Visions of Bronze, Visions of Brass: Setting and Mechanics
- Thread starter linkhyrule5
- Start date
- OOC
First half of the Traditions post are up, along with Nephandi. You may already notice certain alterations I've made to the worldbuilding - note in particular that while there are nine seats on the Council, those seats are held by people, not Traditions, and there are many more than Nine Traditions. Honestly the only reason the Celestial Chorus is even considered an entity as a whole is for the convenience of you guys, 'cause heavens knows this game is confusing enough already. 
Speaking of which, we'll almost certainly be using @MJ12 Commando's Mana writeup - the Technocracy's total budget of quint is on the order of a million a year, which is short enough if it's all going to Devices and not nearly enough if people are spending it - though I'll be playing with @NonSequtur's various UA-derived charging ideas. Waffling between Resplendencies, Principles, and Stunts at the moment.
Speaking of which, we'll almost certainly be using @MJ12 Commando's Mana writeup - the Technocracy's total budget of quint is on the order of a million a year, which is short enough if it's all going to Devices and not nearly enough if people are spending it - though I'll be playing with @NonSequtur's various UA-derived charging ideas. Waffling between Resplendencies, Principles, and Stunts at the moment.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Question about the Enhancement Background; What's the permadox decrease for non-scientific sources of enhancement, like blessings, bound spirits, bloodlines, or training?
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- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
Dammit, wish I'd noticed this earlier. Thread stalking go, I guess.
- Location
- London, England
Do you have a link to these rules?
Anyway, we're coming up on the 48-hour mark past the warning, and James is now pretty much done. I added those extra principle dots - one for 'Never exterminate when you can convert' to represent his traditional NWO approach to things, and one for 'I am human' to represent his defiance of any prejudice he has experienced as a construct.
@Maugan Ra: Rules as written can be found here. These, however, will not be used as-is - at the very least I'll be coming up with new rules for regenerating Mana.
FYI, the Technocracy - the bits of it that believe that individual humans have quint in general - just call it processed/true vs. crude/raw quint. The Traditions say they're wrong, but the Syndicate points to their PU 5 Mana into Quint Rotes and laugh at them.
(To be fair to the Traditions, the Rote is Prime 5 because it's balanced against the "create quint from nothing" Rote and just give them a bit more efficiency per success than they might otherwise get."
While I'm at it, the Cybernetics Sphere can be found here and the Data Sphere here.. Amusingly enough, we will not be using my modified sympathy table, at least not without modification - in a rather amusing demonstration of delayed-effect social, @EarthScorpion ended up convincing me that immediate presence/body parts should be right up there at +1, though it may not necessarily be in-paradigm for you to use it and you may need to use a less useful focus.
FYI, the Technocracy - the bits of it that believe that individual humans have quint in general - just call it processed/true vs. crude/raw quint. The Traditions say they're wrong, but the Syndicate points to their PU 5 Mana into Quint Rotes and laugh at them.
(To be fair to the Traditions, the Rote is Prime 5 because it's balanced against the "create quint from nothing" Rote and just give them a bit more efficiency per success than they might otherwise get."
While I'm at it, the Cybernetics Sphere can be found here and the Data Sphere here.. Amusingly enough, we will not be using my modified sympathy table, at least not without modification - in a rather amusing demonstration of delayed-effect social, @EarthScorpion ended up convincing me that immediate presence/body parts should be right up there at +1, though it may not necessarily be in-paradigm for you to use it and you may need to use a less useful focus.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
On second thought, maybe Medium and Spirit Magnet (And all the spirit-related merits) aren't the best merits to put together.. for a newbie, anyway.
@linkhyrule5
Are there bonuses for factions life Taftani, Orphan, Hallowed One, etc? I noticed this thing called 'Disparates Alliance' - Would they be a thing here?
Also, a Syndicate with Enlightenment 3 would have up to 8 dots of resources. Dis' intentional?
@linkhyrule5
Are there bonuses for factions life Taftani, Orphan, Hallowed One, etc? I noticed this thing called 'Disparates Alliance' - Would they be a thing here?
Also, a Syndicate with Enlightenment 3 would have up to 8 dots of resources. Dis' intentional?
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... In theory yes, but this is a Technocracy game. Also the deadline for new submissions has passed, though I didn't really announce it - my apologies. I'll be judging from what's there.
