Spellcasting and Imbuing

These are two of the five Talents, as they existed in the Beyond. Though uncommon in the Outlaw, there are still many Beyonders who practice these abilities on a daily basis. ("Practice" as in "use professionally".) I'll talk about the Earther equivalents of these, the new form these Talents took, later.

Spellcasting - Spellcasting is the most common Talent, and the easiest for Earthers to grasp. You say the right words, wiggle your fingers, and boom! something happens.

Spellcasters must follow the laws of Contagion, Similarity, and Identification to cast spells, though each Tradition has their own specific iterations of this. In one Tradition, the number 6 must be used in a binding spell, as it represents imprisonment, in another you must use miniature metal shackles. The symbolism differs from one Tradition to another, but all obey the three laws.

Most spellcasters are, of necessity, scholars of the abstract and symbological — they need to study the correspondences of their Tradition to master its magic. People with the spellcasting Talent are called maguses.

Imbuing - Imbuing is the magical talent of enchanting items, for example to create magical swords, wands, rings, and so forth. (Such an item is called a "devisement".) Magicians with this Talent are known as enchanters or thaumaturgists.

Enchanters are above all craftsmen. To imbue magic into a sword, the magician has to forge it himself, from raw materials. The act of creation allows the magic to flow into the devisement, permanently linking the two. (All spells are temporary, they all eventually fade. Imbuing is permanent.)

Thaumaturgists are students of the material world. To craft devisements, they must know and master all of the various substances and their interactions. They must also learn which substances are better suited for specific enchantments, as using those substances makes the devisement more potent. They alone master the secrets of the strange substances of the Beyond, like liquid cold. (That is, the energy of cold (or contra-heat), as distilled into a liquid form.)

Enchanters don't have Schools or Traditions. Facts are facts, and either a substance works for a specific purpose, or it doesn't. Obsessing over symbological minutia is foolish and a waste of time. The material world doesn't respond to symbols, only craft and skill.

I'll talk about Shadow Walking and Sorcery tomorrow.

Shadow Walking and Sorcery

The next two Talents are closely related, as both deal with the realm of mists and shadows known as the Shadow World.

Shadow Walking - Shadow walkers can sense the otherworldly Shadow World, and even project their mind into the mists to traverse its shifting, ethereal terrain (traveling, in spirit, to the many Spirit Realms of the shadows). They can (after much training) even use the ever-shifting mists to discern truths about the natural world and the Shadow World (a technique called divining).

(Most walkers have to study intently to become diviners. Fae are natural diviners, and must study intently to learn shadow walking.)

Technomagical devisements and spells also allow people to enter the Shadow World (but not divine), but walkers can do things in shadow that no one else can. They can find and enter Shadow Realms, and even have a measure of control over the realm itself. They can fight spirits and monsters of the mists, even detect and disrupt burgeoning vortexes.

They can gain information about the material realm, by divining the shifting mists. Diviners can sense from afar, being able to listen to conversations from miles away. They can find lost objects, learn truths about a person or thing, and gather information of all kinds, all by consulting the mists. (This is much easier when they can see the target in the flesh.)

As all magic is of the Shadow World, while divining walkers can sense and disrupt spells, magical items, and the abilities of some Emerged creatures. The mental state of creatures disturbs the energies of the Shadow World, and walkers can see those currents while divining. They can even guess at what emotions or sensations people are feeling. Strangest of all, by divining the mists, they can catch glimpses of purported pasts and possible futures.  

Shadow walking is not a conscious, intellectual discipline. It relies entirely on intuition and hunches. It is the rarest of the mage Talents.

Sorcery - The Shadow World is populated by spirits of every variety and description, some hostile, some helpful, others too alien to understand. These spirits dwell in a series of Spirit Realms, or in the mists themselves. Some spirits have emerged from the Shadow World and taken up residence in the physical realm.

Sorcerers have the innate ability to sense, contact, and communicate with spirits. They can summon a spirit from the Shadow World into the physical realm, or banish one back to the mists. Through negotiation or compulsion, they can even gain the aid of spirits, which allows them to do incredible things.

