Virtual Reality in the Palace

Few people ever get up the nerve to venture into the palace and most people probably don't realise they can, but a trip into the palace can be a very educational experience. Though it is very hard to parse the iconic version of our languages that all the steles about the palace grounds are written in, scholars and the tour guides explain they tell the entire history of the Alliance. The palace does close down for private events and military drills at times, but most of the time, the palace grounds and most of the ground floor of the palace is actually open to the public, and there are many sights worth seeing there.

It is recommended one have the best of manners and be clean and well dressed when within the palace grounds, and that one not carry any large weapons unless they are within a sanctioned military unit. If one follows those basic guides and keeps to the mostly public areas and respects barriers set up to denote private areas, one can pretty much wander as their wish in around the ground floor. The three wings of the palace each serve the function of various public offices, like the courts, the office of records, the central bank, the senate chambers and offices, so on and so forth, but the central circle of the palace is the most interesting. Above the first floor is the royal residence, which is off limits without invitation and above that can be accessed the Arcane Research Institute's central tower but it too is off limits unless you are an Arch wizard in the institute.

Around the ground floor of the palace are various ballrooms, a couple court rooms, a couple auditoriums, some museum rooms with artifacts of the Alliance on display, and in the rear most portion of the round, is the Reagent's Royal Court. What I find most interesting is the place where the front wing of the palace containing the offices of records and bank facilities meets up with the front of the palace round. It is called the Front Royal Foyer and has stairs that head up into the servant and barrack sections of the royal residence as well as access to the central courtyard which is only accessable by taking a tour.

The Front Royal Foyer is a room few folks spend any real time in to study, but there are always the few standing around the edges of central display staring in wonder or intensely focused. What they gather around are mist screens that are sprayed from small pipes arranged at four points around the outer wall and all four sides of a mini-spire in the middle of the room. At a casual glance the displays show blurry images of the city, but that it is much more than that. It's a peek into the city's tinkernet security grid.

Anyone that is observant has seen various places about the city, usually major gathering points like around the arena or the bazarre, where there are observer eyes mounted to or concealed around the structures. These eyes are psychicly tapped into the local tinkernet used by tinkerers, the government and city security. Though only a small portion of them are actually monitored at any given time, and they have no real memory of their own, the eyes allow the city to be watched by those with access to the right equipment. The display in the royal foyer is a peek into this network of observer eyes.

The images around the walls are looking out from observer eyes at the southwest, northwest and northeast gates of the city as well as on looking out over the sea from the cliffs not far below the bizarre. The four in the middle of the room are looking out from each cardinal direction of from the Arcane Reasearch Institute's tower high over the palace and is each looking down at the city in the direction you are facing when observing each screen. At casual glance they look like blurry images, as if viewed through a mist or a fog. That is an effect of the mist screens. They never are very clear, and for remote image viewing there are scrying surfaces with much clearer image, but the images are just the surface of the effect.

As I meantioned above, the eyes and psychicly tapped into the net. Their psychic effect can be relayed through the net and broadcast with the proper equipment. Just such equipment is set around the room focused at circles ten paces in diameter, marked on the floor. If you stand within the circles, and stare at the nearest image to the circle, relaxed and with no psychic barriers, the observer eye's psychic effect will take over your perception and super-impose over your normal senses a sense of where it is. The image will be elf-eye sharp, and you will actually be able to feel the temperature, the wind and the weather. Though the eyes don't breath and don't actually have a nose, it is clear they can smell too, because one can even perceive a faint odor of the air at the location of the eyes.

The whole experience is quite shocking the first time one experiences it, if they have never been flashed a psychic experience before. If one takes the time to think, it's almost scary to consider what all the city can do with these. If it had ears, the city could monitor almost everything happening within or near the walls. No wonder folks in the know often babble about possible conspiracies and the like. The whole experience leave me a little uneasy in the gut too, but for slightly different reasons.

A lot of folks are afraid of magic. While large portions of the equipment we rely on every day in our daily lives are run off magic delivered through the mana grid, the idea of actually working magic has a reputation for risking backfires, bad side effects and the collateral damage of a wreckless magicker, but worst of all, the risk of the local mana grid shutting down completely if they manage to deplete the mana completely in the district. There are a total of eight districts I know of that haven't been on the mana grid in two centuries because of depleted mana levels, and just as many that experience the occasional mana-out.

