Cortex Steampunk Game 1 OOC Discussion

[WritesNaughtyStories]

18 minutes ago, WickedCadrach said:

Thank you for putting what I was just working out how to express so cleanly and clearly.

She's good at that.

[IsabellaRose]

/beginrant

Moderators should really be able to move posts in their own clubs. smh.

/endrant

16 hours ago, MagnificentBastard said:

@IsabellaRose

How are we handling player wealth? I am thinking my character could be part of the British aristocracy but not sure if that would work well.

 

There is a trait in the distinction/trait list called "Wealthy". Cortex Dramatic isn't really designed to track resources so in general, if you want your character to be filthy rich with a mansion and staff of servants... they get it. Then during gameplay, if something seems like a thing that character would have, they just have it. If you need to buy things and you're rich, you buy them. But if you want something to add mechanical weight to an argument, you spend a plot point and create a d8 Resource for it.

Example: Let's say that you decided that your wealthy aristocratic European character is hosting a ball in their mansion. That's no problem. They have a mansion, it has a ballroom, "ball on." BUT if you were trying to impress another PC or an NPC with your wealth by showing off your opulent ballroom and you wanted to add it to your dice pool in the hopes of winning a contest, you'd have to spend a Plot Point to create a d8 Opulent Ballroom resource, which you could then include in your role. You could use the d8 Opulent Ballroom for the rest of the scene, and anyone else can spend a PP to use your d8 Opulent Ballroom during the scene. You can then spend another PP at the end of the scene to make it a permanent resource on your character sheet, if you think you'll use it again.

 

[MagnificentBastard]

3 hours ago, IsabellaRose said:

/beginrant

Moderators should really be able to move posts in their own clubs. smh.

/endrant

There is a trait in the distinction/trait list called "Wealthy". Cortex Dramatic isn't really designed to track resources so in general, if you want your character to be filthy rich with a mansion and staff of servants... they get it. Then during gameplay, if something seems like a thing that character would have, they just have it. If you need to buy things and you're rich, you buy them. But if you want something to add mechanical weight to an argument, you spend a plot point and create a d8 Resource for it.

Example: Let's say that you decided that your wealthy aristocratic European character is hosting a ball in their mansion. That's no problem. They have a mansion, it has a ballroom, "ball on." BUT if you were trying to impress another PC or an NPC with your wealth by showing off your opulent ballroom and you wanted to add it to your dice pool in the hopes of winning a contest, you'd have to spend a Plot Point to create a d8 Opulent Ballroom resource, which you could then include in your role. You could use the d8 Opulent Ballroom for the rest of the scene, and anyone else can spend a PP to use your d8 Opulent Ballroom during the scene. You can then spend another PP at the end of the scene to make it a permanent resource on your character sheet, if you think you'll use it again.

 

I will probably take it as a trait, magic and not sure what else probably manipulative or charismatic. As you know I enjoying playing Dominant of dubious morality and I feel wealth/sense of entitlement fits well with that idea.

It will probably be less of an expy of Crowley and more my take on the idea.

Edited 8 hours ago by MagnificentBastard

[IsabellaRose]

I'm adding @AsBloodTurnsEverCold to this Group 1. He's on board with the original concept and likes what's been discussed here so far, so... welcome aboard!

And with that, we're full up in Game 1. 

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Welcome, @AsBloodTurnsEverCold! Glad to have you with us.

[WickedCadrach]

5 hours ago, MagnificentBastard said:

I will probably take it as a trait, magic and not sure what else probably manipulative or charismatic. As you know I enjoying playing Dominant of dubious morality and I feel wealth/sense of entitlement fits well with that idea.

It will probably be less of an expy of Crowley and more my take on the idea.

Just because I can never sit quietly and let other people figure out their own characters... If you're playing a European character knowledgeable in esoteric sex magic, you might also get some inspiration from the reputation of the Khlysty heresy, which would have been in its last decades around this time. The basic idea was "God is glorified by forgiving sins, therefore, the more we sin, the more God is glorified. Amen *start the orgy*" Other takes are that it was sort of the same logic as 'the Purge', "everybody get together and sin your hearts out for a night because we have to be godly the rest of the week." 

Ok. I'll try not to keep doing this, but I felt as if I might literally explode if I didn't send that, so there you go. 

