26. February 2010 by Samldanach.

So, I’ve been kicking around taking the work I did on d20 Rifts and porting it to the “MasterCraft” system (making it a variant of Spycraft 2.0 instead of Spycraft 1.0 and incorporating elements of FantasyCraft).  However, if I did so, I’d want to toss it over the fence to the guys at Crafty, which means I need to seriously file the serial numbers off the setting.

So, how else do you make a gonzo, kitchen-sink, post-apocalyptic setting?

My first idea (a series of mega-crises rather than one big event, plus a pretty awesome idea for introducing aliens) didn’t work.  Not kitchen-sink-y enough.  I had a fabulous explanation for non-human intelligences wandering around.  But, I had to hand-wave the introduction of both magic and psionics.  It was way too forced.

Percy Jackson, oddly enough, prompted the seed for the new idea.  Some time in the late 21st century (long enough for super-tech to be invented, short enough for the society to have not gone to singularity and become unrecognizable), the Second Coming of Christ occurs.  He is the child of both the line of Jesus (borrowing from Holy Blood, Holy Grail and suchlike) and the line of Fatima (and hence Mohammed).  (Being of the line of Jesus also, obviously, makes him of the House of David.)  He is the Messiah for all three Abrahamic faiths, uniting them for the endtimes.

He is opposed, however, by scions (see what I did there?) of other faiths.  The Norse Gods see this same time as Ragnarok.  The Greek Gods see the return of the Titans (*cough*Dark Inheritance*cough*).  Shiva the Destroyer returns.  I think you get the idea.  The point is, god war.

After several bloody, destructive years, the gods drive each other from the Earth, leaving the wrecked shell to the relative handful of surviving mortals.  They also leave behind two other gifts.  First, some of the gods indulged in shore leave while fighting the war, and left a passel of half-divine children behind.  By the time the setting proper begins, the bloodlines of those children are effectively psions.  Second, the knowledge of how to work true magic has returned to the world.  Oh, and they one other legacy: several creatures of myth now wander the world.  That is more curse than gift, though.

Two other quirky bits.  Artificial intelligences were created and became self-sustaining before the god war.  So, you can play a robot (some are just brains in boxes, but I’m not sure those are really playable), or a cyborg with a pet AI sharing your body.  Second, genetic engineering was on the verge of a massive breakthrough.  One of the surviving societies is able to grow carefully manipulated Genetically AUgmented Beings (known generally as GAUBlins) in vats.  Gaublins are treated more like clever livestock than even slaves, despite having human-level intelligence.

One area has also developed the ability to create massive robot vehicles, that run on bio-diesel and magic.  They have animal-level spirits bound to them, helping to animate and control them.

So, let’s see.  Psions, mages, ordinary humans, cyborgs, genetically-enhanced humans, robots, robot vehicles, monsters.  Tech levels will range from hunter-gatherer/cargo cult level, to a typically early industrial age, and in a few areas up to post-modern.  One of the sky gods ripped down all the satellites from orbit, destroying the global communications infrastructure, and no one has put together the resources to start lifting satellites back into orbit.  (This serves to isolate settlements from one another, an important element.)

Have I left anything out?

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2. February 2010 by Samldanach.

From the ever-excellent Rob Donoghue…

Even if you are a crazy person, you need to manage your brand.

ESPECIALLY if you’re a crazy person.

Look, I know that you don’t think you’re crazy, and that this obviously doesn’t apply to you, but just think about how people respond to what you say. It’s not about whether you are crazy, it’s about whether people think you’re crazy. And if they think you’re crazy, they’re not going to listen to the incredibly important truths that you have seen which need to be shared. In this, truth is like craziness - it doesn’t matter if it’s so, it just matters what people think.

So, if you have some Powerful Truths to share, you owe it to yourself and the world to stop and think about how you present them. If you can’t present them in a way that people will listen to, then you have failed. No one will see the truth because you were too proud to learn how to communicate. You will get dismissed as “crazy” by the people who don’t understand the truth. This may not bother you personally because you understand that you are above their petty assessments, but the problem is not a personal one. If you are perceived as a “Crazy Guy,” that creates a barrier to you getting your message out.

The key is that your unique insight comes with a responsibility to learn to communicate in a way that gets people to listen. That might mean less profanity or laying a foundation for you argument before presenting a conclusion or making sure the sources you cite are held in equal esteem by your audience. This may be frustrating: most of the people you’re talking to are clearly not smart enough to understand what you’re telling them, but if you cannot communicate your idea to lesser minds, you’ve just written off most of the world.

If you don’t take that responsibility, they will never understand.

So man up. Communication skills are trivial to learn compared to the things you already grasp. It may feel like you’re hobbling yourself at first, but just remember that most people aren’t ready to handle the full weight of understanding all at once - it would be like trying to drink from a fire hose. But if you can regulate the flow, then you can bring them around to comprehension by offering them truth a sip at a time, until they discover a thirst they didn’t know was there, and start -asking- you for more.

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