Observations of the Fox

Dullahan is another name for headless horseman. It is an Irish spirit often considered one of the unseelie fey, as well as being malicious and fierce. This might work well as the source of power behind the mysterious corporation. It will probably also work well as the name of the corporation. Given scarecrows are a generally associated with British folklore, the idea might be to have a group of seelie fey who bring the scarecrows to life, while the Dullahan Corporation is driven by the Unseelie. However, a bit of research indicates that scarecrows have actually been in use since the time of the ancient Egyptians. This begs the question of whether we push the shadowy backstory of the Scarecrows back further, all the way to Egypt, or whether the first scarecrows to be animated were in fields in the British Islands. Do we really need this much shadow history in the game, especially if it isn't going to directly influence play? In this setting, maybe the Arabian folk tales of djinn rel...

One of the closest analogues I can think of or this game is "Werewolf: the Apocalypse", where primal warriors with cultural lineages fight against a global environmental meltdown driven by an evil global corporation called Pentex, and dark sinister forces from the spirit world are fueling the fight to destroy the world as we know it. I'm thinking there needs to be some kind of global antagonist for the setting, a shadowy conspiracy that either knows the truth about the Scarecrows, or has enough evidence that it will piece things together soon. This adds a degree of threat to the stories, and such an organisation in the game helps to serve as a measure to prevent players from giving their characters too high a profile.   This isn't the type of group that can be confronted head on...but it shouldn't be a no-win scenario forthe scarecrows either. I'm thinking that this mysterious corporation is a bit like an "Umbrella Corporation" from Resident Evil, th...

 According to the stories (and I've been in online conversation with Mark Rein*Hagen to confirm this), the seed of an idea for Vampire: the Masquerade occurred on a cross country road trip, as it passed through the decaying urban environment of Gary, Indiana on the way to a gaming convention. The first writings for the game were done during the nights of that convention.    The idea of a world forgotten, of darkness and neglect, of anger at inequality, all seethed under the surface.  It' a world we're familiar with, but by picking and choosing key elements of it, we can set the tone. We don't need to detail everything, just the changes between the game setting and the real world, the world known by the characters and the world known by the players. This game is inspired by the rural communities I've lived in over the past few years.  It is inspired by the lyrics of Led Zeppelin, with references to British folk-lore, Tolkein, a fantasy America that exists only i...

Ethnocentrism is a bit like racism, and is often a concept confused with it. Technically, where racism focuses on the physical appearances and differences between people on the surface, ethnocentrism is about the customs and mannerisms of people. Ethnocentrism covers times when someone has prejudice against another person due to them speaking a different language, or having religious differences. It's the Imperial British "bringing order" to the Indian Subcontinent, it's the Spanish conquistadors converting the natives to Catholicism at the point of sword and musket, it's the Han Chinese in Beijing imposing their customs across the other ethnic minorities in China, it's the Jews driving out the Palestinians under the belief that Yahweh is the rightful god of the region, it's the ongoing pogrom by Australian governments against the Aboriginal people over generations. Ethnocentrism has led to many problems in the world. Each culture has it's own st...

A cosmology. I had this idea for a setting, it might tie into an existing project, probably the Dark Places. It works on the idea that their are people with a divine spark, fractured essence of a primordial entity splintered into billions of fragments. Some people have more, some people have less. Those with less are capable of conscious thought, those with more are able to wield control over the world around them. In the old days, there were less people, so you get stories of Methuselah living to 969 years, epic heroes with amazing powers... the excess primordial energy occasionally infused animals and plants, giving them sentience as totems, and at times a convergence of excess power caused entities without physical grounding to spontaneously manifest (such entities might be referred to as gods, angels, spirits, demons, etc.). As the population grew, the amount of excess energy waned. Fewer totems and non-physical manifestations occurred. In times when the population threaten...

The convention I've been working toward for the past couple of weeks has now been and gone. Three sessions: two GMing, and one playing. Here's how it played out for me... Session One: The Ballad of Jericho Julip. This was a session GM'd by me. Running a twisted variant of Paul Tevis's "A Penny for my Thoughts". I actually wasn't sure about the best way to handle this session, I had a vague idea in mind, but couldn't work out the best way to address it.  The premise of this session was a two part story, where each act was formed by characters who had been attacked by "Nether Shadows" who had wiped their memories. It basically played out in two iterations of "Penny". First with the characters in the mountains explaining... What their life was like before the adventure began How they became entangled in the machinations of the mysterious Jericho Julip What strange event happened on the way up the mountafin pass The...

What are the definitive skills you'd expect to see character possessing in a Judge Dredd styled game (with serial numbers filed off)? What do you think the law enforcement officers would need? What kinds of activities do you think might be dramatic if there was a chance that the player characters could fail? Would there be a different range of skills for gang members, corporate suits, mutants, or other groups inhabiting the world? These are my current questions.

The last post depicted the people of the tower...this one depicts some blueprints of the tower. First, the general layout of the tower Then a few specific parts of the tower. Including the first few which are accommodations and locations where denizens of the tower live, sleep or store their stuff.  These next ones are places where work is done, and general utilities scattered through the tower. A few images of detailed elements that don't really fit the two categories above, things like pools and meeting halls where people gather for assorted reasons. Then some blanks for people to make their own. I've still got a whole heap of half-completed sketches in my notepad, these should be completed and added to the collection soon.

Once again it's been over a week between posts. It's just that time of the year when family are more important, not that they aren't important at other times of the year...but this is the time when trips to visit them for festivities and ritual gift giving occur. Over the past few weeks I've been developing an arcology tower setting (probably generic, but I might create a simple game system to go with it). Here's a few of the different types of people who might be likely encounters while exploring the tower. The illustrations aren't complete, I'll probably be shading them a bit more, perhaps adding textures to their clothes... and there will be far more illustrations like these to develop the wider community within the tower. It's just a case of working out who might be interesting to meet, and what types of people might be useful to flesh out the population.