The City Cloaked in Stars
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For over sixty years, Ethel has tended the starfruit gardens, and before that she worked them decades more under their previous master. There is no one older in all of the City, there is no one who keeps more of the City's history beyond her. She tells the stories of the Sisters of Midnight who once sat the Spire and looked over the City and maintainer their neutrality. She tells the coming of the High Court and how they displaced the Sisters and thought to rule over all that they could see.
For all of her stories, she does not know who made the City. When she was a little girl, no one else did either.
The current denizens call it the City Cloaked in Stars, for there is no day, only the cool of night and the sparkle of an endless sky above. The only way to tell the passage of time within the City is the Turning of the Lady, the huge moon swathed in bands of purple, reds and swirling blue that fills the whole of the sky for one day, once a month; that and the Maiden, the glimmering pearl of white that crosses over the sky from horizon to horizon over the course of the day.
The City is filled with unearthly wonders and impossible things. Its marble towers are not climbed with stairs but platforms that float at speed, its rooms warmed or lit by commands traced into silvered runes embedded in the walls. That is a common pattern for what powers the magic of the City, but it is not universal. There is no two buildings alike, no two places that do not offer their own mysteries.
For all of its alien wonder, the City is clearly tied to our world, to Earth, because every so often, someone Becomes. You have laid your head down to sleep, perhaps at home, perhaps far afield from your home, and you slept. You awaken in the Garden of Becoming, and are now a denizen of the City Cloaked in Stars.
But who are you? Perhaps you are a Roman Centurian, with ambitions to rise high. Perhaps you are a Sheriff in the wild west, meant to keep the peace. Perhaps you are a computer science student from Boston, thinking of the next big breakthrough. Perhaps you are an assistant to the Emperor of China. You come from our world, from earth, but from any time in the past to the present.
You know nothing of the City save for one thing: you understand everyone and they can understand you, and you can read the silvered runes.
You can not help but stare at the Spire, and you will in time learn of the Lords of the High Court that think to rule the City from there.
But first you will learn the Lady's Laws, for Becoming is not complete until that is done.
You walk through the garden-- the flowers luminescent-- and find a platform upon which is a simple hand mirror. You lift it and hear: CATCH NOT THE LIGHT OF THE LADY WITHIN A MIRROR.
The voice of the Lawkeeper, and you know him. He rests beneath the Spire in the Chamber of Law. You will, in time, be told that he does not enforce the rule of the High Court, though his presence beneath their Spire gives some credibility to their claim to rule.
He enforces the Lady's Laws, those Laws told to you in the Garden of Becoming, Laws that no one remembers writing, Laws that no one in Ethel's early times remembered writing either. They simply are, and he is the ruthless and efficient enforcer of these Laws. He needs no witnesses, no evidence, for he is the Law and the Law is him, and he knows when the Law is transgressed. He can be ruthless, at times, but where could one go?
The City is bounded by four rivers and four towers that keep the rivers from ever touching, for The Waters of the Four Must Never Meet -- So says the Lady's Law.
Beyond the rivers are other lands, poorer lands, but lands which must be harvested to maintain the City.
Lands which must be defended from as well.
There is much to do in the City: there are jobs as in any City, but there are also adventurers. Simply exploring a building no one in memory has explored can uncover wonders. Or perhaps you join one of the hunting bands, and fall prey on the Stone Eaters of the Broken Valley beyond one of the rivers. Not everyone is, after all, satisfied with eating the only food produced in the City itself -- starfruit.
Or perhaps you simply want to explore the lands beyond for a time, though not too much time -- the reach of the Lawkeeper is long.
There are many groups within the city, factions. Some are explorers, gatherers, fighters. The Wild Hunt would take the City for themselves if they could and so their attacks must be repulsed. The Taken Army resists the High Court, but the Taken King is not much loved, for the Taken are slaves from beyond the City, and not everyone approves of slavery. But it is the Taken that serve Ethel's gardens, the Taken that delve into the Deepness and find the Seeds, and the Taken that work the Nightforge that keeps the City awake.
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Okay, after all that time trying to think of what game to make to learn me some Ares, I decided... to do something completely different. FS3, modified, probably. I know this seems like a high magic setting and it is but that's all in stuff inherent in the City, not stuff characters use to, like, fight.
BTW, Characters have no powers, but there are magical items. All OC's, I think, no being Elvis.
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To be clear, this is a quasi-announcement, making this for real. If anyone would show up
Some more setting information:
- There's no "magic", but the City has some unique properties. Among them as part of Becoming, you slow your aging slightly, and you will only die of an act of will or old age. (This uses FS3's KO system but its not the reason for it -- as long as someone doesn't specifically intend a blow to kill, it may be grievous but will neither kill nor maim permanently. All wounds will heal in time)
- This is not a L&L game but people can play Lords or Ladies. I don't mean from the old life but in the City. There's more then one competing ruling faction. (The competition is bitter but not personal and it doesn't stop people from going on an adventure together)
- I'm undecided if I should add roster chars considering how open ended the 'what character you are' thing is.