Sorcerers are usually friendly and ingratiating, though often stubborn. They have a quick and subtle mind, and are expert at negotiating contracts, both to insert innocuous clauses which nevertheless undermine the intent of the contract, and to prevent the same. (Spirits are inextricably bound by the terms of a contract, and have a vested interest in being tough and wily negotiators.) Sorcerers who also train as lawyers are respected and hated in courts across the continent.

Tomorrow, Augmentation.

Augmentation - Magic flows through our bodies and pools in our chakras. Shadow warriors (those who have developed their augmentation Talent) can tap into their chakras, and use them to augment their natural abilities: making themselves stronger, faster, quieter, and so forth.

In Earther terms, shadow warriors are martial artists with supernatural powers that make them faster than any human could ever be, stronger than a normal human can manage, and quieter than an especially sneaky cumulo-nimbus cloud. Some shadow warriors can hear things from miles off, see through walls, even fly. Their abilities are innate, they require no ritual to activate nor devisement to operate. Shadow warriors are far less versatile than spellcasters and technomages, however.

Developing these abilities requires intense studies and vows. There are dozens of shadow warrior Schools, and each has their own moral code and required vows. Shadow warriors are highly disciplined, and practiced in meditation and physical exercises (which help them master the energies in their chakras).

The Talents On Earth

The five mage Talents have been known for millennia among the Beyonders, and their limits were well understood. Most believed these limits to be intrinsic to the magic itself. The Emergence proved them wrong.

On Earth, each of the Talents found new applications and took new forms. Sorcerers became technoshamans, enchanters became technomages, and the shadow walkers became crackers, magical computer hackers.

I'll talk about those forms of magic next.

Origins of Earthly Magic

Magic has been known and practiced for more than 15,000 years, since before the founding of the Empire of Atlantis. The Five Talents were first discovered among the Atlanteans, and formed the backbone of their strength. It is said that, at the height of their power, there were more archmages in Atlantis than stars in the sky. (But storytellers and songwriters are outrageous liars, and often found in their cups, so this is probably untrue.)

When the empire collapsed, and Atlantis was left uninhabited and demon-haunted (occurring all in a single night, the storytellers say), the four races of Cienvue took up the mantle of magic. For 10,000 years, during the rise and fall of kingdom after kingdom, during periods of drought and famine, during times of war and civil strife, the four races knew the Talents, used the Talents, and plumbed their uttermost depths.

Or so they thought.

On Earth were great workings of mundane craft undreampt of in the imaginations of all the storytellers and songwriters of all the races. Outrageous liars they might be, but none had imagined anything so outrageous as personal computers, electricity, firearms, plastics, automobiles, or cellphones. All of these things were new, and being new they stretched the bounds of what magic was capable of.

In great ways and small ways, the technologies of Earth warped magic. They gave birth to technomagic, which uses imbuing to create new and more flexible devisements (and ways to make them). Cracking, which is computer hacking via the Shadow World. Augments, which use technomagic devisements for augmentations. Technoshamanism, which is sorcery applied to spirits who inhabit machines, vehicles, and other technological works. And last, spellcasting, which hasn't changed all that much, but the presence of technology allows for rafts of new and interesting spells that can be cast on machines, electronic devices, firearms, and other Earthly inventions.

Taken together, the 14 years since the Emergence has seen more advances, more upset in magical theories and practices than the preceding 14 millennia. No one knows what the end result of this revolution will be, not magicians or priests, not scientists or technicians, and not the storytellers and songwriters. (Outrageous liars though they be.)

The Five Talents on Earth

Each of the five mage Talents has changed, in response to the new conditions, phenomena, and opportunities encountered on Earth. Beyonders — the four intelligent, nonhuman races from that other world — have adapted to the new circumstances, learning new applications of magic and helping Earthers develop their own magical Talents.

We begin with cracking — hacking computers with magic — which illustrates many of the changes in magic that lead to other developments. Cracking is an inextricable result of the interplay between magic and technology.

Cracking — Because of the way electricity and magic interact (gnarly details available upon request), shadow walkers can hack computers without touching the keyboard at all. By entering the Shadow World, they can access a computer directly.

Magical access grants crackers super-user privileges. (To the uninitiated, that means they can do the hell they want.) They don't need to know passwords, they don't need to know programming, they don't need to know the specifics of the interface, they don't need to hack anything.

This is a problem, so technomages created constructs, technomagical devisements designed to protect a computer from supernatural intrusion. Shadow walkers have to defeat the construct to access the computer.

