Strangers & Friends: Cultures

Art by Juan Ochoa

Part of the Mindjammer RPG is the use of cultures to define characters' origins. Strangers & Friends is set in my own space opera setting, so the default Mindjammer cultural archetypes need modification. Here are a few of them for the Empire:

The Empire

You live within an interstellar empire built on the bones of the Star League, a corrupt Earth-based slaveholding regime. Comet Barbarians from the rim conquered the Star League and freed the slaves. Since its fall, many other civilizations, systems, and worlds have been incorporated into the Empire - many peacefully. Most worlds and systems are treated justly. Relative material equality exists on most worlds that have been part of the Empire for at least a century. The interior of the Empire is peaceful and progressive; it is well-defended by the Empire's numerous Legions and a Star Navy. However, great danger lies beyond the Empire's borders. Expansion and incorporation are the primary tools that successive Imperial Sovereigns use to tame these dangers.

Cultural Aspects: The Empire is the best society; It is natural for the Empire to expand; Fast friends with the R.U.R.
Genotypes: Human, Alien, Synth
Demeanor: Assume others want to join the Empire; distrust the remaining Comet Barbarian tribes, and others who seek to remain independent of the Empire
Language: The Prate, and many others including Glissendo and Old Martian
Tech Index: T9
Occupations: Diplomat, Nexialist, Omega House Operative, Scientist, Trader
Equipment:  Widespread use of the Mindscape; Slipknot and/or Hyperspace capable vessels

R.U.R.

The R.U.R. are a vast machine civilization whose primary systems and settlements are coreward of the Empire. A post-scarcity, post-mortality society, the R.U.R. are open to humans and other aliens and synthetics living among them. They are also curious and open to cultural exchanges with other civilizations, races, and species, co-mingling with them whenever they are welcomed. For millions of years, the R.U.R. have been in a state of war with the Anti-Consciousness lurking in the galactic core. They have warned the rimward civilizations about this insidious and expansionist menace, and have re-located many Glissendo-speaking insectoid species away from the threat lurking in the core. The R.U.R. have developed a machine conlang called Cruft, and have mastered Glopnic, a language which can be used to communicate with (and texture) space-time itself. The R.U.R. are the Empire's closest allies.

Cultural Aspects: A society of androids, robots, and Minds; Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom; Scarcity is abnormal; Fast friends with the Empire
Genotypes: Synth, some Human and Alien
Demeanor: Cooperate with other civilizations to protect intelligent life; Encourage social experiments with other civilizations; Minds with new ideas are encouraged to split off and create experimental polities
Language: Cruft, and many others including Glissendo, The Prate, Glopnic
Tech Index: T9
Occupations: Diplomat, Explorer, Merchant, Laborer, Scientist
Equipment:  Mindscape, Slipknot and/or Hyperspace capable vessels

Comet Barbarians

Common in many of the rimward areas beyond the Empire, including the Shining Lake Sector, the Comet Barbarian clans span numerous polities and borders. Clans frequently rule small interstellar empires; others extract a surplus by protecting trade or pilgrimage routes; still others are pirates, or more rarely mercenaries. Clan life is itinerant; members live in space and travel between the stars in habitats fashioned from comets and small rogue planets. Most important decisions are made by elders - usually fully embodied living elders, but more rarely collections of living brains in vats (the clans ruled by vat-elders tend to be the most conservative and insular). Comet Barbarians distrust the thanatogram-derived intelligences of the Mindscape; they fear ghosts. Clans are almost universally exogamous, and may be either matriarchal or patriarchal. Inheritance rights are often... complicated. When disputes over property and migration rights can't be solved by marriage and negotiation between clan elders, they are often settled by force - either duels or small-scale wars.

