Patreon

Thursday, May 19, 2022

Working on the Lores: The Silver Phoenix and Rising Sun City

 

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


d10

Encounter

1

Mutant Cannibal: People-eating freaks, what’s not to love?

2

Atomic Jiangshi: Radiation-poisoned corpses, returned to hideous life by having a single note of a world-ending song lodged in their distended, putrid chakras. Intelligent, but utterly ravenous and ruthless

3

Twisted Servitor: Cheaply produced genetic servants; big dumb and ugly

4

A.I. Ghost: An computer program with an ax to grind and a body of digital matter

5

Ancient Robot Servant: Weird, bulky, but unfailingly loyal and useful; machines from a less indecorous age

6

Ancient War Robot: Hulking, death-puking artifact of war

7

Failed Experiment: Horrible amalgam of man, machine, animal or something wholly and unwholesomely unique. Eat meat, lots of it

8

Spirit/ Demon trapped in technological prison: Always want free, that would always be the worst possible scenario. Will absolutely make it worth your while

9

Psychic Vision/Quest: A vision, dream or other hallucination that roils over your consciousness and won’t leave until it’s dilemma has been resolved

10

Ersatz Demiurge: A failed god, horrifying in appearance and power. Look like giant, malformed humans with extraneous bodily growths emerging and roiling across their tortured, near-divine physique. Incalculably powerful psychics.



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)

d10

Tract

Field 1 

Field 2

Field 3

1

Barge-town

Above-deck fishing village

Below-deck factory-apartments

Captain’s steering palace

2

Microsciety Village

Bustling, primitive town-square

Half-inhabited ancient building

Shrine to a totem god

3

Research Outpost

Watchtowers disguised as derelict ruins

Barracks of repurposed ancient buildings

Maximum security laboratory-complex

4

Hyperscience Stronghold

Blast-door and turret-defended parameter

Maze of scaffolding, catwalks, and metal corridors filled with wires

Nerve center of processors, screens and power sources

5

Hazard Zone

Echoing, empty streets filled with ancient concrete buildings

Massive arena filled with archaic markings and bleachers

Site of an ancient urban disaster with fallen buildings and uneven concrete ground




Society List

d10

Society Type

Leader

Status Quo/ Culture

1

Secret Society

Master

Guard the Phoenix’s secrets. Spy for and recruit new worthy members. Expand and deepen their knowledge. Viciously climb the internal pecking order.

2

Mad Science Laboratory

Chief Scientist

Expand the borders of human knowledge, no matter the cost. Deepen their personal and team knowledge and competence. Use science to bring their visions and passions into the world.

3

Secret Police

Commissioner

Enforce the secret decrees of the Phoenix. Silence and “vanish” enemies of the secret rulers. Spy on and monitor potential enemies within and without their society.

4

Ecstasy Cult

High Priest

Pursue the state of religious ecstasy. Offer libation and ceremony before their godhead. Dance and recruit in the streets.

5

Boating Guild Family

Matriarch/Patriarch

Practice their humble trade (fishing or a related field). Recite and look for songs and stories. Show difference and obedience towards their elders. Protect the family interests.

6

Psychic Commune

Seer Council

Protect their circle of brother and sister psychics. Find new psychics to bring into the fold. Share minds and memories with one another.

7

Traveling Merchants

Guildmaster

Seek profit through mostly legitimate means. Bargain, haggle and trade. Enjoy the well-earned fruits of your labor with wine, music and dance.

8

Government Bureau

Chief Administrator

Attend to and reinforce their specific function. Perform paperwork and issue licenses appropriately. Collect fees, taxes and tariffs.  

9

Ruin Explorers

Chief Archeologist

Hunt for lost artifacts, places and knowledge. Discuss and publish their knowledge for the benefit of society. Live lives of adventure and excitement between lectures.

10

Librarian Cult

Chief Librarian

Protect the precious knowledge contained within their tomes. Seek and add new books to their library. Deepen their knowledge and understanding as a religious devotion.



Strengths (d10)

  1. Hyperscience Laboratory: Counts as sophisticated workshop and database when crafting anything of Magical Technology or lesser complexity.