[MagnificentBastard]

9 minutes ago, WickedCadrach said:

Just because I can never sit quietly and let other people figure out their own characters... If you're playing a European character knowledgeable in esoteric sex magic, you might also get some inspiration from the reputation of the Khlysty heresy, which would have been in its last decades around this time. The basic idea was "God is glorified by forgiving sins, therefore, the more we sin, the more God is glorified. Amen *start the orgy*" Other takes are that it was sort of the same logic as 'the Purge', "everybody get together and sin your hearts out for a night because we have to be godly the rest of the week." 

Ok. I'll try not to keep doing this, but I felt as if I might literally explode if I didn't send that, so there you go. 

Happy to hear suggestions, if I recall correctly Rasputin was said to be a member.

[WickedCadrach]

39 minutes ago, MagnificentBastard said:

Happy to hear suggestions, if I recall correctly Rasputin was said to be a member.

That is the rumor. Though, from what I understand, it was likely just part of the smear campaign against him. Good fodder for alt-history though!

[StarlitSiren]

Hi @AsBloodTurnsEverCold <3

[AsBloodTurnsEverCold]

Howdy folks! Migrating over from Group 2, but been keeping up with everything here. I've loved pretty much everything going on here! 

I'm just gonna post some statements I did have over from that group but most of them line up and I'm more than willing to go with everything already noted as it is. I know it says no planes but no idea if you count Gliders as part of that and it was brought up over there of the extraterrestrial remnants so that's what that part is about.
 

Spoiler

On Automatons: 
I think they're a must for this sort of setting, and interesting to have as a sign of the coming advancement. Since we're now in a separate world from the other group I suppose it can be debated if they're new or older though if they're more recent given the 1880's setting we could always say (if we're fine with any historical reference) that after the release of Steam Man of the Prairies (1868) that people did come to realize they were quite partial to the idea of mechanical servants and workers. Research and development went quickly but that didn't leave much time to ponder on the fact that these mechanical creations might actually develop their own sense of selves. God made Man in his image. Man made Machine in his image. What did you think would happen? 

Airships: 
Anachronistic but with the accelerated pace of technology I imagine airships could be around and more luxurious and ready for travel than they really were more akin to modern Hybrids or closer to the Hindenburg without the unfortunate disaster (Normally). Different classes of them like for military use, regular ferry, or luxury. They're practically mastered but they are slow overall. 

Gliders: 
I would think in a world like this George Cayley's ideas (though I do suppose we should avoid literal historical figures) took off much faster than they did in our world which was actually already pretty fast. Essentially John J Montgomery or his equivalent proved that controlled passenger Glider travel was already viable and while they are much faster and much easier to plan they obviously have much lower capacity, are more rare, and cover shorter distances for the time being. Rivals to the airship industry, perhaps ruthlessly so, but the future is creeping up and fast. 

Ruins:
No such thing as a good adventure without ruins of some sort so featuring these heavily would be nice. Ruins of old civilizations no longer named, remnants of worlds that might not be our own ready for plunder, marvel, trade, and dangers that show that just because the future is uncertain the past wasn't exactly much safer nor is its influence so innocuous especially if you got rummaging around in a corpse. 

Magic: 
Esoteric rather than gamified. Rituals, unseen hands, consequences and trades. I do think magic is on a decline but is no less powerful. A witch is a threat, obviously not immune to a bullet (unless her magic is just that good) but being cursed is still one of the worst things that could happen to you...its just not a thing you'll encounter easily. This is more of a sign of spiritual decline though, old traditions beings pushed and snuffed out by "progress" which isn't always positive. Technology can't solve everything and sometimes looking past the studies and surefire things yields unexpected answers. Those dedicated to progress aren't paragons either. Its a type of rivalry. 

Technology: 
Teslatech should probably be more upperclass stuff. Cities more civilized. City Automatons could even run more on that than steam engines or whatever interesting energy source people discovered. I do think the holy grail should be whatever can be salvaged from potential crashed vessels should be holy grail...mostly rumors obviously but one or two people having something they really shouldn't.

Lovecraftian influence: 
A sort of grey force in preference not quite magic, not quite human, something more than alien. Not evil, not good just something unknowable that can be anything because it ultimately doesn't adhere to the binary itself but how the people use it. No clean answers when its involved. Its beyond people but its there. 

Cults: 
I'd like to see cults dedicated to both magic, lovecraftian influence, and tech even the synthesis of the two. I think that'd be fun. 