Constructs are artificial Shadow Realms, and they can look like anything: An estate villa, in Meiji-era Japan. A section of beach at Normandy, circa 1944. A weird technicolor domain of fragrances and swirling lights, something like living in a lava lamp. Anything the construct's controller can imagine can be implemented.

Cracking Adventures

Anyone can enter a construct, via the right spell, technomagical devisement (called a shadowjack), or spirit power. In the Outlaw, the whole party helps hack a computer: everybody cracks, everybody hacks.

Cracking the construct involves entering the Realm, exploring it, and unlocking its secrets. It's a lot like raiding a Chartered Company compound or exploring a dungeon. Exactly like it, in fact, as the exact same skills can be used.

To get through a door, you pick the lock just like the real world. To sneak, you use your stealth skill. To shoot, your firearm skill.

Everyone can contribute. Everyone has a role to play.

Crackers, of course, can cheat. They can use their magical Talent to edge around the physics of the construct. To open a door, they can just wave their hands, affecting the artificial realm directly.

Cracking a computer isn't a solo adventure: it's fun for the whole party. It's different every time. Everyone can help, but crackers do it better.

That's magical hacking in the Outlaw.

Technomagic

Technomagic comes from Imbuing, and uses that magical Talent in a very strange way (at least to Beyonder ways of thinking.) Whereas enchanting an item (a Wand of Liquid Hope, for example) takes weeks or months, a technomage can create the exact same thing in a few hours, with the proper raw materials.

(These are known as "quick-and-dirty" devisements, or QaDD, pronounced "quad". Other technomagic devisements take much longer to craft.)

An enchanted item lasts until it's destroyed, but technomages can take the raw materials used to create one quad and tear them apart, using them in the next. This flexibility seems unnatural to those raised in the Beyond, but is very much appreciated in the chaotic and impoverished Outlaw.

Technomagic - Cracking is possible because electricity can affect magic, creating convergences in the Shadow World. Technomagic works on similar principles. Maguses can cast Flash Fire, and incinerate an opponent. Technomages can do the exact same thing, with the correct devisement.

Technomages use wires to create electric circuits, them imbue those circuits with a small amount of magic, creating a devisement. Each devisement is different — one might allow you to enter a computer construct, another might enhance the strength of a wearer, another might make bullets explode when fired. Once electricity — from a generator, power plant, or battery — is flowing through the circuit (a process the technomage must initialize), the effect comes into existence (and lasts until the power is cut off).

Creating quick and dirty devisements takes a knowledge of the proper circuits and the ability to solder, wrap wires, and screw together a case. Blank wiring boards, wire cutters, batteries, and spools of wire are the tools of the technomage.

Each different effect requires a different circuit, so above all technomages must memorize the several known circuits and what effects they cause. This is especially important because a poorly formed circuit doesn't just fail to work. It might, or it might feedback on the user or creator, might melt into slag, or do nearly anything else. This is magic, after all, and disasters can be spectacular.

Enchanted items (a magical sword, for example) are permanent (at least until the item is destroyed). Spells are evanescent. Devisements (even quads) are permanent, so long as the circuit is intact and a current is flowing. If the wires are torn loose, or the current is interrupted, the magic fades and can only be re-initialized by a technomage. (In fact, only technomages can switch batteries if they run dry.)

Technomages are at a disadvantage, when compared to maguses. A maguses' abilities are innate, they cannot be taken away. Nor do they depend on a power source (as the electrical devisements do). They are also more flexible.

At the same time, maguses are at a disadvantage, when compared to technomages. Once a devisement is finished, it can be used without tiring or hurting its wielder. Maguses are not so lucky.

Technomagic is a very new discipline, only discovered in the years after Emergence. The first commercial technomage set up shop 11 years ago, but breadboard kits for technomages (suitable for quick-and-dirty devisements) are less than eight years old. Shadow walkers could read information from computers from the very first time they crossed over, but constructs to protect that data weren’t developed until 9 years ago. And shadowjacks, which revolutionized computer use and cracking, are just three years old.

Technomagic is so new, no one knows what it might eventually be capable of. By increasing the complexity of the circuit and the power flowing through it, ever more powerful effects can be created. If there is a limit to this process, no one can say. Technomagic may eventually be able to duplicate, or exceed, the legendary abilities of the archmages.

