Howdy all!
This isn't the follow-up I had initially planned here (life got a bit complicated and I went back to focusing on designing the actual, y'know, game). We'll conclude our discussion on Mystic Martial Arts design another time!
BUT MEANWHILE, I want to talk about the FINAL chapter of the game and share with ya'll some wonderfully free content!
Lores
Ah, the Lores. The Loresheet mechanics from Weapons of the Gods and Legends of the Wulin were universally praised bits of game design, allowing players the opportunity to purchase (with experience points) to dictate their entanglement with different aspects of the setting. They were a neat, novel way to introduce things like yet-unmentioned relationships, allegiances, complicated backstories, and things magic weapons and access to training. They were flexible too, most especially in LotW where you got a special pool of XP just for entangling yourself in the many factions and destinies floating around in the Jianghu.
I really couldn't innovate on them myself, and as I designed deeper and became more familiar with the kind of game I was making, I recognized that my approach to character competency and setting entanglement made their existing design redundant. You could, after all, simply walk over to a give faction and start causing trouble if you wanted to get involved with them. You couldn't reach back in time with this method (as Loresheets allowed you to "retcon" things that had not yet been defined), but that wasn't such a terrible loss for eschewing the additional bookkeeping that Loresheets seemed to demand.
Couple this design void with my own extreme distaste for meticulously defined settings, and you get my compromise design: Lores. They're more GM-facing, primarily used for creating content that players can then interact with through the medium of play. But they're "soft" in this regard, also offering a smorgasbord of options for players to flesh out and contextualize their characters.
Rather than being descriptive bricks of text, they follow the method found in the fantastic Yoon-Suin and present the majority of their flavor and identity through game-usable charts. There is SOME purely descriptive text, but it's brutally minimal so as to present something at once concrete in its identity yet flexible in its details.
Below is one I literally just finished writing prior to writing this post. I'm putting it here because the bulk of the chapter is exclusively available to backers and patrons in the living playtest document to which they have access (so they're getting their money's worth. Thanks all!). But I do want to put more of the design out there for the general public's viewing pleasure as we get so razor-close to release!
Note: The Phoenix do some pretty rotten and clandestine things, but in searching for grist for all the fun political intrigues, I realize that I've inadvertently recreated some recent regrettably stupid real-world headlines. This is, amazingly, a complete coincidence, and is in no way a condemnation for, nor support of, any moronic political talking-point whatsoever. Leave that shit out of my idiot punch game and leave the propaganda to the morally dubious psychics, okay?
...
Rising Sun City and Chrome Galaxy Laboratory
In the grim final decades of the ancient world, a remarkable event changed the destiny of its greatest nation: Smiling Boy awakened and a city vanished. The cruel rulers of that nation vanished the miraculous disaster into a city-sized laboratory. Years later, their own psychic weapons emerged in the form of frail blue-skinned children to fight in the final wars.
The ultimate fate of their progenitor is unknown, but those tormented children banded together and annihilated their masters, seizing the capital city for themselves. There, they waited out the burning times and learned the forgotten ways of scholars, gentlemen and scientists, constructing a cabal who sought out their far-flung sibling psychics to induct into their ranks.
The city above remained empty and foreboding for many generations, the primitive tribes outside its borders considering it cursed. The hidden Phoenix, however, realized that they could test their theories of utopian societies with a populated city. Each elder Phoenix drew their own followers on invisible puppet strings, filling the city with hundreds of micronations, cults and guilds. Within a generation, those promising heroes of the upper tribes were being instructed in lost martial arts and inducted into the Phoenix’s ranks.
The Phoenix have cultivated an intense secrecy around themselves in their quest to craft the emerging nations of the post-apocalypse from the shadows. Their signs are everywhere; an open eye, a spiral, a hand with a flowering palm. Few know their meaning, but the Phoenix and their champions know the signs of their benefactors.
The vast megalopolis sprawls above and below, divided into three segments. The sunken city lies below the glittering waves of the ocean and is home to barge-cities, traders and fishermen. The old city bustles with barbarian life; simple and divided into countless eclectic micro-societies by the machinations and experimentation of the Phoenix. Far beneath the surface in hidden tunnels lies the city-spanning Chrome Galaxy Laboratory, secret hyperscience stronghold of the Phoenix.
The prosperity of Rising Sun City and the destruction of the Five Star Spirits has convinced the Phoenix that the time for subtlety is waning. Their dreams and philosophies direct them to overt action and their subjects have begun militarizing without their direct influence, which many regard as a sign. How will the Phoenix shape the emerging world, and can the benefit of their meddling extend past their tiny borders?
Region Volatility: 5+
Region Stability: 9+
The wild experimentations of the Phoenix and the dangerous psychic residues of the past mean that their territories remain dangerous outside of tightly policed areas. But the Phoenix’s reach is long and their eyes are everywhere, so their agents and heroes are a consistent presence within the city.
Dooms
Titan: Smiling Boy, the True Demiurge
Disaster: The Nightmare Carnival
Army: Yellow Turban Tech-Rebels
Master Encounter List
Region Terrain
Rising Sun City
Half-sunken in the ocean, Rising Sun City is still one of the most impressive megalopolis on the planet. It’s towers are largely empty as its primitive populace prefers their own constructions for homes and businesses; their horse-drawn carts travel its imperishable blacktop highways. The sunken city is home to town-barges and fleets of primitive vessels fills its waters and dive below for treasures from the ancient world.