As for the character Idea I was thinking of myself: 

An Ethnomusicologist (Depending on how you guys feel about Anachronisms given this discipline came about way later but doesn't need a name atm its just kinda shorthand) and performer (Multi-talented in that area) who in the course of study discovered a strange notes related to music that's occurred in multiple cultures of unknown origin (Or this knowledge was in their predecessors notes left to them so they could grow up with the knowledge and might be why they even went into Musicology and Archaeology) Strange musicality, melodies, rhythms, etc that are out of this world (Obviously not really planning to move much beyond the music of the time in idea unless we imagine the way technology movies would allow music to evolve a little faster too and could even be part of the influence). 

They learned from these old instructions, unknowingly (at first) opening themselves up to communication and influence with entities beyond their world. Cursed even. They've gotten quite famous but on another side that trouble has appeared at his performances with people appearing not themselves leading to all sorts of things like violence, out of body experiences, debauchery, etc. The music, at least so the rumors go, does something to the brain. Its explained away but it happens and when they preform they sometimes lose track of even themselves. 

Still they eventually realize something is wrong as they lose themselves more and more so choose to look for answers, becoming a gunman in the meantime to protect themselves. 

Basically just try to mix the Archaeologist with the Singing Cowboy archtype with a little bit of lovecraft. Might be a bit much but thats the main idea I have rn apart from a fairly simple gunrunner. 
 

Edited 4 hours ago by AsBloodTurnsEverCold

[AsBloodTurnsEverCold]

@StarlitSiren
Howdy! 

@WritesNaughtyStories
Thanks for the welcome. Excited to play with y'all. 

[MagnificentBastard]

6 minutes ago, AsBloodTurnsEverCold said:

Howdy folks! Migrating over from Group 2, but been keeping up with everything here. I've loved pretty much everything going on here! 

I'm just gonna post some statements I did have over from that group but most of them line up and I'm more than willing to go with everything already noted as it is. I know it says no planes but no idea if you count Gliders as part of that and it was brought up over there of the extraterrestrial remnants so that's what that part is about.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

On Automatons: 
I think they're a must for this sort of setting, and interesting to have as a sign of the coming advancement. Since we're now in a separate world from the other group I suppose it can be debated if they're new or older though if they're more recent given the 1880's setting we could always say (if we're fine with any historical reference) that after the release of Steam Man of the Prairies (1868) that people did come to realize they were quite partial to the idea of mechanical servants and workers. Research and development went quickly but that didn't leave much time to ponder on the fact that these mechanical creations might actually develop their own sense of selves. God mad Man in his image. Mad man made Machine in his image. What did you think would happen? 

Airships: 
Anachronistic but with the accelerated pace of technology I imagine airships could be around and more luxurious and ready for travel than they really were more akin to modern Hybrids or closer to the Hindenburg without the unfortunate disaster (Normally). Different classes of them like for military use, regular ferry, or luxury. They're practically mastered but they are slow overall. 

Gliders: 
I would think in a world like this George Cayley's ideas (though I do suppose we should avoid literal historical figures) took off much faster than they did in our world which was actually already pretty fast. Essentially John J Montgomery or his equivalent proved that controlled passenger Glider travel was already viable and while they are much faster and much easier to plan they obviously have much lower capacity, are more rare, and cover shorter distances for the time being. Rivals to the airship industry, perhaps ruthlessly so, but the future is creeping up and fast. 

Ruins:
No such thing as a good adventure without ruins of some sort so featuring these heavily would be nice. Ruins of old civilizations no longer named, remnants of worlds that might not be our own ready for plunder, marvel, trade, and dangers that show that just because the future is uncertain the past wasn't exactly much safer nor is its influence so innocuous especially if you got rummaging around in a corpse. 

Magic: 
Esoteric rather than gamified. Rituals, unseen hands, consequences and trades. I do think magic is on a decline but is no less powerful. A witch is a threat, obviously not immune to a bullet (unless her magic is just that good) but being cursed is still one of the worst things that could happen to you...its just not a thing you'll encounter easily. This is more of a sign of spiritual decline though, old traditions beings pushed and snuffed out by "progress" which isn't always positive. Technology can't solve everything and sometimes looking past the studies and surefire things yields unexpected answers. Those dedicated to progress aren't paragons either. Its a type of rivalry. 

Technology: 
Teslatech should probably be more upperclass stuff. Cities more civilized. City Automatons could even run more on that than steam engines or whatever interesting energy source people discovered. I do think the holy grail should be whatever can be salvaged from potential crashed vessels should be holy grail...mostly rumors obviously but one or two people having something they really shouldn't.