  2. Clean Power Plant: Hydroelectric, connected to d5 distant factories which pay for the power it supplies.

  3. Hydroponic Gardens: Counts as a Rich Consumables Node

  4. A.I. Guardian:  An A.I.Ghost, programmed to protect the area and its people

  5. Sophisticated Infrastructure: Rank 4 Market with 10,000 Wealth invested in infrastructure

  6. Cabal of Psychics: A group of 10 nascent psychics (as Minor Heroes) who lead and defend their society

  7. 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. 

  8. Elite Secret Police Force: 150 elite secret police, equipped with modern military-grade weapons, body armor and communication equipment

  9. Secret Master Patron: A 7th Degree Mystic Martial Artists considers the local area their protectorate and guides its destiny from the shadows

  10. 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)

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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

d100

Male Name

Female Name

Quirk

Motive

1-5

Shōta

Misaki

Chain-smokes

Protecting their child

6-10

Daiki

Ai

Wears reflective glasses

Doing their job

11-15

Hiroto

Aoi

Always dressed in business clothes

Gain fodder for bragging

16-20

Takuya

Yuina

Abbreviates words and uses acronyms

Kicks

21-25

Shō

Asuka

Neurotic and nebbish

Profit

26-30

Ren

Rin

Chews gum and blows bubbles

To get their next fix

31-35

Kenta

Yua

Secretly carries a gun

Free-spirited, going where the wind takes them

36-40

Shun

Yui

Has a weird accent

To gain knowledge of the lost world

41-45

Riku

Yuzuki

Swears frequently

To find their destiny

46-50

Yūma

Narumi

Stutters

Danger and thrills

51-55

Jyouji

Anna

Is impeccably groomed

Upholding the law

56-60

Ken

Ema

Stands too close when talking

Breaking the rules

61-65

Noa

Nina

Always muttering under their breath

Secretly a serial killer

66-70

Niko

An

Works as a government official

To become important

71-75

Yugo

Naomi

To gain reward without responsibility

76-80

Asa

Mei


Secretly a psychic

Find an outlet for their pain

81-85

Aran

Hana

Find peace

86-90

Dan

Kairi

Secret police member

Serve their distant masters

91-95

Jin

Mari

Uncover the Phoenix’s conspiracy

96-100

Reon

Ami

Grow their cult of personality



Archeotech Trinket

d10

Appearance

Activated by

Effect

1

Crystal orb in circuitry

A secret command word in a dead language


Filters an person-sized orb of air (of Rank4 or less Hazard) so that it is breathable and pure

2

Large and awkward digital watch

A hidden switch

3

Glove made of inflexible-looking plastic

A specific sustained note of sound


Senses Prana Flare within the same Tract like a compass

4

Metal bracelet bristling with mechanical nodes

When cooled below freezing

5

Small glittering metal and glass ring

When heated over water’s boiling point

Shines a bright light unidirectionally

6

Weird spiral of metal and plastic

When electrocuted

7

Mirrored disk

When struck with metal


8

Prismatic amulet with visible circuitry

When drenched with liquid

Launches a Ranged, Rank 2 Laser 1/round

9

Crown of artfully shaped green metal

When a certain image is held in mind by the wielder

10

Smooth metal rod with three inviting buttons

A complex series of hand and finger movements across its surface

Emits a loud, directed sound (Rank 4 Hazard or the target must clap both hands over their ears)



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

d6

The Plot

Current Methods

Assets

1

Insinuate societal influencers into key organizations

Mind-control and brainwash existing citizens to use as pawns

A cultural tour-de-force that bends opinion to their advantage

2

Instal a puppet government

Use well-placed bribes and threats from the shadows

A law-maker agent that creates or changes one law per Campaign Arc

3

Eliminate/discredit a troublesome person of interest

Use hired proxies to hide motive and identity

A 3rd degree Mystic Martial Artists assassin

4

Use the target society to wage war on an enemy

Propaganda and false-flag campaigns

Control of the second-highest Rank Domain Action through a puppet official

5

Weaken the cohesion of the targeted society

Sabotage and instigating social unrest and  riots

A Platoon of 200 sleeper agents

6

Make certain values mainstream in the culture

Persuasive literature and well-trained sleeper agents that promote it

A 300-person, flourishing subculture of Populace that shares identical values