Chrome Galaxy Laboratory
Accessible by secret and heavily-guarded passages, the Chrome Galaxy Laboratory is the Phoenix’s stronghold. An inverted city of glistening metal, powered by eternal Prana engines and operating with a life of its own. It has some variety of sentience, its manifold camera-eyes and pressure-locked doors responding to some edicts from within its miles of printed circuits. Its size, sentience and strangeness keep it from ever becoming familiar, and even the eldest Phoenix regard it as a mysterious and dangerous place.
Tract & Field List (10)
Society List
Strengths (d10)
Hyperscience Laboratory: Counts as sophisticated workshop and database when crafting anything of Magical Technology or lesser complexity.
Clean Power Plant: Hydroelectric, connected to d5 distant factories which pay for the power it supplies.
Hydroponic Gardens: Counts as a Rich Consumables Node
A.I. Guardian: An A.I.Ghost, programmed to protect the area and its people
Sophisticated Infrastructure: Rank 4 Market with 10,000 Wealth invested in infrastructure
Cabal of Psychics: A group of 10 nascent psychics (as Minor Heroes) who lead and defend their society
Arceo-Library: A source of knowledge from the ancient world; can teach the Art of the Artisan, Courtier, and Sage and acts as a source of blueprints for Space-Age technology.
Elite Secret Police Force: 150 elite secret police, equipped with modern military-grade weapons, body armor and communication equipment
Secret Master Patron: A 7th Degree Mystic Martial Artists considers the local area their protectorate and guides its destiny from the shadows
Well-patrolled Trade Route: Connected to a Market of +1 Rank over the local one and patrolled by 50 well-trained and well-equipped mounted soldiers.
Struggles (d10)
Deadly Ruins: The ruins inhabited by the civilization are violently guarding a pristine natural treasure
NPCs: A conquest-hungry prince/princess. An old but legendary warrior. A young mechanical genius, swept up in the conflict. A malfunctioning mechanical guard, grown gentle by their emergent nature. A properly functioning, malicious A.I. awakened from dormancy. An innocent and important youth, imperiled by one of the factions.
Hooks: The conquering faction invades the area while the party is staying there. The party encounters and recognizes the legendary old mentor, who tells them of the situation and requests their aid. The party recovers a keystone artifact which grants them access to the ruins.
Things: Bodies of innocents, sensely slain in the petty conflict. An unexpected artifact emerging from the ruin’s architecture. An ancient tapestry depicting history or prophecy.
Powers That Be: The local leadership has become corrupted by greed and nepotism and their policies are turning society into a nightmare.
NPCS: An elder statesman, beyond reproach but rotten to the core. A politically indispensable but useless public functionary. A rabble-rouser who coasts on outrage to sway public opinion, but has no actual skills. A clear-headed commissioner who’s reaching their breaking point.
Hooks: The party is harassed by local authorities enforcing some ridiculous law. The party is caught in a crossfire between militarized police and violent anarchists. As the party gets involved with the society, a military coup breaks out.
Things: A politician fleeing with a briefcase filled with money. Riots and tactical police crackdowns. Graffiti, crime and poverty.
The Doom that Came to Utopia: A local population of indolent, spoiled sophisticates is threatened by a terrible new enemy.
NPCS: Utopian leader, soft and urbane but overwhelmed by the crisis. A deadly and ruthless enemy warlord. An innocent youth who desires to be a hero but is just a liability. A frustrated Silver Phoenix struggling to save their society without revealing themselves
Hooks: The party witnesses the beginning of a slaughter. The party notices the Phoenix failing to fix a desperate situation without being obvious about it. The party is approached by a dying emissary from the utopians who begs the heroes to save them.
Things: A field of soft, dismembered utopian bodies. Casual, shocking cruelty from the invaders. A long-dormant weapon roaring into horrible life.
Influx of Refugees: The local society is overwhelmed under a wave of immigrants from a troubled neighboring civilization.
NPCS: A leader of the refugees, strict but humanitarian. A sympathetic local leader, struggling to adapt to the situation. A scheming military leader, using local unrest to begin a xenophobic war.
Hooks: The party is stopped by militarized border patrol when trying to enter the area and violence breaks out. A demonstration devolves into a teargas-filled riot. The military leader attempts to recruit the Party to start their war.
Things: An imposing and newly-constructed border wall. Tear gas canisters being fired into a packed crowd. Jingoistic propaganda.
Mutagenic Plague: A plague breaks out that leaves its victims warped husks of their former selves.
NPCS: A brilliant doctor, struggling to find a cure. A panic-stricken local celebrity, making the situation worse. A cult leader who vehemently denies the plague.
Hooks: A member of the party or a beloved NPC contracts the illness and only the doctor has a hope of finding a cure. A place the party needs to go is locked down due to an outbreak.
Things: Gas masks and hazmat suits. Yellow caution tape segmenting a place into safe and unsafe zones. A deformed face, glimpsed through a dirty hospital window.
NPC generator
Archeotech Trinket
Seeds
Integrating the Silver Phoenix into an Ongoing Campaign
The Phoenix have been getting their sticky fingers into the entire martial world over the last decade, and their agents are cropping up everywhere. Infiltration and manipulation is the name of the game. To integrate them into any ongoing campaign outside their borders, create a Secret Plot and reveal that they’ve been there the entire time.
Secret Plots