Lovecraftian influence: 
A sort of grey force in preference not quite magic, not quite human, something more than alien. Not evil, not good just something unknowable that can be anything because it ultimately doesn't adhere to the binary itself but how the people use it. No clean answers when its involved. Its beyond people but its there. 

Cults: 
I'd like to see cults dedicated to both magic, lovecraftian influence, and tech even the synthesis of the two. I think that'd be fun. 

As for the character Idea I was thinking of myself: 

An Ethnomusicologist (Depending on how you guys feel about Anachronisms given this discipline came about way later but doesn't need a name atm its just kinda shorthand) and performer (Multi-talented in that area) who in the course of study discovered a strange notes related to music that's occurred in multiple cultures of unknown origin (Or this knowledge was in their predecessors notes left to them so they could grow up with the knowledge and might be why they even went into Musicology and Archaeology) Strange musicality, melodies, rhythms, etc that are out of this world (Obviously not really planning to move much beyond the music of the time in idea unless we imagine the way technology movies would allow music to evolve a little faster too and could even be part of the influence). 

They learned from these old instructions, unknowingly (at first) opening themselves up to communication and influence with entities beyond their world. Cursed even. They've gotten quite famous but on another side that trouble has appeared at his performances with people appearing not themselves leading to all sorts of things like violence, out of body experiences, debauchery, etc. The music, at least so the rumors go, does something to the brain. Its explained away but it happens and when they preform they sometimes lose track of even themselves. 

Still they eventually realize something is wrong as they lose themselves more and more so choose to look for answers, becoming a gunman in the meantime to protect themselves. 

Basically just try to mix the Archaeologist with the Singing Cowboy archtype with a little bit of lovecraft. Might be a bit much but thats the main idea I have rn apart from a fairly simple gunrunner. 
 

Welcome.

I am a big fan of constructs/automatons, I do hope they are rare, don't want to fight many of them.

[AsBloodTurnsEverCold]

@MagnificentBastard
Thank you!

Oh for sure, the occasional machine around unless its someplace expensive would make sense to me but I definitely want em around. 

Edited 4 hours ago by AsBloodTurnsEverCold

[StarlitSiren]

So we have our six people now! I'm still a little late on swotting up on the cortex bits but will try to do so ASAP!

[WritesNaughtyStories]

1 hour ago, AsBloodTurnsEverCold said:

Basically just try to mix the Archaeologist with the Singing Cowboy archtype with a little bit of lovecraft. Might be a bit much but thats the main idea I have rn apart from a fairly simple gunrunner. 

The King in Yellow and Erich Zahn meet Roy Rogers, it sounds like. Has he stopped performing?

[AsBloodTurnsEverCold]

32 minutes ago, WritesNaughtyStories said:

The King in Yellow and Erich Zahn meet Roy Rogers, it sounds like. Has he stopped performing?

You know your stuff!

I'd say still preforming just trying to control it but stopping isn't really an option a mix of hesitancy and compulsion. Music is their life and they can't just stop, but if they stop paying the music will just be in their head, playing eternally, and may drive them insane and doing the same thing to them it does to those who hear it. It seeps into much of what they do looking for an escape. It must be played in the same way the Zahir (If you've ever read that) must be looked at. Willpower helps extend the periods but there's no quite escaping the need and playing for people does help for a time. 

Shares it though it won't nearly always be as harmful of course just depends on the song or moment. 

I figure there's no reason to play it like its just Psychosis though ones willpower can obviously affect it and someone whose life is music can't just stop doing the thing that gives them purpose. 

Edited 2 hours ago by AsBloodTurnsEverCold

[WickedCadrach]

Welcome @AsBloodTurnsEverCold!

I love your character idea, and I'm on board with 99% of what you've put up there. I do have a quick question on the gliders. How do you imagine them in the world? 

I'm trying to picture it and the setups I'm getting are...

A) It's just this weird novel technology that's more gimmick than useful so far, so only the wealthy and eccentric own them.

B) It's profitable enough that some entrepreneur has set up Glider Posts in a few cities that either have natural hills or towers/scaffolds to launch them from. So it's a rival to trains in a very limited sense. You can send a thousand-times the cargo weight over further distances more reliably with a train, but only after you invest years of track-laying and engine building. 

C) The technology is out there, and yes there are legitimate uses (like B), but travelers have to watch for glider banditos swooping out of the hills and other such incidental encounters day to day. 

My worry with B and C is that I feel like we're getting further and further from the feel of the Old West with horses and wagons and long lonely trails. 

If I'm the only one, then that's ok. But I would exclude gliders and say airships are the only widely known way to travel by air. 