Even with all the negative rep it gets, I have always liked magic, myself. I been known to work a minor effect myself, just for the purpose of making life a little easier or sprucing up one of my shows. Yes, there are risks to dabbling in the arcane arts, but what is there in life that is truly rewarding that doesn't come with some degree of risk to it? After spending a couple hours in the palace, watching the movements along the highways going in and out of the market district it struck me that I'm probably a bit of a luddite. Yes, that observer grid may has a psychic and possibly even a hint of a magic effect involved in how it works, but it's the tinkernet that makes the whole thing possible. Yup... It's the technology that I find scary, and if they are putting stuff like this right out in the open for the public to see, imagine what they are keeping secret.

Opinion Piece written by Mendorf Flickerfinger, freelance bard and independent reporter.

Do I see the light?

Well, this is another update of sorts. Looks like that light at the end of the tunnel I keep alluding to in past posts may actually be within sight. My legal matter has passed the final level of appeal. How much I get in the settlement I am not quite clear on and the Attorney is going to have to interpret it for me, as exact numbers and dates were not given by the judges at the final level of appeal. If it's minimal, there may still be room for civil actions to collect the difference, but that is a whole different matter and a whole different type of legal battle than the administrative legal beaurocracy I have been wading through for years now. The current situation, regardless of how much financial relief this will bring me is that within the next month or two I should finally see the money and be able to climb out of this financial hole I'm in and maybe actually pay for some art or other content for my publishing goals.

In other matters, I am still trudging on with my persistent writing, which actually comes down to more doing research, planning and brainstorming than time spent actually writing. The latest bit I am willing to share is a first draft of a section from the Clashlands source material that I have most recently been working on. It's a document on how the government of the Forge Alliance is designed and a brief bit about it's political history. The document is here and will be linked into the rest of my indexing system for Clashlands material soon. I'm more likely to post another blog entry next than I am to work on editing links into my indexing system. I have ideas just itching to get out from Clashlands setting. Who knows, someone might actually come read the blog if I make it interesting enough, and these Clashland blurbs will start becoming regular teasers about the flavor and style of the realm. Who knows, I might end up posting a whole short story in the setting at some point.

New Document: Forge Style of Government

Lollipop Ban

In the capital province of the Forge Alliance, there are various food items and styles of food preparation that are considered illegal. The rationale behind it is that they are unhealthy. They lead to a variety of slow working ailments that aren't so quick as to kill the sufferer outright and free them from needing medical subsidizing, but leave them as a burden on the system. Knowing what these food types are is the first step to prevention, and prohibition is the active action the culture takes.

For those found partaking of the forbidden food types, they are stripped of citizenship, if they have it, and they are removed from the rights of entitlement most residents of the province have for healthcare and support if ill or injured. The best healthcare is always the kind you can pay for, but the backup system is available for those that need it. What is more, much of the health professionals charge their retainers a health tax, that is only paid when they are healthy and when they aren't, it becomes the healers job to heal them and care for their needs until healed.

For those found dealing in or preparing banned foods, there are a variety of punishments, based on the scope and scale of the crime. The most common punishments are fines, but periods of enslavement or banishment from the province are not unheard of. This is, of course, in addition to the punishments of being a user.

One of the most sinister of foods in the province is processed sugars and all the varieties of food preparations that can be made from them. There is no aversion to sweetness, and types of honey, saps, and fruit juices are used to make some wonderfully sweet delicacies, but the belief is that the processed sugars change the quality of the food to make them corrosive and damaging to the teeth. The iconized symbol of sugar in the province is a picture of a ball of solid sugar on the end of a stick, or a lollipop, and the symbol of the sugar prohibition is a lollipop behind bars.

Because sugar is so cheap and anyone with even a basic understanding of alchemy and access to a kitchen can make sugar, the ban does little to stop it's use. With their love of food and how much of their thoughts it occupies, Halfling are notorious for being violators of the sugar ban, to the point that many Halfling organizations claim that the whole sugar ban is a racist attack against their culture by the government. Though considered immoral, even if their claim was true, it isn't illegal for racism in the realm, as much of the core of the slave trade thrives on it.

