Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Collaborative Campaign Setting: Coup D'etat, Part II - Enhanced Groundwork

We're doing a new RPG, a Mutants and Masterminds game currently codenamed "Coup D'etat." In order to make sure everyone knows the general layout of the setting, we all jammed to hammer out the foundations of the setting. Before we play again Saturday night, I've got a lot of setting work to do, so I'm posting regular updates. Here's today's:

Characters
-T's: Hellworld native. Lives on a lunar station orbiting his home planet
-J's: Shapeshifter from a planet in a rim sector.
-D's: Teleporter from the Infusers Alliance
-R's: Shipborn. His whole life. Supersoldier.
-Space Voice: Finding it in an old, neglected area or something.
-KT: Ship pilot. Roguish.

Geography
-The ship itself and its geography.
-Our headquarters: Space Voice leads them to the headquarters. Abandoned because no one else gets it to work. Base on an overlooked planet in a busy solar system.
-"Serious Nebula": Base of operations or home for one or more species. With planets with species.
-"Variety"
-Timeworld for teleporters' home.
-Worlds with specific resources with difficulties concerning extracting those resources
-Primitive natives vs resources
-Shapeshifters are from a specific planet. There are less sentient ones. They find new resources and leverage to get more from those resources. 
-The empty sector. Probably in Pris, KAMTASA, or Free Alliance areas

Politics
-Infusers:
          Engineering Society/Alliance – Build things with influence on technology.
-Slemmgraise
          Teleportation Guys – Major Alliance or economic interest
-KAMTASA
          Alliance headed up by the S'Szera. Lizard people at war with the Pris
-Pris
          Alliance headed up by the Pris. Lizard people at war with the S'Szera
The S'Szera and the Pris are two lizard people who can smell one another's pheromones. They have a deep-seated cultural hate of one another, stemming from religious admonitions not against one another, but against members of their own society who have mutations that affect their pheromones. S'Szera and Pris are nearly identical to outsiders, having similar accents, physical characteristics, and attitudes, but are immensely put out whenever others physically or generally group them together.
-Massert NoSve
          Manipulative space Sweden alliance
-Free Alliance
          Just completed a civil war
          Rebels won and took over
-Rim Sectors
          Unaligned sector on the edge of space. Possibly under attack from the Big Bad. Contains J's shapeshifter race.

Other Organizations:
Anthroai
          Samurai Wasps work to support alliances throughout the Galaxy.
Novo Zurai
          Space Mafia with ties to Massert NoSve, the PROTECTORS, and Zurai
Zurai
          The previous great civilization (Deceased)
PROTECTORS
          AI/Robotic remnants of the Zurai
          Mostly destroyed by the Slemmgraise
Obelisk worshippers
          Obelisks' origins are the Obelisk Ships. New vs old school worship: worshipping obelisks vs obelisk-like race (even though the obelisk-race are pretty dumb). 
 
Other Ideas:
-Monolith Alliance
-Non-Insect Samurai of the Galaxy: Abuses of power that justify itself. 
-An Alliance with an entrenched space-bureaucracy. Semi-Ineffective Royal Oligarchy.
-The Collective: A group of individuals which share a network for governing. Scattered armories a poor, cobbled-together navy. Benignly racist.

History
Time and History
100 years in a Reign
100 Reigns in an Era
100 Eras in a cycle
10 Decis in a year
10 pers in a Deci
100 hours in a per

19th Year of the 80th Reign, Era 55
73rd Reign: Zurai Civilization Collapses
73rd-75th Reign: Zurai-built PROTECT AIs run most of the galaxy, alongside many other races
75th Reign: Slemmgraise come to power and form an alliance. They destroy the PROTECT.
76th Reign:
          The Pris come to dominate the "Chaotic Quarter" of the galaxy, aided by the Massert NoSve
77th Reign:
          Arthroai spread through the galaxy and become embroiled in a series of civil wars
          Infusers War begins, allying rim sectors against the Pris Alliance
          Infusers Alliance and the Pris reach an accord.
78th Reign:
          Arthroai civil wars spread and they find a new unity.
          Pris and Massert NoSve fight a series of low-key conflicts as the Pris try to conquer them
          S'Szera join and dominate the KAMATA, making it the KAMATAS. Intercene war with the Pris ensues.
79th Reign:
          Pris/KAMATAS war continues
          Slemmgraise teleportation contracts extend to the Infusers Alliance
          90th Year: Free Alliance Civil War begins.
80th Reign:
          9th Year: Battle of Borough. Federal Alliance forces crushed by Freedom Forces.
          11th Year: Free Alliance formally established and the civil war ended. May suspect involvement of the Novo Zurai.
          12th Year: Rim shapeshifters establish formal relations and establish an embassy in the 100s Tenement of the Slemmgraise Embassy System.
          18th Year: Strikes on the Rim Shapeshifters' planet.