[IsabellaRose]

20 minutes ago, WickedCadrach said:

My worry with B and C is that I feel like we're getting further and further from the feel of the Old West with horses and wagons and long lonely trails. 

One of my favorite things about the old west setting is that communication can be fairly quick with the telegraph, but transportation takes time. You can’t just zip from point A to point B. 
 

so I’d be curious what your intention was for gliders. If it’s just a one off or novelty tech then I definitely have no problem with it. 

[AsBloodTurnsEverCold]

@WickedCadrach
Honestly a bit of a mix between A and B. I wasn't really thinking a rival to trains or horses for sure. A new threat of encroaching tech that threatens to upend air travel but right now because of the capacity issue, elevation, spread, passenger capacity its in its infancy. You really couldn't ship stuff on gliders that well cause they couldn't handle that much weight and would likely need trains to actually get back to where they were so those industries could be friendly in places. 

I did say I think they should be rare cause they'd need to be built by eccentrics but in areas where they are (They weren't made on industrial scales or anything) there would definitely be an Old Guard vs Start-up sort of rivalry cause they really are much faster and take up less room than Airships would so people with money can travel on them more to shorten the time to get place to place.
They also wouldn't really be viable in a lot of places yet so its controlled areas of rivalry you wouldn't encounter often but they sure are trying and obviously the makers are trying to improve them. Its more a vision of what might come. That technology is still moving and even Airships aren't gonna be safe forever. 

They might also make a fun set-piece at some point. 

Its no deal breaker of course, I really do like the history of gliders but if no one else wants em thats fine. 

Edited 1 hour ago by AsBloodTurnsEverCold

[WickedCadrach]

18 minutes ago, AsBloodTurnsEverCold said:

I did say I think they should be rare cause they'd need to be built by eccentrics but in areas where they are (They weren't made on industrial scales or anything) there would definitely be an Old Guard vs Start-up sort of rivalry

(I'm a little tired, so if I get the Cortex mechanics side wrong, sorry!) Would it scratch the itch when we get to the Pathways step if we put in a specific NPC or location that was 'the one guy who really believes gliders are the future'?

I'm just hesitant to drop them in here because this step feels more like 'These are the defining things about this setting; The things we want the game to be about'

[MagnificentBastard]

@IsabellaRose

So if we have a full group and we have agreement in roughly what we want, what's the next step?

I am not trying to rush anyone just eager toget started

[AsBloodTurnsEverCold]

3 minutes ago, WickedCadrach said:

(I'm a little tired, so if I get the Cortex mechanics side wrong, sorry!) Would it scratch the itch when we get to the Pathways step if we put in a specific NPC or location that was 'the one guy who really believes gliders are the future'?

I'm just hesitant to drop them in here because this step feels more like 'These are the defining things about this setting; The things we want the game to be about'

Oh I think that'd be perfectly fine honestly. I'd even take acknowledgement of them even if the group never quite sees them just as news or something while they're traveling on the airships. 

Admittedly the Gliders is a holdover from the other group since...different world. I just copy and pasted lol but my intention was for them to be another glimpse at the future which is fast approaching rather than to totally remove anything cause Gliders are cool and fun but it did take a good while before the became planes which I do see is an exclusion. 
 

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Wall of text ahead.

tldr: Sarah's family gets killed. She's adopted by the First Nation band that killed them. Lives happily for years. Army kills her clan, tries to repatriate Saha to settlers life. She escaped, starved, beaten and exhausted then gets found by Ashborn. I guess becomes a kind of monk.

Spoiler

Saha lay crumpled and weeping amid the ruins of her clan. The man who would have been her husband, shot through his belly, died spear in hand, defending her and the woman who had been her lover. Her kith and kin, many murdered in their tipis before they could fight back.

Blue-clad white faces stared and her in a language she remembered but did not speak. Saha felt for her sharp, bone skinning knife to join her clan. Heartbroken, terrified and unable to see through the tears,  her tattooed chin quivered as she took it in her trembling fist.

Unable to think of anything but himself, one soldier grabbed her hand and beat her unconscious, convinced she meant to attack him.

How long or far they dragged her, Saha Sky Eyes would never know. She awoke, shivering in the dark with her hands bound. Her skull ached. Her eyes swam and there was nothing that didn't hurt. Her soul most of all.

She could not comprehend why they kept her. She was of no use, she could be bred, but she would try to deliver them stillborn girls, try to die in childbirth, fight them fang and claw.