Starting Syndicate would actually have six dots, since the additional dots still have to follow the usual scaling cost pattern. Resources 6 is a lot - billionaire tier - but not ultimately worldshaking except through their magic. So yes, it's intentional.
Starting Syndicate would actually have six dots, since the additional dots still have to follow the usual scaling cost pattern. Resources 6 is a lot - billionaire tier - but not ultimately worldshaking except through their magic. So yes, it's intentional.
- Location
- London, England
So, with submissions closed I figured I'd have some fun and give James' in-character opinions on his potential fellow operatives. For proper effect, imagine all of these in the appropriate British accent.
Allen Armstrong - I must confess, one hears all manner of unfortunate things about the more... escoteric Progenitor initiatives, but I am delighted to find that Mr Armstrong is a far cry from the horrific monstrosity one would expect from such dire predictions. He is well read, a fascinating conversationalist, and generally a very agreeable individual. I must see about getting him to explain the basics of Dimensional Science to me - while I doubt I will ever master it to the same extent, it sounds like a fascinating topic, made all the more so by his rather unique perspective on the whole thing.
Amelia Rosewater - I flatter myself as something of an expert on social systems and predictive modeling, but in truth Miss Rosewater surpasses me so utterly in those areas it is honestly a little embarrassing. She is a very focused individual, the sort that any Operative would be happy to rely upon, and I feel that working with her would be a most enjoyable experience. Her only flaw seems to be her insistence that human problems can be addressed in the same way as mechanical ones, but that is a common failing among Iterators. It might be worth recommending her for Hyperpsychology training... we will see.
Jennifer Blackwell - It is always good to work alongside a fellow Operative, and Miss Blackwell is an excellent example of our shared profession. She is focused, dedicated and extremely good at her job, a true believer in the Technocratic ideal. If anything, I would say her dedication outstrips my own, likely a legacy of our differing backgrounds. I have lived my life as part of the Union from the very beginning, and thus do not always appreciate the full scope of the advantages it offers, whereas she originally lived among the Sleepers and thus has a distinct point of comparison. Truly, she is an inspiration we could all aspire to.
Octavia Wilkinson - Ah, Progenitors. So very devoted to their own perspective. Mrs Wilkinson is a dedicated and highly skilled medic, but it does seem to colour all that she does. Beyond that, I cannot really say, having neither met her nor been given access to most of her files.
Lucy Axelle - Mrs Axelle is a living testiment to the wisdom behind our policy of capture and conversion, as opposed to outright extermination. While her somewhat unusual personality takes some getting used to, I cannot fault either her enthusiasm or her skills. I have often heard my colleagues mocking the idealists among us, but personally I have always been inclined to praise and support them. We do what we do in service of humanity, after all, and the consequences of forgetting that could be dire indeed.
Hillary Kung - Ah, the Ivory Tower. Good at what they do, vital to the success of our organisation, but all too often prone to being blinded by their own detached perspective. Miss Kung would make an excellent support agent, of that I have no doubt, but her frontline training is almost non-existent. I suspect my own judgement on this matter might be prone to some considerable bias, and so shall withhold any further commentary on the matter until new information is available.
Allen Armstrong - I must confess, one hears all manner of unfortunate things about the more... escoteric Progenitor initiatives, but I am delighted to find that Mr Armstrong is a far cry from the horrific monstrosity one would expect from such dire predictions. He is well read, a fascinating conversationalist, and generally a very agreeable individual. I must see about getting him to explain the basics of Dimensional Science to me - while I doubt I will ever master it to the same extent, it sounds like a fascinating topic, made all the more so by his rather unique perspective on the whole thing.
Amelia Rosewater - I flatter myself as something of an expert on social systems and predictive modeling, but in truth Miss Rosewater surpasses me so utterly in those areas it is honestly a little embarrassing. She is a very focused individual, the sort that any Operative would be happy to rely upon, and I feel that working with her would be a most enjoyable experience. Her only flaw seems to be her insistence that human problems can be addressed in the same way as mechanical ones, but that is a common failing among Iterators. It might be worth recommending her for Hyperpsychology training... we will see.