Technomagic: "Slow and Steady" Devisements

Most technomages focus on quads — QUick And Dirty Devisements. Using a standard quad kit, they can gin up a circuit in 10-20 minutes. These have several limitations, including low battery life and fragility (it's easy to knock breadboarded wires loose).

Quads are not intended to be permanent, they are temporary creations for use in exigent circumstances. That said, well-done wiring, a sturdy circuit board, and quality soldering can make a quad as resilient as most electronic devices.

Some devisements, on the other hand, are more-or-less permanent. These are invariably built using "slow and steady" methods.

These require weeks or months of work by a dedicated technomage (as only one craftsmen can work on one devisement), frequently with hazardous substances. (And chemists laugh.) The benefit being that they are far more rugged and reliable, and can be powered with ambient current.

All technomage devisements are built around electrical circuits, and all require a power source of some kind. In most cases, this power source is a fundamental component of the devisement, meaning only a technomage can change the battery. (The first technomagical devisements required it be the same technomage who crafted it, but advances in crafting methods sidestepped that restriction.)

This is obviously quite limiting, especially for items which are meant to be used by non-technomages. Quite recently, technomages developed a way of powering devisements with the ambient energies of a person's body. (These methods are used in crafting, e.g., shadowjacks and steed collars.)

This method requires two very esoteric substances — firegold and frostsilver — which require special tools to create and work, and which are inherently hazardous. Most "slow and steady" creation methods require a large and well-equipped craft room, which is why the typically nomadic Guns tend to favor quads.

Liquid Cold and Liquid Heat

Technomagic came from enchanting, to the point where it is impossible to build a technomagic devisement without depending on ancient, time-tested enchanting methods and materials.

The Beyond is a world of magic — magical creatures, magical substances, magical abilities. Many things that are real there are simply impossible in our world. (Or were, until the Emergence.)

Cold, for example, is an active form of energy that negates heat. Where properly aspected magic is strong enough, and the ambient temperature low enough, pools of liquid cold can form. (And when aspected magic is strong enough, and the temperature high enough — in the most torrid of deserts on the hottest days of the year — pools of liquid heat can form.)

Liquid heat is reddish, with swirling golden highlights that glow. It's a thick sludge, about the consistency of a slurpee or milkshake.

Liquid cold is a clear liquid (barely thicker than water) with thin, white bands swirled in. The white layers reflect light, gleaming and shimmering like sun on snow.

Liquid heat and liquid cold have no temperature: they are energies, in liquid form. (In the Beyond, all energies can be made into liquids and solids, through arcane and difficult means.) They have no temperature, instead they invoke temperature: they cause hotness and coldness in that which they touch.

Liquid heat is inconceivably caustic, causing third-degree burns on contact. A tiny drop will flash ignite any flammable substance (by raising its temperature above the kindling point and causing autoignition). For safety reasons, it is stored in a specially enchanted flask of crystal glass, which insulates the surroundings against the liquid.

Liquid cold is a cryogenic liquid, capable of freezing nearly any mundane substance or object it comes into contact with (akin to liquid nitrogen). A liquid cold spill is invariably devastating, as everything mundane it touches is deep frozen, becoming highly brittle. Any heat energy will negate the cold, causing the fluid to evanesce, so it is typically stored in a vacuum flask (thus insulating it from outside heat), made from a different type of enchanted crystal glass.

When liquid cold and liquid heat come into contact, they both evanesce, becoming energetic heat and cold. If cold predominates, the surroundings grow colder. If there were more liquid heat, they grow hotter.

These liquids are inherently unstable, but both can be made into stable solids.

At the coldest temperature possible, liquid cold can coalesce into a solid. This solid — “perfect ice” — is clear as glass, cool to the touch, remains solid at temperatures far above the boiling point of water (indeed, it can only dissolve in liquid heat), and can be knapped like obsidian or flint.

There is a counterpart to perfect ice, called perfect fire, formed from heat. As a solid, heat is soft, like stiff clay, and looks like a black or dun volcanic rock that dimly glows red. It's warm to the touch, and a fist-sized chunk can provide enough heat for a person to survive a frigid night in a howling blizzard.

