (possibly a small Dyson Sphere) wandering through space and time and multiple dimensions, carved up into separate areas ruled by departments such as the Fissionable Physicists of Oppenheimer, the Irrational Mathematicians of Euler, the Generally Gribbly Geneticists, and the Theological Studies Institute (Post-3rd Schism). Being solely devoted to the pursuit of Research and Science (what qualifies as science is still a matter under debate. Interested participants may jump into the fray in the Debate Halls on level 46, where thousands of university members have been warring for millennia), they obtain any raw materials they need by raiding inhabited worlds in their way.

Research assistants wear red.

 

[EmoBunny]

Would participate if/when concrete things are hammered out.

 

[oscar]

Clevology. I'd like far out ideas of genetics to be explored. If a 'post-apoc' kinda thing maybe the civilisation that collapsed engaged in massive genetic engineering creating a sort of caste system of heavily specialised races (while all being humanoid they could be substantially physically, chemically or neurologically different).

Glorantha is a great example of someone achieving the very rare: an interesting fantasy world based around myths and bizarre metaphysics (it's no coincidence that one of the writers of it later was responsible for much of the interesting cosmology of TES).

I've also really enjoyed the concept of Transarctica and thought it'd be cool if someone remade/ripped-off the idea.

The premise of a new Ice Age has a lot of potential to me. But one could play with climate/ecological/environmental changes in lots of interesting ways to make a cool setting without needing magic or vast technological differences.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Essentially a Graveyard Crawl was a three-phased scouting and attack on a planet:
- First phase was scouting the planet and sending back the find, the scouts also secretly infiltrated the planet and teached Necromancy and magic in general to the natives, then went away to scout other planets. Planets attacked are planet-bound societies on planets with large demographic presence, it would change from planet to planet, but for our Earth, Earth from 1980 beyond would be ideal (demographic potential mostly taped), whereas the 2020 Earth from that universe I made was already bordering between "ideal target" and "too advanced" (because most nations had a space fleet, some quite big, if antiquated by Dead Nations' standards).
- Second phase was the proper attack: Essentially, a magic spaceship arrives, they use their magic to find out all the interesting magic users on that world and indulce them through mental magic to enter magic portals to the spaceship. After that, they bombard the planet with a few small-sized meteors painted with enchanted, radiated runes that make all dead rise after death, and hit the main locations that would weaken the planet, then go back to the main planets turn these wizards into proper imperial ones while the planet has a war between living and dead.
- Third phase is when the a Tomb-Ship arrives to the planet, collects the dead (assuming they won the war) and goes away so they can grown and get reaped again. Sometimes the planet is deemed suitable for colonization, in this case a large colony ship comes escorted by some war vessels. In case of colonization, the dead remain to work on colonization, armies are sent to place the natives as vassals/reservation, otherwise the tomb ship leaves with zombies.

Have a question here- Would the necromancers always apply this method? It seems a bit more expedient to teach them, pick the recruits they need, then let the planet wipe itself out by igniting war, then returning to pick up the remains.

 

[DraQ]

Bump?

 

[tuluse]

DraQ, some feedback on your idea. It seems like a really cool setting that I would definitely play a game set it. However, as presented, it is hard to add to it or building from it. There's a lot of fun ideas, but your description lacks a central theme or guiding principles to build from.

 

[IDtenT]

Bump?

Yes. I'll read the entire thread and give some feedback by the latest at the end of tomorrow.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Blackhart watching now.

 

[IDtenT]

From scan counting B got one more vote than A. Okay, so what I'm thinking is fantasy but with some pseudo-scientific rules to govern it.

I'm really liking tuluse's idea and I think we should run with it. It allows freedom of location, while still building a good rule set to follow.

So, I'm thinking these planets should be relatively small, to keep the writing tight. Enough for a million or so inhabitants and not much more. This of course make a round planet perceptively difficult, so I'm thinking planes that float in space. It can even have a mobius strip like design so that the bottom of the plane can be traversed from the top. You're still left with the cliffs on the side though. A Klein bottle can do that but then euclidean geometry doesn't work. Also mining, how would that work? Does mining exist? How does gravity work? If we can get a sense of geometry in space we can have technology competing with wizards in an advanced technological stage. We need some pseudo-scientific rules for the science.

I like the idea of the mages being able to wield a star-map type spell that gives them coordinates in space. Or maybe spatial coordinates are really easy. You have your geometric axis, but what if the Wizards just had some sequential numbering system. You're always on zero and if you use -1 you jump one plane left, if you're aiming for 1 you jump on plane right. This of course means that you'll always jump to the centre of that planet. Kinda like stargates, only without the built gates. Gates just existing isn't logically consistent enough, imho. We need some fantasy rules for the fantasy.

I really like this idea though. DraQ, a changing universe - with changing laws - throughout time is a very interesting design choice and something we could likely accommodate.

P.S. Sorry this is late.

 

[oscar]

Sounds sort of similar to Grimjack, where rules of physics change wildly from place to place.