Cultural Aspects: Clan comes first; Pity the weak and sedentary; Our worlds are weapons.
Genotypes: Human
Demeanor: Deal with the Empire but resist incorporation; Dominate planet-bound societies; Fear of machine intelligences and the Mindscape.
Language: Star Urdu, Space Egyptian, Chinesean, or Sunuz; The Prate
Tech Index: T7-9 (depends on habitat)
Occupations: Barbarian, Mercenary, Noble, Pirate, Rogue, Spacer
Equipment:  Taboo against the Mindscape; Sublight, Slipknot, and/or Hyperspace capable vessels

Shining Lake Sector

The Shining Lake Sector is a largely independent sector just rimward of the Empire. The primary economic power in the region is the R.U.R.'s ancient Kunlun Station, which is protected by the Empire's Legio XIV Lanterns of the Star Silk Road. Shining Lake Sector has been settled by humans, as well as by several Glissendo-speaking insectoid species from the core. These species were evacuated here by the R.U.R. over a million years ago. The sector is highly balkanized, with countless independent worlds and several pocket empires ruled by Comet Barbarians. While the dominant intelligent species in the region are immigrants from coreward regions, a number of worlds in the sector do have indigenous intelligent life forms, and the Achernarians have a presence in this sector as well. While the area is formally outside the Empire, the Star Navy maintains a strong presence here, which helps to keep the Comet Barbarians of the sector in check. It is reasonable to assume that the Empire's long-term goal is to formally incorporate this sector, but the timetable for that is quite unclear. Many interstellar faiths are active here, but Buddhism is particularly common among human and Glissendo-speaking species.

Cultural Aspects: The R.U.R. saved our ancestors from certain doom; Kunlun Station has a living Buddha; An uncertain future.
Genotypes: Human, Synth, Parturitionist, Dragonbeam, Broughtlow
Demeanor: Many are anxious that the sector has an uncertain future; some fear the Empire, others fear the conflicts that will be unleashed (especially with the Comet Barbarians) once incorporation begins. The R.U.R. are an unalloyed positive influence on the sector. Many prefer the sector status quo: independent worlds defended by two allied great powers (the Empire and the R.U.R.).
Language: The Prate and Glissendo
Tech Index: T2-9 (depending on world/ habitat)
Occupations: Barbarian, Diplomat, Explorer, Merchant, Mercenary, Pirate, Priest, Rogue, Spacer
Equipment:  Some worlds/habitats have Mindscape; Sublight, Slipknot, and/or Hyperspace capable vessels

Legions Of The Imperial Sovereign III

"Spindle" Legion standard by Juan Ochoa

Today at FATE SF, we are continuing our series of posts detailing the Legions of the Empire. Legions XXIV-XXIX are collectively known as the Other Suns. Each of these in whole or in part includes alien species.

***

Legio XXIV Cohorts of the Shaking Earth: Heavy mobile infantry recruited from the Codex worlds. Legion is divided into cohorts with totemic aspects - Eagle, Jaguar, Tapir, Feathered Serpent, and Coyote - as well as the Jade Nose Plug and Smoking Mirror cohorts. Human members are often highly modified to resemble their cohort's animal totems. Phenotypically concordant aliens are also welcomed into these cohorts. Jade Nose Plug is composed exclusively of aliens with exotic atmosphere requirements. Smoking Mirror cohort is mixed-species cohort. Its members - often spectral or otherwise disturbingly alien - were recruited through the Smoking Mirror Engine gate network, and are accompanied in combat by warrior-priests of Tezcatlipoca. The XXIV has a distinguished record of service on high gravity, high radiation, poisonous atmosphere, and seismically unstable worlds, but it is deployed on many other types of planets as well.

Legio XXV Matriarch Nargri's Kin: Saurian pan-species legion skilled in the use of both ancient and contemporary weapons, although the cohorts stationed on Kanjobal are with out peer in the use of blackpowder weapons. The XXV is an all-genders unit but is always led by a female general from one of the Empire's multitude of saurian species.

Legio XXVI Iridescent Vibration: Formerly an independent military Order, Legio XXVI protects the worlds inside and outside the Empire that were settled by the ancient Glissendo-speaking insect species that fled the Core regions in antiquity. The XXVI's headquarters, hatcheries, and training grounds are located within a fleet of ancient space arks still fleeing the Core at relativistic speeds. A range of combat modalities; excellent fighter pilots.

Legio XXVII The Coronal Band: A host of energy beings sworn to protect the Imperial Sovereign from all manner of immaterial enemies; ancient enemies of the Tzitzimine Star Demons. The Legion's home is the corona of Altair, the Star of the Eagle King. The XXVII are always in the company of their General, known as The Prince With No Shadow: the undying 27th Imperial Sovereign.

Legio XXVIII Rabbit Banner: Light mobile infantry designed for scouting and fast strike operations. Jungle and mountain combat specialists. Recruited from the same Codex worlds as the XXIV. On less extreme planets, the XXVIII often serve in combined actions with the Cohorts of the Shaking Earth. Although primarily human, the XXVII recently opened its ranks to avian Glissendo-speaking insect species.