Perfect fire is formed deep in the earth or in volcanos, where the heat and pressure are incredibly intense. Unlike perfect ice, it can't be knapped, hammered, or permanently shaped — it's just too soft.

All of the foregoing is impossible. Utterly impossible. But it happens in the Beyond. And, since the Emergence, on Earth.

Enchanters are masters of these and other exotic materials. They must study them, experiment with them, and master their uses. In this case, liquid heat and liquid cold are used to make (respectively) firegold and frostsilver.

Firegold and Frostsilver

The Beyond is a world of magic and the impossible. Under specific conditions, both heat and cold can be condensed into liquids. Enchanters can even create metals from super-concentrated forms of these liquids.

By applying additional heat to liquid heat (via a fire or burner), enchanters can create a super-concentrated form of it. (This process can take more or less time, depending on the heating source used.) Super-concentrated liquid heat is highly energetic, swirling furiously in its container and giving off light that is painful to look at. This state typically lasts for but a short time before the liquid heat burns through its container and explodes.

Enchanters can also create super-concentrated liquid cold, by slowly leaching away residual heat in the flask and the environment, lowering the temperature of the fluid's surroundings. (An unpleasant process, as it requires them turning their workshop into an ice-box.) The absence of ambient heat allows the liquid cold to begin drawing cold energies to itself, concentrating them greatly.

At low enough temperatures, just above the crystallization point (which forms perfect ice), the liquid cold becomes super-concentrated. In this state it is quite thick, almost gelatinous, and the white strips become translucent. This is an unstable state, as the liquid cold is on the very verge of crystallization (which usually happens within a second or two).

While in their super-concentrated state, both fluids can be used to make metals with strange physical properties. A tiny mote of gold, introduced into the super-concentrated liquid heat, causes an instant reaction (much like dropping a salt crystal into a super-saturated water solution). Within moments, a lump of crystallized golden metal — firegold — precipitates out of the liquid heat, collecting on the bottom of the flask. (The liquid heat completely vanishes, being replaced with an equal volume of plasm, a watery substance made of spent magical energies. The plasm vanishes within a minute or two.)

A tiny mote of silver causes a similar reaction in the super-concentrated liquid cold. The liquid cold immediately desiccates, forming two powdery substances, thoroughly mixed together: plasm salt and frostsilver. Applying a small amount of heat causes the plasm salt to vanish, and applying even more heat melts the frostsilver.

Firegold and frostsilver are metals, nearly identical to their namesakes, save for an unusual coloration — red swirls for firegold and white bands for frostsilver. There is no known way of changing the metals back into heat or cold; once metallicized, they are simply metals.

As metals, they can be used to make jewelry or for any other use gold or silver could be put to. The two metals are infused with magic, however, and being magical, they have further applications beyond the mundane.

Technomancers use the metals to construct power taps, for use in powering devisements. A piece of firegold and frostsilver that are linked with appropriate wires generate a small amount of electrical current when placed against the skin of a person. This current is enough to sustain a small devisement indefinitely, without harming the individual in question. Technomancers use power taps in permanent devisements, obviating the need for another power source.

Devisements are in high demand, and so the procedure for creating and using firegold and frostsilver has become common among technomages, even though creating them is a tricky, involved, and hazardous process. Only the most skilled of enchanters or technomages can attempt it successfully, and none do so casually.

There are no shortcuts when creating firegold and frostsilver. Technomages have to use the same techniques, the same equipment, the same Talent as enchanters.

Technomagic is enchanting, in a different form. The same holds true for the other new forms of magic that arose on Earth. Each derive from an ancient Beyonder tradition that stretches back more than 10,000 years.

FAQ's of Life (and Death)

A couple of quick questions, based on some recent feedback.

Q1: Are the plague and the vortexes are somehow related?

A1: Induced Systemic Necrosis was an extremely odd disease. Researchers never identified a causal agent, and it spread in ways that are hard to explain in conventional epidemiological terms.

Could it have been a magical event, perhaps a curse? Maybe, but there is no proof of that, and the first known vortexes didn't open up until a decade later. There is no known evidence of magic during that time.

Q2: Can't you give me a straight answer? Why dance around the subject?

A2: Because you have been lied to, are being lied to, and will be lied to.