The most organized of Halfling criminal networks in the province is involved in the trade of illegal food items, at premium prices. Because sugar is the poster child of the movement, easy to manufacture and relatively affordable even at black market prices, sweet tooths are their best customers. The criminal organization operates mostly in the Capital City itself, and tend to keep to the underground of the city. When they move about on the surface they usually try to disguise themselves as human children and move covertly. Embracing sugar as their primary revenue and as the product by which they first hook new customers to culinary daring, they have embraced the symbol of the lollipop and have taken on the name Lollipop Kids.

Manacite

I been wanting to give out little teaser portions of my Clashlands game setting that I am developing the DDRPS for, and this is going to be the first of those little teasers. To save on explaining how the details of my magic system, I'll just give a brief summary in explaining this game element. I have noted before that I have never liked the Vancian style of magic. Fact is, I much prefer a Niven flavor of magic, such as in Larry Niven Magic goes away series. In it, magic doesn't work for nothing, but actually consumes a type of mystical energy known as mana (or manna as it is spelled in the latest of Niven's series), that is usually ambient in the environment. In my setting it is also available from an internal source, or various ways of channeling and storing it, but there is still a minimal amount of ambient mana required for a magical effect to actually manifest. In a Mana dead zone, magic simply will not work at all.

In my system there won't really be spell levels, but rather a combination of minimum mana level to manifest it and the total amount of mana points it takes to activate a type of magical effect. Once started, there may be a steady drain to maintain an effect as well. In addition, most magic items will be powered by mana, some directly by tapping it from their wearers and others from mana storage devices.

In the Clashlands setting, the most common sort of mana storage device is going to be Manacite shards. Manacite is made alchemically by mixing various chemicals with ground crystals and salts and then simmering it in large vats to grow manacite crystals which are not charged when created, but can be charged once grown. They are very uniform in shape, size and storage capacity and have a full charge life expectancy of about 1 earth year. After about 10 years without use they would drain completely. As long as they aren't actually used, they are rechargible. It is my vision that there will be combat mages marching around with bandoliers of charged manacite crystals to power manacite powered magic items and their quick spells. When a Manacite crystal is tapped, it burns out, and dumps enough mana to power the equivalent of about a 3rd or 4th level standard D&D spell or effect. Any mana not used is wasted and discharged into the local ambient mana flow, with negligible effect on the local ambient mana strength, and the crystal burns out at which point it can't be recharged but can be used for other useful purposes in a recycled fashion.

A charged crystal of manacite would weigh about an ounce, and would put out a steady blue glow with a luminessence equivalent to a typical blue LED. In the Clashlands setting, a brightly glowing one is usually accepted in barter at a straight trade rate when insufficient coin isn't available, because they are usually very easy to resell if not useful to the merchant accepting them.

And now, second section

Alright. A few days later than I was originally aiming for, but section 1.0 of the DDRPS RD is posted on the net. In addition I did a few more edits on section 0.0. My delay is a combination of multiple re-edits. Also took the time to put bookmarks in the two sections posted, so that I can actually put together a proper table of contents or index next. May get the beginning of that posted tonight. If not, by tomorrow night. May not be accompanied by a post. May just appear as a new link on the sidebar.

When caffiene doesn't work...

Wow.. I didn't ever get back to stuff last night, after the last post. Instead, I was doing other stuff for about an hour, went and made that coffee, and then promptly passed out and slept a winkless 8 hours in my computer chair. I didn't think I was that tired. Still haven't gotten anymore game related writing done, but I am winding down to do today's work soon.

Still Writing 4Real!

Decided to set myself the honest minimum goal of 2 hours of project related writing a day. Editing of stuff I've already done counts. I'm currently about halfway through the next section of the DDRPS RD, which is what I've decided to call the document, instead of an SRD... I mean, longhanded, DDRPS SRD would make System redundent, since DDRPS is already the Dystopian Destinies RP System. I did most of that work last night. Today, I did a little polishing of the first section, then a second draft of the work I'd already finished on characteristics, then had a few other things to do.

While I was off working on some other stuff and walking around between locations, I got to thinking and decided to make a few last minute revisions and additions to the first sections, to reorder some of the material from other sections or to swing a little wider out from the original d20 rules. Like, for the section on Adding Multipliers, I decided I'd just change the way multipiers are expressed and make adding them more straight forward as a result.