Legio XXIX Jade Collar: Largely ceremonial today, this Legion garrisons Old Earth. Its officers and half of its ranks are filled out by the descendants of the original Comet Barbarians who smashed the Star League. The other half of its ranks is filled out by alien species who suffered under the Star League's yoke. After its conquest, Earth was divided up among these species for settlement and spoliation. Today the XXIX often accompanies archaeological expeditions exploring the human ruins on Old Earth.

The Happy Warriors

House Centipede Closeup by Kevincollins123

The Happy Warriors is a Glissendo-speaking species found throughout the Empire and far beyond the Imperial Extents. Members of this species are 2-3 meters in length, with dozens to hundreds of legs. The head of a Happy Warrior has two compound eyes, and several specialized mouthparts for biting prey, speaking Glissendo, and manipulating control systems. Happy Warriors have a second and very recent communication structure on their abdomens, which allows them to converse using human and near-human languages.

Happy Warriors can move with blinding speed. Their legs are also terrible piercing weapons. Many of their species can expectorate poisonous or hallucinogenic venom, creating a toxic haze in their immediate environment. The Happy Warriors are well-adapted for combat in a variety of environments - although they freely admit to feeling most in their element when fighting in jungles and other rough terrain, as well as underground.

The species fight in units of 100-1,000 members called Armed Multitudes. But make no mistake; the Happy Warriors are not a hive mind. Every member of the species is an individual, and every one strives for personal excellence in all of their affairs. Each individual is also mild projective empath. Legionaries who have fought at their side report that the affect is exhilarating and joyful, like being carried forward on a bouyant wave of death.

Many of the Legions of the Imperial Sovereign have incorporated one or more Armed Multitudes of the Happy Warriors into their organization. Each Armed Multitude bonds with a particular human commander. This bond is unbreakable; each commander has been repeatedly showered by a cloud of the Happy Warriors' loyalty pheromones. (This can become an issue in the case of a defection or demotion of a commander, but is never an issue in the case of a commander's death: in that case an Armed Multitude will bond to a new commander.)

One other important feature of the Happy Warriors is that they never leave their fallen human comrades behind.  The Happy Warriors always go to extreme lengths to recover the bodies of human comrades-in-arms. They use these bodies to lay the eggs of their young.

OGL MECHANICS

The Happy Warriors
Intelligent Myriapods (friendly)

ASPECTS:

• High Concept: Joyful member of an Armed Multitude
• Trouble: Loyal to one person
• Aspect: Strive for excellence in all things
• Aspect: Jungle and underground fighter
• Aspect: Never leave fallen humans behind

APPROACHES

• Careful: +1
• Clever: +1
• Flashy: 0
• Forceful: +2
• Quick: +3
• Sneaky: +2

STUNTS:

• Every Leg A Weapon: Take +2 to Forcefully Attack an opponent in the same or an adjacent Zone, using multiple legs as piercing weapons.
• Exoskeleton: Take +2 to Forcefully Defend against physical attacks from piercing weapons.
• Joyous Empaths: Take +2 to Flashy Approach to Create an Advantage in battle, psychically boosting the morale of comrades and allies.
• Spit Poisons: Take +2 to Flashy Approach to Create an Advantage in immediate or an adjacent Zone by creating a Poison Cloud or Hallucinogenic Cloud.

REFRESH: 2

The Autodidacta

Clark Nova in Bug Form from Naked Lunch

The machine-bugs known as the Autodidacta are rare and highly prized artifacts found on a number of different fallen worlds. On Earth in the era of the upright men, they were known as Clark Novas. On Barsoom, they are called Psychic Telegraphs. On the bethorm of Suphis II, the machine-bugs are called  Bhartel-braneae.

Autodidacta have several uses, including:

• The psychic transmission of messages from one bug-machine to another
• Text messaging with local spirit world entities (e.g., genus loci, demons, the souls of the dead, hungry ghosts, elementals, and the like)
• The inscription of spell-scrolls using spells and psychic sutras known to either the Autodidacta, or the typist-caster using the machine-bug. 

Autodidacta know many rare spells, spell variants, and psychic sutras. They are wont to barter for special and often perverse favors in exchange for typing out the rare spell forms that few living casters know.

