IsabellaRose

sensual dreams

I provided a list of character tropes and ideas in the original interest check thread. That being said, I did specify that these two games are NOT set in the same world. So of you want to make changes to increase your enjoyment, this is the time and place to make suggestions for what will make this more enjoyable for you. I certainly don't want anyone feeling obliged to play this game and feeling constrained by its limitations. If you want something different than what I outlined above, say so. Please. Let's make this the world you want to play in.

/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.

What I mean by “Goofy Slapstick Steampunk Tropes” is nothing silly just for the sake of silliness. Steampunk embodies a wide spectrum, from gritty gears-and-smoke realism to over-the-top silliness. For this campaign, we’re leaning toward the dramatic, weird, gothic end of the scale (Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Poe), and away from the cartoon comedy end. Examples of what I'm not going for: Silly gadgets like a steam-powered top hat that shoots lasers, an umbrella that turns into a pogo stick, or monocles that shoot lightning beams just because it’s funny. Cartoon logic, like jetpacks made from tea kettles, mechanical ducks that double as grenades, or someone riding a unicycle tank into battle. Pure gags, devices whose only purpose is to be goofy, like a clockwork butler who exists only to serve pie with comic timing. Tone-breaking contraptions, in short anything that feels like it belongs in a parody cartoon instead of a gothic Weird West story. Examples of what we are going for: Gritty tech... weapons like Tesla rifles, pneumatic shotguns, or steam-powered exoskeletons... things that are dangerous, experimental, and often flawed. Science with consequences so that every unique invention feels a little dangerous, untested, or morally questionable. Atmospheric weirdness. I want the tech to inspire awe and unease, not laughter. It’s not that humor is banned. There will be room for wit, charm, and irony at the table. But the technology itself should feel serious, dangerous, and uncanny, not gag props for a steampunk comedy sketch.

Also, all questions require an answer, so you might want to add a "None of the Above" in case someone would love to play in several games they've heard of, but doesn't want to GM them, or vice versa.

It might be too early for the Golden Dawn, but it was inspired by Masonic organizations and I think the Rosicrucians... or was it the other way around? I get my esoteric orders all mixed up. Regardless, if those organizations didn't exist til later, perhaps this character was an inspiration for them, a practitioner of secret thaumaturgic sexual arts, a coitamancer or something...

Start with this. Tell me what you want to exist in the setting. If you want people with bunny ears, now is the time to mention it. Also, tell me what you don't want. If anything I put in my last post about what I imagine and what I don't imagine for the setting runs contrary to what you imagine, we need to work it out now, not when we're a couple weeks into a roleplay.

I was planning to just wholesale import basic historic reality (more like... um... well, as if it were a tv show - sometimes veering into exploring darker themes, sometimes just handwaving the troublesome aspects, depending on how much anyone wants to focus on them and what fits into the story) and alter whatever needed to be altered to fit the setting. That includes the the rebel remnants, ex-confederates, recently freed slaves, the encroachment of the settlers on First Nations lands, the Army carrying out its campaign to clear the "savages" from the lands... But as WickedCadrach said, as background unless it becomes useful to the plot. For instance, I can imagine creating a nasty, racist, misogynistic, ex-confederate who treats non-European people (including sentient automatons, hybrids, and anything else we come up with) as if they are less than him, and being quite the hateful and hated antagonist. He doesn't have to be anyone real, but he could be a target for working out things.