I still have a few more tweaks I plan to make to that first section. I plan to add some stuff to the dice checks section about general conventions on conditions were a degree of success is considered or the concept of a critical success and a couple other concepts I want to lay have understood to avoid confusion later, like autosuccesses and the difference between a critical roll, or a roll when under pressure, in combat and so on, and a casual roll, which is when the outcome of a failure at most means it will take longer and there is no stress or pressure for time. In casual rolls, I got an optional rule (it's a core rule a GM can ignore if they don't like it) to roll a d10 and add a base modifier of +10 instead of rolling a d10 and make the action take extra time... It's my version of a take 10 rule and is automatic. I don't plan to make a take 10 rule or a take 20 rule, in the sense the Wizards of the Coast D&D rules part of my system. I only plan to make references to them as an alternative, if someone doesn't like my versions and not in the SRD.

In the name of the OpenGaming concept, one of the ways I plan to make commercial versions of my system smaller and more affordable to print is to not dabble in the novice stuff too much, but only suggest one read some of the original material mine is based off of, if they need a more laymen perspective. In addition, the core RD rules I plan to keep SFTO and clean, but the published version of the rules will come with a warning that it's examples and some of it's subject matter will address mature subject matters not in the RD, like seduction, STDs and recreational drugs. My actual setting will come with the cover warnings that they are seriously intended JUST for mature audiences, because frankly, I like mature subject matters. I expect a player of my game to be mature enough to just ignore and not use a section of a campaign setting they don't like rather than get offended by it. Some of the subject matter I plan to cover in Clashlands will be intentionally offensive. I plan to deal with subject matters such as slavery, racism, sexism, etc. in the settings and they will not be utopian or politically correct. I am not outright calling the system Dystopian because doom and gloom will necessarily be built into the core rules, but because Almost every setting I plan to use it for, in my publishing and what I am intending it for are settings with very dark and ugly Dystopian elements. If I ever get any of the MUDs or MMOs I really want to do out there, they would be Adult Only as well.

Anyway, I've wasted enough time on this and still haven't gotten to making the coffee I was originally pausing to get. That was before I had to get up in the middle of this to run to do potty. At this point, I'm not so sure I really need the coffee right now, anyway... I still have green tea, which I do up by the gallon, so it's not a thirst thing and I'm not about to dose off anymore. I'll probably get on the net to do a few other things decide between something on video or my goofy station on Pandora as multitasking background noise, then get the coffee before getting back to writing. When I get back to writing, I'll finish up the additions on section 0.0 of the RD and then get back to drumming out the second section and posting it. I'd ETA that in a couple more days at the rate I am going. After that I'll add in the new links an unframed version of the index which I plan to replace with a framed version when the RD is finish. After all that, I'm not sure if I'll be still writing several hours each day, or if I'll have other crap to deal with. My life is pretty unpredictable more than a few days out, other than the certainty that it is not going to get better anytime real soon.

Oh, and for those that are too new or two infrequent in visits to notice it, I've been doing a little bit of tweaking on the layout of the blog too. Might be doing a bit more of that here and there too, as I am getting back into paying attention to the blog stuff. My full time high stress I been dealing with for the past two years has ebbed a bit with the biggest portion of my legal matters being settled. Now I am just waiting for procrastinating bureaucrats to turn the judge's decision into the 'settlement' I am due. Then we get to worry about other funds I am also owed that were ignored by the first judge. Not dismissed so much as completely ignored and that is a much larger chunk of funds than I am already due, but when I get the funds I am already due, it would at least take the majority of my current financial pressures off and give me breathing room. It would also give me enough capital after catching up on my must pay, overdue debts to get some more adobe tools I want, and other tools I'd want to start working on the actual page design elements of publishing as well as the tools for being efficient at starting a MUD like engine I hope to make a first taste of and playtesting platform for the Clashlands setting. I would start with just the main capital city location as the playing grid, and not in terrible detail as my idea of a Capital city would make the city of Rome look small. It's more like A modern major city, but with most of it's levels underground instead of above ground.

Wasn't I saying I was going to get to stuff other than this rambling post?... Well, I think it's about time I get to it.