Part of her knew she looked like these soldiers, but she was not like them. She had long ago forgotten that she had ever known their language.

She had been a child when she was adopted by her clan. The Lokonchee did not have a word for orphan. They had a saying, "We will steal their future by raising their babies." If a child's parents were killed in a raid, they were adopted. And they had raised her. Her adoptive mother, Mokonee, had held her, rocking gently as she sang softly every time she cried for months. No child in her band had ever been cruel because she wasn't born to them. Her betrothed was the chief's son.

The stars above watched, judging what she did next. "Liwu," she croaked through parched throat, a mouth that felt full of sand and a split lip. It was the Lokonchee word for 'water' and 'life'.

A soldier stood nearby, rifle in the crook of his arm and a pistol holtered at his hip. He turned and face Says, rifle barrel leveled at her over the smoldering coals of the soldiers ' fire.

It took several tries but the guard eventually brought her a metal cup with water. He set the rifle on the far side of the fire and approached behind the drawn pistol, unwilling to risk the white woman who had gone savage. He set the cup in the grass several feet away from her and retreated.

Saha walked on her knees as best she could, feeling the soft earth beneath the dry grass. With her hands bound she needed to pick it up with both hands. She could taste the metal of the cup, but she drank and set the cup back on the ground.

She hiked up her skirt and squatted to pee but the soldier grunted quietly and pointed away from the fire with a wave of his pistol. Saha raised her chin in assent and stumbled on sore, shaky legs farther into the dark. The guard moved to stand between her and the fire, and keep her in sight.

Her water made, Saha rose and walked back towards the fire. She made no effort to be submissive. Even gutshot and screaming in agony, it would be better to die here than further separated from her clan.

Before she got close enough to make him nervous, a sudden noise came from across the for where the other soldiers slept. Perhaps a cough or yelp at a nightmare, but it was enough for him to jerk around.

Saha sprang like a bobcat. She dropped her bound hands over his head as her knees hit his back. The weight of her impact drove the soldier into the ground with little more noise than the whoosh of air leaving his lungs. Saha strained with her arms, back and legs, pulling the rope between her hands tight across the guard's throat. Shocked and with the wind already knocked out of him, the young soldier could make no sound. She strained until the man went limp, then continued to pull for five slow breaths.

She used the time to  calm herself, to think. One, get away, other clans would take her in. Exhale. Two. Quick and quiet, leave no tracks. Exhale. Three. Her knife. No idea where it was. Exhale. Four. Take his and the pistol. Exhale. Five. Liwu.

Saha let her muscles go slack and pulled her hands free. She moved quickly, pulling the dead guard's belt free. She picked up the pistol and paused, glancing across the fire at the sleeping soldiers.

The rifle lay on the same side of the fire as the rest of the soldiers and she quickly decided it wasn't worth the risk.

She moved quietly and carefully away from the fire, making sure to leave no tracks. An hour passed, then two as Saha picked her way west, stepping carefully. She had not covered enough distance, but thought she'd gotten enough space between her and the Army bivouac to move faster. At first she dog trotted, trying to make up the time she's lost.

When the moon was a hand above the western horizon Saha was exhausted. Her lungs burned. Her legs were softer than the grass. She was stumbling, barely able to keep herself upright. She did not know how long it had been since she'd eaten. At least a day. A single cup of water. She needed cover, time to rest and forage.

Saha forced herself on, searching for high, covered ground. She stumbled again but this time she couldn't right herself and tumbled to the ground, more dead than alive.

That's how Ashborn found her. Splayed in the dirt, beaten, exhausted, grieving, starved and dehydrated.

 

[IsabellaRose]

40 minutes ago, WickedCadrach said:

(I'm a little tired, so if I get the Cortex mechanics side wrong, sorry!) Would it scratch the itch when we get to the Pathways step if we put in a specific NPC or location that was 'the one guy who really believes gliders are the future'?

I'm just hesitant to drop them in here because this step feels more like 'These are the defining things about this setting; The things we want the game to be about'

This step is “the things we want to make sure exist in the game for it to be fun.” So themes, scene, set pieces, technology, etc. 

in Pathways we’ll add specific NPCs, groups, locations, and events. What we add in pathways is definitely going to be in the game. So we want to cast broad strokes here, then get specific pinpoints in pathways. 
 

if everyone is more or less in agreement, I’ll setup the pathways chart and post the Pathways Step 1 instructions here once I’m back on my laptop. I’m playing Auntie Daycare at my nieces house right now and typing that out on the phone is going to be a nightmare.