Ghosts in the Flesh I feel them before I hear them. Octavia’s laughter, sharp and familiar, coils around the back of my mind. Luna’s sigh follows, tender and aching, as if she still doesn’t quite believe she’s here. But they are both here, inside me, crowded into the same fragile flesh that was supposed to be mine alone. It was only meant to be temporary, a stopgap, a mercy. Octavia’s ghost had already been with me for months, tucked like a burning coal into the neural buffer no one else dared use. And then Luna… my bright, impossible Luna. She should have had her own body, her own future. But the people hunting me found her, and made me pay by taking her from me. I never meant for her to get hurt, but she died in my arms. My only option was to steal her into the only safe harbor I had left... myself. But the buffer couldn't hold two consciousnesses. It was never even meant to hold one, not for any length of time. The safety protocols failed almost as soon as I downloaded Luna. Their minds, their beings, poured into me like two bottles of wine trying to pour into a third. Now we are three minds sharing one body. Every step is a negotiation. My legs move, but Luna leans us toward the window, wanting to see the starlight. My fingers twitch, but Octavia holds them steady, savoring the sensation of touch. It is maddening and intoxicating at once. I am no longer only myself. When I brush my hand across my cheek, I feel it three times over: my own skin, Octavia’s hunger, Luna’s wonder. One body, three minds. Every nerve an echo chamber. “Aria…” Luna’s voice is inside my throat, trembling. “I can feel you.” “And me,” Octavia cuts in, her tone velvet and sharp. “Don’t forget me.” How could I? They are everywhere. Their memories unspool inside me... Octavia’s firelit kisses, Luna’s quiet laughter on sleepless nights. I never meant for them to collide, but now they bleed together. Their longings, their jealousies, their desire… all pulsing through the same veins. I shiver, and the shiver belongs to all of us. I don’t know whose lips part, whose breath catches, whose heart pounds faster. Mine? Theirs? Ours? The body sways with its own momentum, guided by three sets of hands, three voices whispering in one mouth. I close my eyes, surrendering, and let them rise through me like a tide. “We are not alone anymore,” Luna whispers. “No,” Octavia answers, softer than I have ever heard her. “We are together.” And for the first time, I believe them. At first, it’s just a hand. My hand. But when I lift it, I feel Octavia’s anticipation coil like static, and Luna’s nervous curiosity trembling alongside mine. Three intentions, one movement. The fingertips hover, then press lightly against the curve of my body. A simple gesture, but the echo is overwhelming. Octavia inhales sharply inside me, as if she’s the one touching, the one being touched. Luna gasps too, startled, then melts into wonder. So soft, Luna whispers. I remember this, Octavia says. And I, caught between them, feel both the remembering and the discovery, layered over my own sensations. When I move the hand again, tracing upward, the pressure shifts, guided by Octavia’s familiarity. She knows exactly where to linger, the angle, the rhythm. Luna moans with surprise, the sound trembling through my throat before I can stop it. How did you... Luna begins. Because I knew her first, Octavia replies, but not with jealousy, with intimacy... with pride. The sensation ripples between us like a wave, one touch sparking three responses. Pleasure becomes communal, impossible to separate. When I shiver, Octavia’s delight floods me, and Luna’s awe tumbles in after it, until I can’t tell whose pulse is racing, whose breath hitches, whose need is rising. The hand lingers lower, hesitant, then pressing more firmly. Luna gasps again. Octavia laughs softly, indulgently. There. Yes, there. Wait, I feel it too—oh… I