Sunday 19 March 2017

Still Protean Things

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Uncanny:
they look nearly like a person. Neaaarly .Something is off, the elbows maybe too low? shouldn't their be bone showing or not showing , the eyes maybe? Something not right. They were shapeshifters, doppelganger, mirror escapees, not any more. They quit, they got out , they wanna be real and have blessed coherence , have an I inside. So they took a form and made it them and... it's not right. They can't make it right. Something is always off. They observe and observe and observe and every little thing they think they might be doing wrong they write it down in book they keep instead of a heart. They are always learning and adjusting and almost almost almost . They are never found together. They can see everything they are doing wrong so clearly,  an agony mirror.

Cultural Apoptosis:
A culture is under severe threat. Their military (if any) has been shown to insufficient to resist the invaders. They will not be called the invaders , it will not called an invasion, they have brought new words with them, and they will make sure that their new words are used instead.
Theft  Proof of ownership , Violence  Law,  Murder  Justice, Child Abuse  Education, Slavery Productivity

The invaders will always offer the chance to be like them, but it's never to be equal to them.
Everything the invaders don't take as theirs will be made to less than exist.

The enemies of the culture. The old enemies who would call themselves enemies, who would describe themselves in the old words, who always conspired in the dark , and hungered for child and light. They are also under threat. They will be made to be less than exist.

Do they realise this? Will the Famine Ghost realise they will not find purchase in the new thoughts of the invaders? Or will the Famine Ghost glut themselves on the vast psychic wounds poorly protected behind alcohol, unrealising their famine will come too?

Will the Nether Giants realise their land will be stolen even further from them and ally with the resistance? Are they vulnerable to the promises of the invaders?

Is the Old Women crafty and ruthlessness enough to insert herself into the stories of the invaders? Or will she find herself a mere alley ghoul?

The Winged Sickness ,  might be virulent enough to settle down in the heart of the invaders, starting a rot that will reveal itself in a century.

Might there not a few that the invaders ignorance does not protect them from? Malarial spirits, Night Tigers, Dream Cages?


Will there be an under council?  A great meeting of the night? Every bitter thing realising there will be no darkness left to hide?


Jungle vs Forest
so I've gm-ed a few player deaths that surprised me , the level of caution I've come to expect did not happen, and while likely it was an attack of the button-press-imp on their behalf , or some poor explains on mine, I have another theory.

If you put the players in a forest they will "know" the trees won't kill them and the wolves and bears will.
If you put the players in a bug-fuck psy-jungle they will not really know what the fucks going on and walk right into obvious danger because their base level of understanding just got too bamboozled.
"Shock and Awe" kinda.

No real conclusion here, just a possible observation.




Being Small:

If you ran a game where everyone was tiny it should be a thing that everyone feels tiny.

Main things about being tiny (let's say mouse or insect size) that seemed to be a thing from my crude understanding of physics:

-Water is basically glue but slidable on.

-falling 100 times your height isn't really a problem , nor being thrown an equivalent kilometer from wind (well okay maybe for a mouse. I don't have a mouse handy sorry) Climbing is easy enough that anything remotely rough is basically a horizontal surface.

-the proportion of force applicable to self-loading or whatever means pincering seems to be the prefered weapon of choice, though if you were doing borrower sizes and setting scalpels and needles would totally be viable. Just nothing seems to give a shit about being kicked at that size is all.
So it's all stabbing and slicing .

-You could literally make the play surface there infront of everyone , like the stack of boxes and sticks or whatever is what the characters are actually moving around. Or go outside and move plastic dudes around the grass and leaves.

-if it was an actually campaign book someone should someone to try and get a jeweller or some other tiny artist to  make equipment and weapons  out of stuff and then scan and put them in book. Little scalpels with human hair wrapped hilts ,  scrub cloth armour, fishing hook grappling hook etc



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