 

[Zed]

Don't be afraid to use unknowns to build the world. For instance, there doesn't have to be any explanations as to why there are stargates or whatever you decide to use. In fact, the whole thing being a mystery is a good basis for factions. One faction believing A, another believing B.

 

[Excommunicator]

I didn't know this thread existed. At first I thought "not more Codex meta BS" but I see it's actually an attempt to do something constructive. Good.

It's probably going to get messy once it starts to take a cohesive form and I wonder about the logistics of it but it has some potential.

Remember: contributors, not authors. Once the concepts and ideas enter the project, they no longer have authors, only people who have made some contribution. It must be an entirely community-owned project.

I'd suggest setting up a wiki with a few trusted editors who can add new pages without needing to rely on a single person to do so, and then having a lead editor/project leader who can bring content together into a final form after it has been discussed and developed on the forums.


My only two suggestions on the broader design of the setting: 1) try to keep some central current of relevancy to the Codex that reflects the general philosophies of this place including its tendency towards self-importance/sophistication (monocles and tops hats, true classic RPGs etc.), and 2) make sure the setting has a "loophole" written into it that allows the continual addition of strange and interesting concepts without those additions causing harsh conflicts or contradictions with the fundamental laws of the setting. Not a "kitchen sink" setting but one with very open possibilities.


I might contribute some when I see it coming together. Have fun.

 

[tuluse]

I don't like the idea of physical gates with regards to my idea. When picturing it in my head, the idea is you just grab a wizard and can teleport off to anywhere including other planets.

IDtenT one idea we could do, since it's already in fantasy realm, would be to have the planes actually work like the old drawings of a flat earth. So the world ends with a cliffs and an ocean, but then we have a universe that doesn't follow the laws of physics as we know them.

Or following there is only one entry point to each planet, they could be full size but the community gathers around the entry point for obvious reasons. If technology is old enough each planet could have a contained populace. The rest of the planet would be there, but people would rather just move on to another planet and be near an entry point than expand into the planet their on.

 

[IDtenT]

Don't be afraid to use unknowns to build the world. For instance, there doesn't have to be any explanations as to why there are stargates or whatever you decide to use. In fact, the whole thing being a mystery is a good basis for factions. One faction believing A, another believing B.

I agree. It's just that the very existence should be plausible, whatever the reason might actually be. Stargates just existing without any other method of travel being possible just seems implausible.

I'd suggest setting up a wiki with a few trusted editors who can add new pages without needing to rely on a single person to do so, and then having a lead editor/project leader who can bring content together into a final form after it has been discussed and developed on the forums.

I was thinking about using a wiki software to do this, myself.

 

[IDtenT]

IDtenT one idea we could do, since it's already in fantasy realm, would be to have the planes actually work like the old drawings of a flat earth. So the world ends with a cliffs and an ocean, but then we have a universe that doesn't follow the laws of physics as we know them.

So I'm thinking... What if the planes are stacked? Like so, (excuse my paint skills):

It wouldn't explain what's holding them up, but maybe it works like some kind of water wheel (maybe more Ferris wheel because the plains are always pointing up?), with each plane connected to a spoke.

 

[Kz3r0]

IDtenT one idea we could do, since it's already in fantasy realm, would be to have the planes actually work like the old drawings of a flat earth. So the world ends with a cliffs and an ocean, but then we have a universe that doesn't follow the laws of physics as we know them.

So I'm thinking... What if the planes are stacked? Like so, (excuse my paint skills):

It wouldn't explain what's holding them up, but maybe it works like some kind of water wheel (maybe more Ferris wheel because the plains are always pointing up?), with each plane connected to a spoke.

How about a pinwheel, with the planes overlapping while pivoting on each others?

 

[IDtenT]

The problem with a pin-wheel is that you're going to end up upside down. It's also two dimensional, just like the Ferris wheel is (it would also mean heavy "rains" when a plain is without another plane covering it).

We can always just consider that there is magnet like gravity on the planes (but when are you free of the plane's gravity? How high must you jump?) - but not off of them, but then a cliff still wouldn't make sense as the water would just flow off into space.

Or maybe a pin-wheel could work, the water flow would just be curved around the three edges. And the fourth edge is the "portal" to any of the other planes.

 

[tuluse]

Here's some problems with the stack idea.

How do the planes below the top one get sunlight? Is there night day cycles? Do planes have seasons? Tides? Are there seas or oceans? Do you see stars at night or the bottom of the plane above you?

Actually staking them I think is easy to explain with a magical handwave.

 

[IDtenT]

What about something like above? The sun is the anchor it is attached to and on each plane the water falls off of the edge, but great cohesion qualities (naturally attracted to matter) in the water makes it flow on the bottom surface of every plane. The water is then recycled in the central hub, where the travel between planes also happen (only magic can make you enter/exit the hub). (Of course these are only four planes, bit it's extendible to an unlimited amount.)

 

[Kz3r0]

How about a Dyson Sphere sun that contains the planes irradiating them from all directions?
Day and night cycles will be planes covering each other while moving.