can’t tell if I am leading or being led. It feels as though my body is a stage and the two of them are dancing across it, teaching, guiding, reveling. Each stroke is shared, each sigh multiplies, each trembling pause is answered by three hearts. I close my eyes, and the voices overlap... desire, memory, wonder... all whispering through me, around me, within me. Is this me? I ask silently. Or us? Us, Luna breathes. Always us, Octavia answers. And then the thought ceases to matter. There is only the body, the hands, the chorus of three minds entwined in one rising tide. It builds without warning. One moment it’s just touch, shared and multiplied. The next, it’s everything... too much, too fast, too beautiful to hold back. The pressure surges inside us like a tide rising against glass. Octavia’s voice is sharp and urgent, pulling me higher, Luna’s is breathless, wide-eyed, swept along, and I... I am the vessel, trembling beneath the weight of us all. Don’t stop, Octavia cries. I can’t… it’s too much, Luna gasps. It’s all of us, I whisper, though I don’t know if I say it aloud or only think it. The wave crests. My whole body arches into it, every nerve singing, every thought dissolving. But I am not alone in the surrender. Octavia shouts with me, her passion burning through my blood. Luna clings tight, her wonder spilling over into joy. The crash is not one voice, not two, it is three voices tangled in a single cry. Light fills me. Darkness fills me. My pulse is thunder in my ears, and yet I hear them, hear us, layered and unbroken. The climax is not mine alone. It belongs to all of us, an impossible union of memory and flesh, of the living and the dead, of love that refuses to let go. When the wave finally breaks, I collapse inward, shaking, overwhelmed. For a moment there is only silence, the hush of a sea pulling back from the shore. Then I feel them... Octavia’s satisfied hum, Luna’s soft laughter, my own tears slipping warm down my face. We are one, Luna whispers, awed. We are alive, Octavia says, fierce. We are together, I think, and for once, neither of them argues. The silence after is strange. It's not empty, never empty now, but suspended, like the stillness in the air after lightning has split the sky. My skin tingles with fading echoes, each nerve ending humming with the memory of what just passed. Inside me, Octavia hums low, a languid satisfaction. She has always been the first to collapse into warmth after passion, wrapping herself in the glow of what lingers. Luna, by contrast, trembles with amazement, her wonder spilling over into laughter. It bubbles up through my throat before I can tell if it belongs to her or me. That was… she whispers, but never finishes. Words would only make it smaller. Yes, Octavia answers, her voice gentler than I expect, no sharp edge, no teasing, just agreement, unguarded and real. I lie back and close my eyes. Every breath I take belongs to three. When I shift against the sheets, they both feel it; when I run my hand absently over my stomach, it is Octavia who sighs and Luna who gasps. It is no longer possible to separate us. The act has bound us closer, threads braided tighter. Where once I felt like a host, carrying them inside me like passengers, now I feel like the vessel of something greater, one life woven from three. I cry then, softly. Not out of sorrow, out of fullness. Out of the unbearable beauty of holding them both, here, alive, when I should have lost them forever. The tears slip hot down my cheeks, and I hear them. Don’t cry, Luna whispers. I'm here. I'm still here. So am I, Octavia says, fierce and steady. You will never be alone again. Their words fold around me like arms, even though they have none. And in that moment, I don’t mourn what I’ve lost. I rejoice in what we have made together... strange, impossible, but real. We are three souls in one body. Haunted, tangled, and whole.