Autodidacta are made from the brain cases of Thysanurians, a vile invasive species also known as the Scroll Gourmands. They have become a particular menace in the deep jungles of the equatorial continent of the world Suphis II, where they strip the bark of the Axis Mundi trees to harvest the trees' quantum liquor.  On most worlds, Thysanurians will mainly be found in libraries, scroll collections, scriptoria, record-houses, and archives.

The process of creating an Autodidacta from a Thysanurian begins with setting a cage-trap. For example on Suphis II, the Peelers Guild hangs cage-traps from the upper branches of the Axis Mundi trees. When the Thysanurian embeds its mouthparts in the bark of the tree to begin harvesting quantum liquor,  a trap-cage drops onto the unsuspecting bug.. The traps are typically mechanical impalement cages, which capture the thorax and abdomen of the bugs while leaving the head exposed.

Once the trap is sprung, a Peeler immediately decapitates the bug. Then one of the Peelers' proprietary psychic sutras is immediately be cast, enabling the preservation of the Thysanurian's consciousness and memory at the moment of its decapitation. Other spells and psychic sutras are then used over a period of several months to reshape the Thysanurian's head and mouthparts into the keyboard, mechanisms, and receptive orifice of the Autodidacta.

Similar processes are used on other worlds. It is rumored that the Library of All Worlds in the city of Everway has a pair of half-completed volumes called The Antennae of the Machine Heads which catalogs numerous ways to create Autodidacta. Fair warning though: many of the pair's formulae are misleading or dangerous to use.

Once properly formatted, each Autodidacta has the ability to communicate psychically in one set-language. This is the language in which it will communicate through its receptive orifice as well as type texts. The language used is the one that Thysanurian was thinking in at the moment of its decapitation. Almost invariably, the language will be one of the ancient and obscure tongues used in spell texts and list-books that the Thysanurians enjoy and consume, including: Glissendo, Partikali, Sufic, Hypostatic, Sunuz, Premarain, Glopnik, Ka-chem, Krellic, Old Martian, Altrusian, Afuera, or Ur-Skartarian.

More rarely Autodidacta are discovered whose language is an extremely ubiquitous one such as The Prate, Cruft, or the Common Tongue. Autodidacta using set-languages that are common go for particularly high prices. They are easier for the less scholarly advanced to use. On at least one occasion, the discovery of two language paired Autodidacts (collectively known as an Ansiblette) ignited a series interstellar regional brush wars that lasted for decades.

To use an Autodidacta, a person must have a working knowledge of the set-language that is spoken and typed by that particular machine-bug. Check the keys of the machine-bug for clues to the identity of the language. Next, a powder derived from the meat of the aquatic black centipede (a retiring and very toxic denizen of riverine jungle areas and tidal pools of many worlds) must be gently and thoroughly applied to the receptive orifice of the machine-bug. Application of the powder will charge the Autodidacta's otherwise quiescent mind and mechanisms for a sufficient time to complete one desired task (i.e., transmitting a psychic message to another Autodidacta, text messaging a local spirit, or inscribing a spell that either typist-caster or the Autodidacta knows onto specially prepared scroll paper).

Repeated episodes of exposure to the powder over a short period of time (i.e., several times over a few hours), may provoke a ecstasy in the machine-bug. In its ecstatic state, an Autodidacta will type sheet after sheet of text, reproducing an entire book (i.e., one the Thysanurian had previously consumed) over a series of hours. It is rumored that the Chief Librarian of the Library of All Worlds has sequestered hundreds of such machine-bugs in the legendary and stasis-locked Azure Chamber buried deep within the Library's bowels.  Hundreds of Autodidacta are kept in a powder-crazed Recursive Epiphany, generating tome after lost tome for the Librarian and his closest allies. The Library's Acquisitions department has been charged with recruiting new Spherewalkers to discover new sources of the black centipedes whose powdered meat is required to fuel these ecstasies.

The Autodidact are of course inspired by the Clark Nova typewriters featured in William S. Burrough's classic novel Naked Lunch. Read the book. See the movie.

The Thysanurians are the brainchild of Hereticwerks; check that blog out for many other out-of-this world creations!

