Twenty More Questions, Answered With Aplomb

Twenty More Questions, Answered With Aplomb


These are from Scrap Princess. I think they're more relevant.


from Der Totentaz


Is there weaponized Squid? 

Only in Nacre, where they're used as saboteurs. They're as smart as wolves and fired like missiles. Everybody hates Nacre.



Can I start with one? 

Sure. I really like the Adventure Points system, and I think a toned down version might be a good fit for the setting. I'll probably write up some tables of connections, investments, secrets, tools, and so on for players to draw from or get inspired by.


How much are they? 

Comically expensive. Every time one is fired, it costs enough to feed a family for a year.


Can I have one as a pet/horse/best friend? 

Absolutely.


Can I play one? 

Sure!


Can I dual wield them?

They're artillery, so theoretically you could "wield" as many of them as you hook up to a single lever.


Is there undead robots?

Depending on how you define "undead" and "robot," you might call upwards of 70% of the population of the world undead robots.


follow up questions involve the nature of consciousness and the existence of the soul in your campaign and can I play one? or have one as a pet or a gun that shoots them?

Consciousness is an imaginary universe trying to kiss worms into your heart so it can be the real universe. No. Really.

When you take your first breath, you inhale a spore, like a grey stone burr or a tiny sea urchin that lodges in your throat. This is your soul. It is immutable, a permanent fixed essence, but has no connection to you personally. It’s a serial number that lets death track and come for you, and when you die it’s stored for reuse. It is cute and squirmy inside, and has no idea what is going on.

Anyway, most humans are an "undead robot," in some form or another, so you probably will be playing one if you want to play a human. It's that or a mutant, really. 

Having one as a pet would be outrageously crass even in more sexually open societies, but so long as you keep it private you'll probably be fine. 

You might have a gun that shoots them, if you were a CLOWN from the CIRCUS. But seriously, the human cannon is a fine and enduring tradition of circus shows around the world, and it deserves our respect and admiration.


Do Icebergs walk across the land ?

Up north, past the land of the Brass Men, it's said there are massive tumors of salt and dandruff and cartilage that roll across the tundra, grinding birds into pieces with their big wide mouths full of big flat teeth. They have no stomachs and do not eat. The mouths are solely for grinding birds, and for telling you how much they hate you, hate you hate you.



can I be from one? 

I mean— wait, actually a bunch of nomads who ride around on those things sounds amazing. Yes, you can absolutely be from one.


Is godzilla frozen in one? Can I play a godzilla?

No, and yes, but you'd have to work your way up to godzilla levels. Start by mutating yourself into a regular sized monster, then seek out ways to grow and shift and change. Eat a hundred wendigo hearts, climb to the eye of the permanent electrical storm over Rainmouth and get zapped full of poison. Do some ab crunches. Etc.



What do birds know?
(no further questions)

Crows know terrible, practical things, like how to hotwire a car and how to yell at someone in the right timbre so they start to cry. 

Magpies know how to optimize an investment portfolio for the best risk-reward balance, but don't understand the value of a hard day's work.

Seagulls know everything, so they mostly know useless nonsense. It's all the same to them.

Pelicans know how to make their mouths go inside out, and isn't that enough?

Owls know why you feel the way you do about the people you've cut out of your life, and why you're afraid to grow your hair out, and what it feels like to be really, truly alone, and how and when the people you love are going to die. 

But owls can't talk, so you'll never know.



Does medicine work like it does here but no-one knows CPR or does it work like a cartoon so I cure amnesia with more head injurys or does it work like medieval euro people thought it did with demons in your teeth?

Technology is leaps and bounds ahead of anything in our world in some places, and lags far behind in others. Understanding of base principles is far more difficult to nail down, because new discoveries are consistently challenging the accepted wisdom. Companies frequently invent and even mass-produce things without really knowing why they work.


Do I start with demons in my teeth? 

Demons are too big to fit inside your teeth unless they fold up real small, and they hate that.


Do I know CPR? Can I invent CPR? 

It does exist, and it's not privileged knowledge, though it could always be improved.


Can I give myself powers with additionally organs? 

If you can't, the whole economy of the Titanomachy is built on nothing.


What planet is in ascension in my spleen midmorning?

Depends how you sew the planets in there.


I want to play a hobbit but really I'm the fleas controlling the hobbit. Where is that in the book?

You could be a Carnelian, which is like that but you're a dead aristocrat controlled by art nouveau blood flukes. Plus you get a neat name like CRBNK or YLDBTH.


Could I take over a new guy with my fleas? Or another players guy?


Sure, if you asked the other player first I guess.


How much could I rent my body out to spirits before I lost control of my character?

All of it, and then some.


What are the names of the spirits? Are they cool?

Depends on where they come from. Rainmouth's Security Board secretly employs a spirit called My Father's Disembodied Hands. It is most decidedly uncool.


What level do I have to get my character to before I am the g.m?

Eventually you'll have enough political and social influence, and enough infrastructure and henchmen and such of your own, that you'll have more control over the setting than I will. I hope this works out as a way of running a game, I've never done anything like it before.


Can I half be the g.m at an early level? 