All of those character options sound like they'd fit pretty seamlessly! For the vampire-esque character, you wouldn't even need to retain any of the actual weaknesses of a traditional vampire. You just "look" like one, so superstitious common folk assume you must be one. You're just an eccentric inventory/scientist who has fled persecution in Europe/back east and setup shop in this town, because you can get anything you need via the railroad in town, and you get the privacy to conduct your experiments without someone looking over your shoulder. But of course, rumors abound about what exactly it is you do in that big house all alone, and what are those big boxes you receive, and why do you never let anyone into your house beyond the parlor...? As a GM I can build some very fun drama around that misunderstanding.

Okay, so far I have... INCLUDE Ashborn: Prudence to have existed in our past and to have left her legacy of defending love in all its forms. With that comes the oppressive social and religious pressure that drove Prudence to condemn her lover. gunfighters in dusty streets Airships aesthetically, I would prefer zeppelins! and hot air balloons government agents in luxury train cars with odd, clockwork and steam-powered gadgets magic being a thing in the setting in the right, mystical, unobtainable doses (The big bad dabbling in something they don't understand and we won't either) automatons, or at least clockwork cybernetics of sorts, emblematic of the blight of progress, pushing out simple folk and making their lives harder while the wealthy robber barons control their manufacture and use from distant cities. I'm thinking *The Octopus* but with clockwork track-layers, coal shovelers, and even steam-driven oxen pulling Union-Pacific branded plows while the simple farmer behind on his payments to the land baron can only watch in dread at the technology in the next field slowly tilling him under with every row. The tension with Automatons can also go into John Henry veins and even spur Luddite groups to acts of sabotage and explosive, dynamite-fueled arson to fight back. minor supernatural stuff. More classics like werewolves, vampires, etc. Or, perhaps having been created by some sort of experimentation. Not a one-off, but probably a limited amount in the world the Army performing horrific and unethical experiments to better combat the First Nations The Invisible World: a strange, alien dimension overlapping the material world. perhaps some weird-science steam-tech has created a way to use the dimension for fuel, scientific study, or even the first stirrings of worm-hole travel It could be that the folk magic of the era or the exploding Spiritualist movement of the late 1800s is actually tapping into this invisible world without realizing. Spiritualism of the late 1800s: supernatural spookiness that contrasts the clockwork, steam, and steel. Some hucksters and charlatans, but also based in some reality (minor supernatural stuff) Gold/Resource Rush: We could use the almost magical ore mentioned in the original thread (coal that doesn't burn or burns with supernatural efficiency), or we could use actual gold, but I think having some resource rush (or the aftermath of one) gives us interesting tension points with desperate prospectors, sketchy land claims, and people who stand to win or lose fortunes on how quickly they act on whispered rumors. Balls: The working men and women contrasted with the rich land and business owners holding events like they're in the center of civilization, far from the frontier. Heists: a complicated plan with little to no chance of going off correctly. Horses: Work horses and steeds for riding would be important. Gadgets freedom to cobble silly gadgets and such together with that steampunk aesthetic. Saloons Steampunk prosthetics an element of the supernatural Lawlessness THINGS TO TREAD CAREFULLY WITH Monsters: minor monster stuff, there's not packs of werewolves in the canyons, but there's THE wolf man who haunts the old swamp. vampires are folklore, but people still hang garlic wreathes and draw crosses inside carriage doors, the creature that's half-man half-fish dwells in the Rio Grande, ready to pull unsuspecting bathers to its subterranean I'm ok with them not being strictly 'evil', but think it works best if they are decidedly 'monstrous’ Minor Supernatural Stuff: folk magic so subtle that most people don't believe in it anymore, but it is very much real. The gris-gris actually keeps ghosts away and might steer that bullet meant for you into the steel flask in your breast pocket. EXCLUDE Full furries Real Historical figures Automobiles Planes Zombies Werewolves Vampires THINGS TO THINK ABOUT First Nations the US Army and what frontier forts look like and how they act on the world around them POTENTIAL SETTING Large-ish town: a slightly larger town, perhaps built up around the church, with a sheriff and their deputy, a few shop owners, two saloons and a brothel that draws in enough visitors to the town from the nearby fort, mining claims and mountain trappers that everyone knows they need it.

I think there's room for everyone to have a presence in town. I'm imagining the various factions being sort of like the warring powermongers in Deadwood (the HBO series) - they are all in town, all trying to establish themselves in positions of power due to (resource) being abundant in the area and this being the main railroad stop closest to the mine, ruins, spring, or whatever source of (resource) we decide is nearby to create a gold rush feel. They need the people to follow them, to see them as the power in the area. I can imagine the schism church trying to exert its power, to spread its influence back east. I can also imagine other powerful organizations, individuals, etc. all trying to lock down their control over this town, and thus lock down their control of (resource). The aforementioned resource could be gold, the "new coal", or something else. Whatever this unobtainium is, it is valuable and rare enough that people will kill for it.

So I'm thinking about Prudence and her Ashborn, and given the setting... Prudence would very likely still be active. Perhaps her protection is a sort of frontier legend. Some people who say they've been protected by her have spread her legend, and some directly affected have now started a new faith, one of love and protection. This new faith draws all sorts of followers and is rapidly growing. Perhaps one of their first, or their very first, chapel is in the town where the players are based... Just a thought, given her wild west themed origin.