-Patron gods for planets/ cultures. "Fates." Very modern gods.
-Contacting other galaxies is a historic fact.
-Lots of undiscovered ground in the Galaxy.

Biology
-Infusers
          Small race that is good with technology. Clever perceptive strategic. Put their life force/soul into matter. Some can do a permanent change. Prominent in the Infusers Alliance, but have a small population, despite that.

-???
          Manipulative space Sweden. Center a sector or alliance –wide conflict. Profiting from the war. Socially excel at manipulation and strategy. Don't know if this is a race or an alliance, as they have a political role, but no physical or cultural one. The Massert NoSve are the political incarnation of this. Whether they're dominated by this race, or a collection of races is TBD. Open to input.
-Ampheng
          Toadlike. Stubborn. Showing an affinity for earth, fire, or water. Social divergence. Earth->Water->Fire. Near-immortality. Maybe fades over time. Protection whenever they've taken damage from a certain source. Some kind of proto-adaptable ability. Their role is still undecided. Could represent Massert NoSve underclass, the dominant race in the Free Alliance, or even a prominent race within another place like KAMTASA or Slemmgraise Alliance.

-Edgeshapes
          Shapeshifter.  Adaptable/ genetically unstable. Adapt to any planet. Social. Not physically aggressive. 

-Arthroai
          Samurai Insects. Hivemind. Military regime. Goal oriented. Not necessarily bad. Galaxy Protectors. Bodyguards, defenders. Ancient Japanese theme with Queen. Carapace color representing which subhive they work from. Shy away from politics. Hive wars in their history. Internal conflict is taboo now.

-Fantasaurs
          Non-sapient hellworld race. 1% sapeince. Apex predator. Pack predator. More saurian than mammalian, but they have characteristics of both.

-Slemmgraise
          Humanoid. Self-teleporting and teleporting larger things. Natural spacefarers. Solar system with nearby planetoids/Asteroid belt/ Gas giant with lots of moons. Jumping further in larger groups. Commercial uses. Slendermen meets grays

-???
          Engineering Race that dominates the Engineering Alliance. Maybe. Again, these are described more politically than physically. :( The Infusers seem to fill this role pretty well.

-Chloroshen
          Plant life with monastic/fighter culture with neturality and balance. Emotion-based telepathy/empathy. A prominent race within the Pris Alliance.

-The Monoliths
           They are giant monoliths. Their speech patterns resemble those of The Guardian of Forever.

-Pris
            A saurian race with broad shoulders, long snouts, and four eyes. They're otherwise humanoid (with scales, a brownish color, sharp teeth. Pretty standard saurian stuff). They're the leaders of the Pris Alliance, though a number of lesser races are allied with them. The Pris tend to be both sensitive about their cultural traditions and rigorously indifferent to those of others. While not xenophobic, per se, they certainly prefer the company of the famliar.

-S'Szera
           Another saurian race, to non-saurian laymen, the two are indistinguishable. The pheromones between the two actually lend their personal interactions to violence, and most have noted that the war between the S'Szera-lead KAMTASA and the Pris Alliance is the largest, longest, and most brutal conflict in known galactic history. One would be remiss to overlook the economic, political, religious, and even historic divides that exist between the two. The S'Szera boast more open attitudes, more empathy, and a corresponding greater capacity for overall cruelty their enemies, giving them a different demeanor, if nothing else.

-Networked AI race.
-Maybe a Flash Gordon race (?!)
-Non-militaristic insectoid race.

Tech
-Exo-suits (ES, aka "eeze", aka "E"s) instead of fighters
-Transportation done via Slemmgraise, standard ship propulsion. Some gating, mass effect-like structures, etc.
-LosTech (previous civilizations. Mostly Zurai)
-Variety in technology instead of one-size-fits-all energy
-Diverse weapons. Pistol/Shot gun/Sniper Rifle/Very Diverse Heavy Weapons . High & Low tech. Miniaturized version of current weapons (micromissiles)
-Melee weapons (The slow blade still penetrates)
-Amounts of Biology "Zerg meets Trinity"
-Space Magic
-Artifical Life: Mysterious Galactic Cognitive Speed Limit.
-Immortality is very rare, if present at all 

Purpose/Central Conflict
Final Answer: Ancient "computer in a cave" social figure-now discredited/unbelieved/unregarded by the powerful, chooses the players to unite the galaxy in advance of a coming enemy that the current power system does not believe in.

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