Jennifer Blackwell - It is always good to work alongside a fellow Operative, and Miss Blackwell is an excellent example of our shared profession. She is focused, dedicated and extremely good at her job, a true believer in the Technocratic ideal. If anything, I would say her dedication outstrips my own, likely a legacy of our differing backgrounds. I have lived my life as part of the Union from the very beginning, and thus do not always appreciate the full scope of the advantages it offers, whereas she originally lived among the Sleepers and thus has a distinct point of comparison. Truly, she is an inspiration we could all aspire to.
Octavia Wilkinson - Ah, Progenitors. So very devoted to their own perspective. Mrs Wilkinson is a dedicated and highly skilled medic, but it does seem to colour all that she does. Beyond that, I cannot really say, having neither met her nor been given access to most of her files.
Lucy Axelle - Mrs Axelle is a living testiment to the wisdom behind our policy of capture and conversion, as opposed to outright extermination. While her somewhat unusual personality takes some getting used to, I cannot fault either her enthusiasm or her skills. I have often heard my colleagues mocking the idealists among us, but personally I have always been inclined to praise and support them. We do what we do in service of humanity, after all, and the consequences of forgetting that could be dire indeed.
Hillary Kung - Ah, the Ivory Tower. Good at what they do, vital to the success of our organisation, but all too often prone to being blinded by their own detached perspective. Miss Kung would make an excellent support agent, of that I have no doubt, but her frontline training is almost non-existent. I suspect my own judgement on this matter might be prone to some considerable bias, and so shall withhold any further commentary on the matter until new information is available.
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ChineseDrone
Totally depraved
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
Can I just say @linkhyrule5 that I love what you did with the Chorus? It makes a lot more sense than the inoffensive universalists of canon.
Btw, I think you forgot the Verbana in the Trad writeup
Btw, I think you forgot the Verbana in the Trad writeup
Something to note is that Nanotech Integration is actually really rare. Unless you're a high spec dedicated combat construct (hi @NonSequtur) or have like, really powerful Technocratic parents, it's probably not a thing that is available.
Also this is making me sad that I didn't join up earlier as a quadruple murder-amputee (i.e. not-Adam-Jensen) because that would have been hilarious and/or fantastic and people need more guys who are 10% Primium by bodyweight
Also this is making me sad that I didn't join up earlier as a quadruple murder-amputee (i.e. not-Adam-Jensen) because that would have been hilarious and/or fantastic and people need more guys who are 10% Primium by bodyweight
Thank you! I can't claim credit for all of it - the prosperity minister thing was a hilariously apt suggestion from @TenfoldShields in particular - but I'm generally proud of what I did with it.
And oops! Yes I did, and after all that time hashing out their hilarity. Poor druids. I'll get to that today.
Also, to generalize from @MJ12 Commando - most things with high Sphere ratings are going to be hard to get without good connections or being basically owned by the Union, especially post-'99. There are exceptions - Bobs are the obvious example (and on a side note, are those even canon? Certainly they make too much sense to not exist, but I didn't really see them mentioned in my various glances through the rulebooks), being about as rare as dirt despite being Life 5/Mind 5 constructs - but if your augs require personal attention from a Sphere Master they should probably have roleplay justification.
To answer this in the main thread:
Rule of thumb, Matter implantation are -2 permadox and come with a +2 agg weakness to Life attacks. Life implantation (arm of a treeant or whatever) are -1 and come with +1 agg. Spirit implantation are -1 - balanced around the idea that Spirit is hard to do damage with paradigmatically, so most of your weaknesses are to control and binding effects that are easier to defend against. Forces "implantation" - things like hard-light arms, shadow tendrils, whatever - are -2 permadox and take +2 agg from Forces. Most other esoterica tend to go under Spirit. Training, bloodlines, blessings, Entropy snarls, whatever tend to be -0 permadox because their weaknesses are idiosyncratic
ChineseDrone
Totally depraved
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
BTW, one thing I would change is the mention that the Pope was part of the Chorus--Mage influence on politics tends to exist at a less public level like how NWO controls political discourse through controlling media, academia, and policy research rather than directly being politicians. Having the Pope be a Chorister directly seems like it'd be way too easy for the Technocracy to catch.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Maybes the real pope was an figurehead, and the real pope was in anHorizon Realm.[/QUOTE]
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Oh that's definitely true either way, the guy who makes public appearances won't be a Mage for sure. Too vulnerable.
Mm. You know, you're the second person to mention that?
Alright, sure. Let me lay out my reasoning and you guys can poke holes in it. Heavens know I'm not much of a history buff.