The campaign material presented thus far is a mix of truths, half-truths, omissions, and outright lies. It's a technique I developed years ago. I call it "baked-in secrets".

There are a lot of secrets in the campaign world, and I will not state them outright. I'll present consequences of those secrets (so you can infer or deduce their existence), include qualifiers that suggest the material might not be perfectly accurate ("most people think"), make straight-faced claims that seem illogical or extremely unlikely (to suggest that other explanations might exist), but never state them outright.

I'll lie, and tell you I'm lying, but never tell you the truth outright. (Except like once, in another venue.) Believe it or not, this is actually a good idea.

It has two benefits: players can discover what's going on behind the scenes (a cool "solve the mystery" moment), and it's easier for players and GM's to roleplay the setting.

I found, a long time ago, that when the campaign material straight out tells you deep cosmological truths that no one in the entire setting knows, players and GM's assume everyone knows it. Even if it's impossible to know those truths, they assume everyone knows them, and judge the behavior of NPC's by that knowledge.

"That's so stupid! On pg. 76, the rules specifically say that's impossible, so why is he even trying it?"

More, they tend to make plans in accordance with that secret knowledge.

If you never explicitly state those secrets, then this is never an issue. If you only give people what their characters (and NPC's) could know, then the mysteries of the universe remain just that — mysteries. (Until the GM is ready to reveal them.) Some of these secrets I would reveal in time (during play of the campaign), others I would always keep secret.

And, even though "solve the mystery" has the smallest amount of space in this little essay, it's the best reason to keep things secret. Players love it when mysteries suddenly make sense, even more so when they figured it out. And if that new knowledge allows them to accomplish great things, well hell, that's just gravy.

Accordingly, nearly all of the material presented has been limited to what people in the campaign know, or could know. That's why I use the phrase "so far as is known" or "it's generally believed". If a person in the setting doesn't have the real truth, I haven't told you the real truth. (That I can think of. Things may have slipped through.)

But those truths are there, and they have an effect on the material. You could, using hints and suggestions herein, make reasonable guesses as to what's going on behind the scenes. (In many cases.)

I've tried to make a setting that makes sense. If it seems illogical or improbable, there's a good chance that's actually a clue about something deeper.

So, is the rotting plague connected with Emergence? Maybe, or maybe it was a very strange disease that we would have understood medically, had we enough time. If there is a deeply buried truth there, I'm not going to reveal it now.

Just the FAQs

Second bout of questions, based on recent feedback.

Q3: Why "Atlantis"? Isn't that overdone?
Q4: Why are the creatures and monsters of the Beyond so much like legends from our world?

A4: (Which also ties into Atlantis.) Usually, they're not. The monsters and creatures of the Beyond are not exactly identical to our Earth legends and myths. Neither is Atlantis.

There are a great many Beyonder creatures that are completely novel (which I'll get to sooner or later), and many Earth legends which don't (yet) have Beyonder equivalents. So it's not a 1-for-1 correspondence.

But mostly, it comes down to names. Names like "Atlantis", "vampire", or "dragon" are not Beyonder words, they're English. These are not Beyonder names, not what Beyonders call that island, that monster, that nearly-unkillable, genius-level, dinosaur-sized, armored flying death machine.

They're English names. When we saw something from the Beyond, we called it by a familiar name. Vampires, dragons, basilisks: if their monsters loosely resembled ours, we used our names. They're not exactly like our legends, but were close enough.

The same holds for Atlantis. A strange continent that appears in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean will be called Atlantis, no matter what. It's inevitable.

Last is the Previous Contact theory, currently in vogue among the more disreputable fringe mages. They claim there have been several prior contacts between the Earth and the Beyond, so many of our legends come from those prior contacts. There is no verifiable evidence such contact occurred (save for Beyonder claims that humans used to live on Atlantis), but the theory is romantic and appealing, and many people assume it's true.

A3: Atlantis may be overdone, but there are good reasons for its inclusion.

• It's a great adventuring venue, offering adventure opportunities found nowhere else in the setting.
• It hints at deeper aspects of the world, such as Previous Contact theory.
• I needed something that would hint at an ancient link between the worlds, and an island continent convenient to North America (the main campaign setting) was a better solution than a hidden valley or lost city like Shangri-La.