Basically, depending on how this ends up going.


What about when you leave the room?

I will never leave the room.


What is the dumbest thing I can spend my money on?

In Rumsich you can pay to have your picture taken with a clown. Pretty dumb, if you ask me.


no dumber than that but cool. Like a pet with a pet with a weapon? Can pets dual wield?

In Rumsich, you can rent a spider that only spins cotton candy to sit on your head and spin cotton candy down into your mouth.


How ugly can my guy be? Like Can I basically be a walking fish?

The trow are walking fish, but they don't generally think they're ugly.


No wait I wanna be a walking fish. What is the reverse scuba technology like in this world?

Pretty good. You can get a full body dive suit if you want, or just cover yourself in phlegm and wear a fishbowl on your head.


The lamp oil? Is that like cooking oil, kerosene, white spirits or napalm? 
How much can I buy of it?

You probably use electric flashlights run on chemical batteries. What chemicals are in there? Who knows! It depends on the manufacturer. Sometimes it's nickel and cadmium, sometimes it's sapient monster blood.


How does physics work in this world?

Like it does in our world, except when it doesn't. Like poetry.


What makes the planets stay up? Are there planets? Is it elves? 

They're probably suspended by gravity. But the way things are going they might just be painted on the sky with perspective tricks. Who knows these days, honestly. Nothing is elves. Elves are a preposterous myth.


Can I play an elf from another planet? 

Yes.


Does everything work like how we though it did in the past? 

Everything worked the way it does in real life, until people discover it works differently. It seems like every day we see something that casts all of our previous assumptions into question, like each new discovery reshapes the world according to its discoverer's grand designs, and the laws of nature are a terrible gallimaufry that will collapse on itself and end the whole world. This is probably not true, but it feels like it sometimes.


Can I discover stuff and pass it off as a magic? 

That's what the Witch-Queen does, probably, and everyone's terrified of her.


Is possible to use the scientific process to organise the concepts of magic?

No one's had any luck so far, though not for lack of trying. It's a semantic problem though: anything that can't be explained is called magic, or aberrant, or anomalous. They're all used basically interchangeably.


Can I start with weapon hands?

That's a spectacularly terrible idea. Yes.


What about crab claws? Can I play a crab with human hands? Can I have one as a pet? 

Yes, absolutely yes, and hell to the yes!


Do they live on a different planet? Can we go there?

I don't know. You might have to discover them.



What cultures approve of cannibalism?

Teras has a long tradition of cannibalism, which they pass on to their satellite cities and client states.


What about if we are super rich? Aren't rich cannibals be default , I mean if you think about it? 

Sure, I guess. And of course, if you're super rich, you can get away with almost anything.


How is the class struggle here anyway? Is there a Karl Marx? How receptive are people to the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism here? 

The struggle is on rise, but the workers are, at least for the moment, losing pretty badly. The big philosopher of the movement isn't Marxist precisely  the conditions are too different, but she's similar in a number of ways, not least her abrasive personality. She has a studio in Gul, where she hosts disreputable salons.



Can my character not be real, but a hallucination of another character?

Sure. That would be a pretty good bond, actually. I want to work more on establishing clever mechanical effects for free-form bonds.


But I still wanna be able to do stuff. What are the stats for that?

Just because you aren't real doesn't mean you can't do stuff. It just means you aren't stuff. This is an extremely silly distinction that a lot of people are willing to kill and die over. Well, "people," I suppose.



Which is the rome but with lava fire country in this world? 

Nowhere, but the Brass Men are kind of fiery. They're like proto-futurists though.


What about the ice circus country? Can I have a pet from there?

Rumsich is a whole town that's basically one enormous circus. They do a brisk trade in pets.


Can I invent an insect?
as a player like right now I tell you an insect and you put it in the game? Or as a character? Can my spells be insects that then exist in this world after I cast them? Can I play an insect who is actually a spell cast in this world? What about as a pet?

Absolutely yes to all of these things. That sounds amazing! :O



Is there reverse fire? What about reverse water or earth? What do they wear there?

There is in the Ultrareality. Or rather, there isn't.


How much money can I make inventing siege engines?

Not a lot, now. Potentially an enormous amount, later.


Can I play a siege engine? In what ways are animals used in siege engines?

You shouldn't, but you could have a lot of them, I guess. 

Teras manufactures vast patchwork chimeras the size of buildings and fills their skulls with magnetic spikes that tap on their brains like hammers tapping piano strings. Their giant grotesque too-human faces press up against the glass windows of skyscrapers and they vomit waves of giant carpenter ants into the streets of enemy cities. That's what they're designed for, at least. No one's ever tested one.


What is the most significant tree to the economy of the starting place?Is it really a tree or maidens stitched together? 

It depends where you start. I'd say the most important trees to the world economy as a whole are the giant redwood trees in the sea of forests, since they provide such a massive portion of the world's lumber and so much blood continues to be shed over controlling them.They are probably not maidens stitched together though.


If I play a maiden do I get spells or do people that worship me get spells but only if I'm mad at them?

No spells per se, but that's an interesting idea.  ^_~


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