Okay, so... not a lot of discussion going on here. I'm going to post my lists of what I imagine for this setting and you guys can work from there. Things I Imagine Being in an 1880s/Wild West/Steampunk/Weird West Flavored Game Dusty boomtowns, saloons, and lawless frontier towns. Railroads, train robberies. Airships. Cursed mines. Traveling carnivals and bizarre expositions. Mad scientists in brass-and-copper laboratories. Automatons and clockwork men questioning their humanity. Creepy experiments. Tesla coils, pneumatic weapons, and steam-powered contraptions. Strange inventions with unintended consequences. Poe-style hauntings and spiritualism (séances, mediums, spirit boards). Folk religion and superstition (totem cults, skinwalker legends). Themes & Drama including Progress vs. Peril – new technology brings danger as often as salvation, and Law vs. Chaos – marshals, outlaws, and vigilantes clashing. Things I Don't Imagine Being in the Game Romero-style zombies (mindless hordes shambling about). Goofy slapstick steampunk tropes (overly cartoonish tech). Overly modern politics or moralizing that break the 1880s frontier feel. Alien invasions from outer space (though alien fossils, crashed remnants, or hints of otherworldly influence are fair game). High fantasy elves/dwarves or Tolkien tropes. Stick to Gothic, Weird West, and pulp science. Overt superhero tropes (no caped crusaders or spandex heroes, this is pulp adventure, not comic book). Pure comedy tone. Humor is fine, but the core is dramatic, atmospheric, and weird. Work from there - add to the lists, delete stuff from them, alter and edit. Let's make something interesting!

My preference would be to lean away from vampires. A vampire implies someone who turned them into a vampire, which implies other vampires, which implies hunters, which implies more than I personally wanted to include. But, a note to consider: the players don't all have to be friends. They have Relationships with each other, but they don't have to be good relationships, they just have to involve strong feelings. Consider that the original game setup for the Smallville game this system was originally designed for included pre-generated characters for both Clark Kent AND Lex Luthor. Dramatic entanglements between rivals can be even more fun. Just sayin'. This is why I like the town idea proposed earlier by WNS. There can be a bit of everything, and everyone can have widely different relationships to the same members of the community. The mid-sized town is an ideal setup for drama and passion to mix. It can be our own little steampunk Deadwood, but further west with more dust and less mud.

Prudence broke from a very harsh religion that imposed their righteousness through capital punishment of blasphemy. I think they may not be the religion that offers sanctuary, but the one many need sanctuary from. Perhaps there are at least two main religions, one old and established, seeking to bring the light of their god to the masses, including the savages. They mean well, but don't understand how oppressive they are to other beliefs, and offer sanctuary. The religion that Prudence belonged to is a very harsh, extra double plus Puritanical version of this older religion, a group that seeks to cleanse the evils of the world with fire and blood. Maybe they have their own enigmatic "prophet".

The way the system is built is why I want to hash out what the worlds look like first, then settle the players in the worlds that sound most interesting to them. If Group 1 decides no animal hybrids or a very specific implementation of them that doesn't appeal to the some players, and group 2 decides to include JRPG style animal hybrids who are there for reasons, then I want a player to have the opportunity to move to the group that contains the themes and elements they want. Which is my nice way to say: "get cracking, Group 2!"

As we build the worlds, if one goes in a direction that appeals to players in the other group, we can change groups. I can accommodate up to 6 players per game, so there's room for movement to/from either game. That's the risk you take with any TTRPG, really. Finding a group willing to commit to the long term game is difficult. I've started more online games than I can count on multiple sites and I've only ever finished a handful. That's just how it goes. But I'll never stop trying.