So first, rewind a good five, seven centuries to the middle ages. We're playing with paradigm essentialism, and this era predates much of the cultural influence of the Order of Hermes, so the idea that these priests are reality warpers pretty much hasn't occurred to anyone except Arete 6s, who have either kept it to themselves or been cast out as heretics anyway. So these "mages", these holy men... are just the real saints, the people so very beloved by God that they not only get miracles, they can count on divine intervention, in very obvious and dramatic ways (doubly so, since Paradox was generally kinder in the past.)
Which to me begs the question - if you don't pick these guys to rise in the ranks, becoming Bishops and Cardinals, then who are you going to pick? Or back up even further - who founded the Church? The idea that Mages need to be in hiding is a modern one - the Technocracy itself wants to guide the Masses, not rule them, and would reject the position even if it were offered (heavens know they could go overt if they wanted), and of course they're holding down everyone else that'd love to be public.
So the short list of Pope candidates are going to tend to be Mages, which strongly suggests that the Pope has historically been a Mage. So now there'd have to be something to make that tradition stop. ... But I don't really see what could do that. Not the Technocracy - if the Technocracy can influence the selection of the Pope, in the heart of the Church's power in the Vatican, then Traditions as a whole might as well pack up and go home - if there's any place in the mundane world the Church has power it's in the Vatican. The Technocracy could try and assassinate the Pope, of course, but "Ascension Warriors are trying to kill me" are kind of an existing problem for anyone prominent Traditions Mage anyway, and now the Pope has the backing of however many consors the Church has on hand, plus a roughly arbitrary number of full Mages, to ward himself with. And as noted above, the paradigm of the Church means that it's not likely to occur to them either, since it'd require passing over someone who gets regular vulgar miracles in favor of someone who doesn't.
So... proof by induction: if the papacy is held by a Mage it'll probably continue to be held by a Mage, the first Pope was probably a Mage, QED.
Now as noted that doesn't mean the public-facing Pope is the real Pope, but the person who actually gets the title and holds power in the mundane Church? Separating the mundane and the magical is a modern conceit, and the Church is too old and too powerful to really bow to that, I think.
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The thing is, the Technocracy basically broke the old Traditions' backs in the Sorcerer's Crusade. The days of the magi holding direct secular power should have ended centuries ago.
NonSequtur
a body
Well, at least in the nebulous West. Though Choristers not having influence in the Vatican is far more believable for the Order of Reason than the modern, much more secular Technocracy.
The canonical answer is probably 'the Holy See has a lot less influence than in real life'.
Well first, I don't think I'd call the Church strictly secular. Which is part of the point - in that, um, while true faith in outright miracles might be rare, there's still one mystic tradition that has at least a third of the world paying it lip service.
Like, either you have a rather unnatural state of affairs where the most devout priests are actively keeping secrets from their superiors, or the Technocracy has enough influence on the Vatican itself that I wonder how Harry Potter ever got published. I know I said the Traditions lost ages ago in the setting writeup, but I thought I was being dramatic.
This is actually an interesting point, that the Order of Reason was itself religious enough that the Pope could've been someone chosen by the Order (and they'd do their usual shadow government thing on ideological grounds.)
And then I suppose it might have been grandfathered in... Well, okay then, I might just steal that as a plot hook if we go anywhere near Rome, that the Choristers are starting to court their way back up the hierarchy now that the number of openly devout Technocrats are decreasing.
Uh... link, buddy?
Cabal of Pure Thought. From your Chorus construction, you can literally argue that the Cabal of Pure Thought breaking away means that the Christian elements of the Chorus can be said to be the real first defecting Convention, getting into the act before the Sons of Ether made it mainstream.
...er, sorry, it's not clear what you think I should do with this information.
I mean, totally stealing that for sure, but that sounds to me like control of the papacy went from, well, the papacy itself, to the Order of Reason, and then defected with the Cabal over to the Chorus, since the Cabal of Pure Thought would likely have had the closest ties with the papacy and de facto control even if the actual decisions were being made by a different or higher level.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Constructs are nice, because the mage casting the Life 5 part and the Mind 5 part can be different people. So they're much easier to produce. And some variant spheres have 'Crats getting create life earlier, at Life 3 (cloning) and 4 (hybrids), with 5 only being required for the really weird stuff, or speed-growing without Time 3.