As it stands, Atlantis is a key part of the setting, a dread and ominous place filled with empty buildings, treasure beyond imagining, and malign entities that chill the blood. It may be overdone, but I like it and I think it's gonna stay.

(After all, everything's overdone. Magic? Been there, done that. Sci-fi? Overplayed. Love stories? Blogger, please. We've seen all of that before, time and again, and Atlantis is no better. What matters is how well something's done, not whether it's been done. In my opinion, at least.)

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;718405(After all, everything's overdone. Magic? Been there, done that. Sci-fi? Overplayed. Love stories? Blogger, please. We've seen all of that before, time and again, and Atlantis is no better. What matters is how well something's done, not whether it's been done. In my opinion, at least.)

Something else that needs to be emphasized.

JG

Hallo The New Year!

This is my last GiTO post for a long while. I intend on running the setting using my own little action-movie RPG, the ∞ Infinity Gaming System, and I need to focus on those mechanics for now. (Those interested can find that thread here, in the design forum.) Thanks for reading and commenting.

Augmentation - All people have chakras, where magical energies (called prana) pool. Shadow warriors tap into these energies and use them to augment their bodies, minds, and spirits. (Corresponding to the material, energetic, and ephemera elements.) This takes years of intense study with Prana Masters, and discipline far beyond that of mundane people.

Augments, in contrast, use technomagic devisements to achieve the same end. The devisements are implanted into their body, on the sites of the 5 chakras (the forehead, heart, liver, and both hands), and corral the prana energies therein, allowing the augment to duplicate the abilities of shadow warriors.

These devisements are made of hair-thin circuits, inlaid into the bone. They are, of course, powered with power taps, using firegold and frostsilver. (Theoretically, other paired enchanted metals could be used, like cold iron and searing lead, but searing lead is poisonous to most mage races and cold iron is poisonous to the three Shidhe races — fae, trolls, and wisps.)

Gunmages are a specific variety of augments, with powers oriented towards firearms. The best gunmages have also developed their enchanting Talent, allowing them to make magical firearms that operate as part of their body.

On both cases, the technologies of Earth work with the magical knowledge of the Beyond to create something neither world has ever seen before.

Spellcasting — This entry is, thankfully, short. Other than new spells — Tire Tear, to immobilize vehicles — spellcasting hasn't changed at all on Earth. Earthers have made new Traditions, exploring magic in their own, ahem, unique ways, but the fundamental principles are exactly the same.

Technoshamanism — The Shadow World is the realm of the ephemera. It is unimaginably vast, and in it are an unknowable number of Shadow Realms and spirit beings. The Spirit Realms and the Shadow World are peopled by hundreds of thousands or millions of varieties of spirits, in numbers akin to the atoms in a galaxy.

It's a big place. There are a lot of types of spirits. And a lot, a lot, a lot of individual spirits.

Some are selfish, others friendly and helpful. Some are great in power and grace, akin to angels, others great in malevolence, like unto demons. Some are indifferent to the material world, preferring their own Shadow Realms, and some are so alien, so incomprehensible, that they are inimical to life as we know it, just because of who they are.

Sorcerers are spirit masters. Their magical Talent is to sense the presence of spirits, in the material world or the Shadow World, and draw them to the sorcerer. There, they can negotiate bargains with them, or possibly compel the spirit to obey. Spirits can perform tasks for the sorcerer, or even grant them abilities beyond what mortals could normally achieve.

Spirits can leave the Shadow World and enter the material plane. There they can infest inanimate objects, or even possess animals and people. Sorcerers can expel those spirits, ejecting them back into the Shadow World.

On Earth, spirits can also possess machines. They can control the machine, as if it were their body, partially or completely. They can wreck the machine or just cause small malfunctions. (The weaker the spirit, the less it can accomplish.)

The reason airplanes are greatly shunned? A race of spirits who infest them and cause great calamities.

Technoshamans are focused on dealing with such spirits, exorcising machines or warding them against possession. Many couple their magical knowledge with technical skills as a driver and mechanic, so they can more readily differentiate between a normal malfunction and a lurking malform.

Another FAQ-ing Post?

Okay, so not quite the last. Had a couple more FAQ-able questions come up, so there's going to be a few more posts. (This and two others, it looks like.)

Q1: It's a Western. Any cowboys?