Honestly, I could see this working as an almost Jekyll/Hyde formula type thing. Injected with "Essence of Bear" for strength, "Essence of Wolf" for tracking/pack hunting, etc. The effects are initially temporary as the experiment begins, a boost to the soldiers for a single offensive, something that wears off. At the same time, the effect is designed to be used as a gas, dispersed over a large area to affect multiple targets at once. But these were things more like a drug, designed to weaken their opponents... "Essence of Tortoise" to slow them down, "Essence of Rabbit" to make them skittish and more likely to run than fight. Obviously there are unintended side effects. Effects last longer than predicted, subjects display physical transformation characteristics instead of just abilities, subjects of the predatory strains become violently addicted and desperate for another "fix" of the essence that gives them powers, subjects of the prey animal strains develop defensive traits of their source animals... And then one of the lab assistants steals the research for a rich, land baron zoophiliac and tries to create a harem of animal hybrid women for his own pleasure. Details of the research details are returned to Washington where actual test begin on other variants - aquatic soldiers, avians, large predatory cats... but the experiments are shut down, the soldiers euthanized amid a flurry of human/animal rights protests that end with them becoming a protected subspecies of humanity, or perhaps hybrids deemed "too dangerous" are rounded up and put into camps or preserves. Hybrids become folk legends, some feared as monsters, some exoticized as curiosities, some romanticized as tragic heroes. Traveling circuses and sideshows exploit them, billing them as things like “the Wolf-Man of Wyoming” or “The Mermaid Girl of Mississippi.” Prejudice mirrors racism and xenophobia of the time... like laws barring hybrids from towns, signs outside saloons that say, “No Beasts, No Natives, No Irish.” But it's not all negative. Some settlers and tribes believe hybrids are skinwalkers, spirit-kin, or a form of divine punishment. Cults arise worshiping hybrids as totem spirits reborn in flesh. Hybrid communities themselves splinter, some embracing their animal natures, others struggling to “cling to humanity.” Predatory hybrids addicted to their essence seek out smugglers or rogue scientists for a fix as the “essences”, now perfected into something more tolerable by humans, become contraband and are sold like opium or whiskey, used by outlaws for short bursts of power. Rival powers (European empires, secret societies) race to steal samples or recreate the formula. Some hybrids begin to breed true, even if mating with full humans, passing animal traits to their children, even if weaker or unstable. Others mutate unpredictably, creating feral, monstrous forms beyond what the scientists intended or ever imagined. Is it disease? Evolution? Or something stranger that the “essences” unlocked in human nature? Okay. I'll shut up now. Sometimes my brain goes just a little bit too far.

Ir doesn't affect the entire lore. I have decided to split the games into 2 separate, if similar, worlds. It's just easier all around. That way one can retain the gritty, darker tone that was originally intended and one can go whatever route the players wish.

Let's move to the individual game threads and start building these two, separate worlds!

Like I said earlier, those ideas were touchpoints, thematic suggestions for how I imagined the world to be. We're not copying Wells' Moreau verbatim, nor any of the referenced works specifically. Those were a vibe check, an idea of the kinds of things to expect in the world. Weird science gone awry, tampering with nature and the potential dire consequences thereof, humans struggling to bring order in the wilds... anyways, I don't know what that is. But from here, let's head to the individual threads to build out the two separate worlds. And by all means, if one world sounds better to you and you're not in it, we can swap players between groups until we start Pathways. Once we do that, you're locked in!

This is for Group 2, consisting of @SataiRolePlayingGuy, @AsBloodTurnsEverCold, @Warning, and @DreamsnThings. We're still working from the basic setup premise as described in the original "Interest Check" thread: "My favorite game system is Cortex, or more specifically, the Cortex Drama system originally developed for the Smallville RPG, improved with suggestions in the Cortex Hacker's Guide, and then brought all together in the latest version of the system, Cortex Prime. I'm considering running a dramatic game centered around a small group of PCs and their connected NPCs set in an 1880s wild west / steampunk / weird science world. Imagine someone combined the works of Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, HP Lovecraft, and HG Wells, added in a dash of Nikola Tesla, a pinch of Indiana Jones (without the Crystal Skull nonsense), mixed in Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, Annie Oakley, Doc Holliday and all the wild west tropes you can imagine, maybe added a bit of mad scientist and supernatural weird west nonsense, and dressed it all up in steampunk finery... and you're looking at the general idea for the setting. There will be over-the-top villains, square-jawed heroes, and buxom babes a plenty. Obviously, given our site, there were be lewd content and a deviation from the more buttoned-down, puritanical ways of the colonial western expansion and Victorian era, and I expect most characters to "get some" on a regular basis. In fact, I intend to add a mechanic that will make it imperative that you keep your honey pot stirred or your wick well dipped regularly in order to keep functioning at your highest level." Let's start with the basics of worldbuilding. Working from that original description: Write down anything that YOU WANT to be in this game, concepts, set pieces, species, tech, etc., for you to enjoy it. If you want there to be Automaton's write it down. If you just think they'd be cool, but you don't really care one way or the other, don't write it down. This is the list of "I want this to be in the world!" Write down anything that you DO NOT WANT in the game. If zombies will ruin the setting for you, let us know. Once we get input from everyone, we'll move on to the Pathways system.