OGL MECHANICS

The Autodidacta
Scroll-inscribing Machine-bugs (neutral)

ASPECTS:

• High Concept: Typing Machine-Bug
• Trouble: Addicted to a rare poison  
• Aspect: Would you care to bargain for a more powerful and exquisite spell that I just happen to know?
• Aspect: Nibbles on books and scrolls when you're not looking
• Aspect: Wizards and priests would kill for my favors

APPROACHES

• Careful: +1
• Clever: +3
• Flashy: +2
• Forceful: 0
• Quick: 0
• Sneaky: +1

STUNTS:

• Text Message - Once per session, the typist may send a text message to a local spirit and receive a typed response channeled through the bug-machine
• Back Catalog - Once per session, the machine-bug may type sheet after sheet, reproducing the entirety of a lost book.
• Inscribe Scroll - Once per session, a magic user or priest may use it to type a spell scroll for a spell they know (or may bargain for a special spell that the Autodidacta knows) 
• It's Just A Machine - +2 to Sneaky Approach when trying to go unnoticed amid other old machines and table junk.
• Psychic Telegraph - Once per session, the machine-bug may transmit a message to a machine-bug anywhere else in the same world.

REFRESH: 1

Aftertaste

Aftertaste (Nature, Cost, Per Scene, Persistent, Requires "Summon Nature's Ally"): The caster stuffs three living arthropods into their mouth, and mutters a brief metonymic charm in Glissendo. An enlargening version of one of the bugs leaps from the caster's mouth and immediately grows in size to equal that of a large humanoid. The creature obeys the caster's commands and will fight on its side in a combat. The bug's highest Approach/Skill is equivalent to the caster's Flashy Approach/CHA. The bug lasts for one Scene or until Taken Out in combat.

This casting was inspired by the spell Giant Insect in the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook (5E)

Deck Of Fridays 2: Well-Read

Welcome back to DECK OF FRIDAYS here at FATE SF, our new weekly feature in which we make a draw from the Deck of Fate, our deck of  RPG Inspiration Cards, or another Aspect-generative randomizer - and then do something interesting with it - using the Aspect as inspiration for a campaign or scenario seed, a situation, scene, location, NPC, thingie, etc.

This week's draw from the Deck of Fate was pulled on Thursday morning, for Bujilli, the weekly experimental literary and gaming serial over at Hereticwerks.

I liked the card so much, I am also using it as the subject of this week's DOF post.

So here we go, with a scene Aspect!

Well-Read

A robot (or alien, or replicant/fabricant) sits far underground reading. It's surrounded by stacks of books. Piles of them, arranged haphazardly, great Jenga towers of made of words.

That's right, books.

Not the CodeXs stored on data crystals overlaid with the psychic imprint of their authors: crystals strung onto necklaces and rosaries, worn by those who wished to create an impression of intelligence and sagacity, and of the devotion of the well-read.

These books are the real thing. Books made of paper, ink, glue and cloth. A few with leather and fur. Others with feather and bone. They come in all shapes and sizes, all colors and smells. More than a few are first editions with signatures. Many have color plates and blossoming monochromatic stains and molds.

Adjacent to this room there are dozens of others, each filled floor-to-ceiling with more books.

It's gotten waylaid, this robot.  It was built for Pest Control far below the city. After all, it had been programmed as an entomologist before it was repurposed (as the barbarians are wont to say these days) for its current assignment.

(In fact, the robot is quite conversant in both the glyphic and song-forms of Glissendo, the insectile conlang cobbled together millions of years ago by numerous arthopod species living around the Core. It relishes the opportunity to read the numerous glyphic Bug Texts squirrelled away in the stacks. Books you can read, taste, smell.)

The robot retains a bug hunter's fascination with structure, complexity, and variation. It finds the books interesting, especially with all their varied languages, fonts, and material forms. The robot's masters have forgotten all about the robot. No one is tracking its current progress against a production schedule.  (Or , more accurately, against a timetable for the books' destruction.)

This old rubbish was supposed to have been gotten rid of hundreds of years ago. The incinerator is still there, glowing in anticipation. But the robot can't quite force itself to feed the furnace yet.

It is committing each book to memory first.

Book-by-book, day-by-day, the robot sits and reads. Being well-read is its own reward the robot tells itself. Who knows: maybe one of these days, one of the so-called "delvers" who walk past the robot will want a few of these books.

There are many kinds of treasure.

This vignette is inspired by four sentences in Cordwainer Smith's novel Norstrillia. And Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, of course.