A1: Actually, I'm really glad of this question, because it lets me blather on about a piece of the setting I didn't get a chance to cover.

All your major states raise cattle, most obviously Texas and Utah. But the biggest beef industry in the Outlaw is Dakota. But not because of cows.

North of Dakota is a massive vortex that opens up to an ice continent somewhere in the Beyond. That continent has three main types of creatures: the gigantic armored Vishloess, the savage, furred Losiv (whom people call “yetis”), and the crystalline (and cold-based) insectile Yisek.

(The vortexes also dump a hell of a lot of cold into the atmosphere. It's iceboxing eastern Canada, and playing hell with global weather patterns.)

Vishloess are gigantic (triceratops, up to brontosaurus), furred creatures with 4-8 limbs, massive, fanged maws, huge horns, and hard, bony plates. They're mammals (or "mammals", being as how Beyonder magic-based biology has, at best, a loose relationship to Earther biology). Some are herbivores, some carnivores, some lone hunters, some pack hunters, some herd animals, but all are good eatin's.

They poured out of the vortex, into Dakota. Out of desperation, the Dakotas were forced to develop their manufacturing and oil industries, so they could make the fast, armored vehicles that fight the vishloess and the helicopters (the Dakota Sue, "that MASH helicopter") that spot them. (They also built a rail network across the Blue Line, so they can ship vehicles, men, and materiel to where the latest incursion is.)

Picture Land Rovers and dune buggies four-wheeling across the terrain (armed with .50 cal machineguns and grenade launchers), herding a beast with judiciously applied explosions and bursts of gunfire. Rolling after are up-armored pickups and Land Rovers, ersatz APC's, armed with harpoons. The smaller vehicles harry a furred beast the size of a tank, while the larger ones maneuver in for the kill.

Shoot, Boom!, and you drag back a huge carcass to the flatbed semis, for butchering in the local city. Dakotans are not in danger of starvation — there's lots of meat. (Oh, yeah, and pelts. Thick, huge, gorgeous pelts.)

(Ecology? The same impossibly fast plant growth that covered Europe with dense, hostile forest. Small vishloess feed on it, larger vishloess feed on them. "It's the cycle of life, Simba.")

Films of vishloess hunts are popular across the Outlaw. Major personalities among the Fur Hunters are stars. These shows are shot not on video, but with actual film. (Kind of like Mutual of Omaha.)

Beef (er, "beef") from these operations is sold across the continent. (Vishloess meat tastes like spicy beef, it's a fatty meat as fat is needed to survive the cold seasons.) It, and Dakota's wheat fields, feed Canada.

So, no cowboys, but vishloess wranglers do much the same thing, with ill-tempered furred, horned, fanged, gap-mawed, armored beasts the size of a tank. Or bigger.

*One* FAQ-ing Tank?

Q2: Only one tank in the whole continent of North America? How did that happen?

A2: Another chance to talk about Dakota.

Dakota has the only industrial manufacturing base in North America (and even that is pretty small-scale). If your car or truck isn't a pre-Collapse relic, it's made in one of hundreds of small factories. Each part is custom made from common blueprints, and the vehicles assembled one at a time by small groups of workers.

(They've been trying to expand, to build actual factories, but the vishloess and yisek (plus other problems of the Outlaw) constantly harry their forces, and it's been difficult. Logistics are also a challenge.)

The one operating tank is part of a pilot project to build bigger, better armed vehicles for use against the threats from the north. They built three prototypes, to test manufacturing techniques and usefulness in the field. The only surviving prototype is based on the Soviet T-34. It's cheap, rugged, has a pretty big main gun, and is easy to maintain.

The other two prototypes were a Panzer and Tiger, but the Panzer was too small for front-line deployment (it got gored in the engine, and sat in a field for six months before they could tow it back), and the Tiger had a couple of severe design flaws (it's still sitting in a field somewhere on the other side of the Canadian border, having blown its engine).

(Yes, all the prototypes were WWII era vehicles: T-34, Panzer, Tiger. Dakotans can't build the turbine engines that make Main Battle Tanks practical. US tanks from the Era were sh... not as effective, so weren't considered.)

The T-34 performed very well in field testing, so a few are under construction right now (as of 2039). This is crimping the industrial output of the region, and prices for Dakota made cars and trucks are rising.