- The focus is on mystery, discovery and adventure. Maybe a little light-fantasy politics. The periodic war against the Wild Hunt.
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Is this more Riverworld, where you are there now forever and ever? Or is this more like Everworld, where you wake up and bounce back and forth between places?
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@jennkryst I don't know those references, but if anyone finds a way back, that'd be a major plot development.
Growing from being who you were to who you are is something I find fun.
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A thought occurs to me. (This will be a file written in game)
The mood and atmosphere of this game is light fantasy, mystery and adventure.
I will absolutely love to see a samurai, a gold rush sheriff's deputy, and a NYPD firefighter face off against a Stone Eater and try to bring it down, each playing up their tropes.
Period-accuracy for the character portrayal is not of interest to me. This game's theme being disconnected from time isn't a license to make some racist, sexist, homophobe who goes around being an asshole to everyone, just because, hey, you're a Knight from the 1100's and gay, black, women fighters didn't happen to you.
Play up the iconic symbols of your period roles without abusing people. Yes I expect to take responsibility for enforcing this.
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@ixokai Riverworld is a pseudo-afterlife thing on a SpaceAlien planet made of nothing but a giant river valley. ~40 Billion human souls are put into clone bodies and let loose for mysterious reasons. People there range from pre-historic humans to folks from (insert date of the end of the world here).
Everworld, meanwhile, was written by K. A. Applegate, of Animorphs fame. Basically ALL GODS AND MYTHOLOGIES ARE REAL, and exist in a pocket dimension away from reality (but decided to take all their loyal followers with them). But it's not a perfect copy of Earth, so AztecLand is literally right next to NorseWorld and EgyptVille (which are frequently invaded for folks to sacrifice). Fast forward to modern day, the player characters are YOINKED from the real world and dropped into Everworld (but only kinda sorta? There is a copy of themselves in the real world going through the motions, and every time their Everworld self goes to sleep, Realworld gets an update).
It's an idea I've been toying with for a while, but SO MANY IDEAS are in the queue ahead of it.
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@jennkryst said in The City Cloaked in Stars:
@ixokai Riverworld is a pseudo-afterlife thing on a SpaceAlien planet made of nothing but a giant river valley. ~40 Billion human souls are put into clone bodies and let loose for mysterious reasons. People there range from pre-historic humans to folks from (insert date of the end of the world here).
Everworld, meanwhile, was written by K. A. Applegate, of Animorphs fame. Basically ALL GODS AND MYTHOLOGIES ARE REAL, and exist in a pocket dimension away from reality (but decided to take all their loyal followers with them). But it's not a perfect copy of Earth, so AztecLand is literally right next to NorseWorld and EgyptVille (which are frequently invaded for folks to sacrifice). Fast forward to modern day, the player characters are YOINKED from the real world and dropped into Everworld (but only kinda sorta? There is a copy of themselves in the real world going through the motions, and every time their Everworld self goes to sleep, Realworld gets an update).
It's an idea I've been toying with for a while, but SO MANY IDEAS are in the queue ahead of it.
Ah, yeah this is not quite like either of those though if you were to ask a choice, I'd say Riverworld. People are Becoming from all time, but then they're here. Some will fit in naturally, some will struggle.
The City is the center of it, but there's life beyond people. The City's inhabitants are all earth-people. But beyond the City? Things get strange. So far I've defined two of the four closest neighbors, and only one in detail. But this isn't like...everyone. The City's population is like thousands where it could hold millions.
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The City's politics are sorta complicated. The most powerful faction, the High Court, solidly controls half the City and has fingers in others. They have a near-monopoly on alcohol, largely because they have the only large-scale starfruit garden outside of the Starfruit Gardens that feed most of the city. Almost no one else can compete at scale. Those that try, well. The High Guard enforce the canons, and the Veils of the High Court define the canons. The High Court is concerned with order.
Territoriality, the Dragon Cadre (they aren't dragons; just horse-size lizards that can be ridden) is the second most powerful. Divided into castes and bands, they follow the First who is selected from their number annually. The Dragon Bands hire themselves out as guards, warriors, hunters, and fulfill contracts faithfully. They are concerned with honor.
The last, the Taken King, is the head of a slave army and has one enclave of a quarter of the city headily fortified, the rest... its all a protection racket (not that any other quarter isn't slightly). He's all bout freedom/chaos/anarchy. He's also largely the personally richest person in the City, because hey, he's got a lot of slaves (the Taken Army). He also has the single largest source of meat imports in the City, since on his raids into the Stone Eater territory, he brings back many kinds of spoils. He's concerned entirely with power.
Those are the three big political organizations. There's more affiliations and not everyone (in fact, not most) would identify with any of the big three strongly.
The Guilds are a secondary path to power and justice...