This is for Group 1, consisting of @MagnificentBastard, @WickedCadrach, @Chiyako, @WritesNaughtyStories, and @StarlitSiren. We're still working from the basic setup premise as described in the original "Interest Check" thread: "My favorite game system is Cortex, or more specifically, the Cortex Drama system originally developed for the Smallville RPG, improved with suggestions in the Cortex Hacker's Guide, and then brought all together in the latest version of the system, Cortex Prime. I'm considering running a dramatic game centered around a small group of PCs and their connected NPCs set in an 1880s wild west / steampunk / weird science world. Imagine someone combined the works of Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, HP Lovecraft, and HG Wells, added in a dash of Nikola Tesla, a pinch of Indiana Jones (without the Crystal Skull nonsense), mixed in Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, Annie Oakley, Doc Holliday and all the wild west tropes you can imagine, maybe added a bit of mad scientist and supernatural weird west nonsense, and dressed it all up in steampunk finery... and you're looking at the general idea for the setting. There will be over-the-top villains, square-jawed heroes, and buxom babes a plenty. Obviously, given our site, there were be lewd content and a deviation from the more buttoned-down, puritanical ways of the colonial western expansion and Victorian era, and I expect most characters to "get some" on a regular basis. In fact, I intend to add a mechanic that will make it imperative that you keep your honey pot stirred or your wick well dipped regularly in order to keep functioning at your highest level." Let's start with the basics of worldbuilding. Working from that original description: Write down anything that YOU WANT to be in this game, concepts, set pieces, species, tech, etc., for you to enjoy it. If you want there to be Automaton's write it down. If you just think they'd be cool, but you don't really care one way or the other, don't write it down. This is the list of "I want this to be in the world!" Write down anything that you DO NOT WANT in the game. If zombies will ruin the setting for you, let us know. Once we get input from everyone, we'll move on to the Pathways system.

Yes, we are still talking, and nothing has been decided. That's why I was trying to clarify tone and intent. I had a vision for a game which I thought I outlined fairly well in my initial post. If the references were not familiar or seemed "ancient" then perhaps my idea is not something in which you'd be interested. I guess that's the part that confused me the most - why join a game if you don't even really understand the premise or themes involved? If you posted saying you were going to start a game based on Wild Arms, even if some of my friends were joining the game, I'd just pass it by since I don't know anything about Wild Arms. Regardless, I just want to keep things from going too far off into the weeds from my original idea. I'm planning on running a game around the themes I outlined using Cortex rules, but I also have to be into it, or running it will not be enjoyable for me. We've come up with some amazing ideas for how to include things I would not have included in this game that can still fit into the tone and themes I envisioned. DreamsnThings' idea about an experiment gone awry, a population transformed, that's exactly the kind of weird science craziness that works. We'd have to figure out how or why people received specific animal traits, perhaps come up with a limited list of animals that were involved in the experiment, etc. I'm confident that we can create a game we'll all enjoy. But if we can't or if something just seems off, that's fine, too! If it feels like our ideas just aren't compatible, or my idea is limiting your creativity, or some of us just won't have fun, I'd encourage anyone who wants to spin this off into their own game with their own ideas to do so! I am not possessive of the initial idea, or any of the ones we've built up together. This site is for fun, escapism, entertainment, and we all share the same hobby! I want us all to have fun, and if it's not with me running this, you won't hurt my feelings :)