Whitestar Points of Light?
Been getting a lot of material for the White Star RPG. Right now I'm thinking of a "Points of Light in Space" thing, with the following being an account of how I got there:
As a base setting you can have Jedi (Star Knights) fighting the Borg (Assimilants), which is very cool from the POV of a designer's toy box but harder for me to get my head around. In fact I like the Star & Void Knights, and the supplement Between Star & Void, but I also like the Psionics & Psychic Warrior Supplements plus the Vren stuff.
On top of that the Sisters of Aquarian Order & Magical Girls are also calling out to me.
The advantages of the stuff that's based obviously on existing, popular media properties is that I think it will draw the players in. It's cool to play a "Jedi" or "Sailor Scout", or even to see familiar setting trappings in the mix like the "Borg" and "Sith". On the flip side having some stuff like the Sisters and the Vren can make the setting feel like its own place rather than just a grab-bag of call outs. What I'm hoping to find is the right balance.
Firstly I wanted there to be something different about the Star & Void Knights that would distinguish them from their obvious reference to the Star Wars universe. I settled on the idea that at first there were only Void Knights, born from a cult that seeks to emulate the cold darkness of space. Members of an individualistic religion of selfishness and callousness, the Void Knights function as mercenaries and sometimes rulers with their command of the Way. They wouldn't have an Empire, nor would they necessarily be driven by anger and malice. Less Fire, more Entropy basically.
But then, over time, a few of these Knights began to fixate on the life giving warmth of starlight and idea of a possibly fragile but still holy Benevolence that had seeded these orbs of flame across the dark. Suddenly struck by the Call of the Saint, these former Void Knights became obsessed with the Good and the desperate need to redeem themselves. The Star Knights would then be manic Chaotic Good paladins (so Paladins of Freedom if we're going with 3e ideas) - compassionate & honorable to a fault, haunted with guilt-ridden nightmares but also filled with a religious ecstasy like Socrates at the top of Diotama's Ladder or Dante seeing the White Rose.
The Void Knights of course simply believe these apostates have gone insane. And upon observing the erratic Star Knights most of the galaxies' populace is inclined to agree with them.
The supplement on Magical Girls even mentions most of them dying an early death in the war against the "Gloom". Given my love of Magical Girl Madoka , it was easy to go from there and conceive of an Intelligence (like the demigod AI mentioned in the RPG supplement's text) recruiting teenagers from across the galaxy. Was the Intelligence correct when it told them the Sailor Moon plot - were the girls really incarnations of warriors meant to fight against a forgotten kingdom's enemies? Or was it merely executing its programming and possibly intentionally lying to the girls?
From there I came across two additional supplements, really system-neutral idea generators, that helped me to flesh things out some more. One was Strange Stars with its fun Transhumanism + Guardians of the Galaxy tone, and the other was the wonderfully imaginative Uncertain Worlds.
Transhumanism seemed like a good way to introduce some of the powers of Psionics without taking away from the mystical factions like the Sisters of the Aquarian Order. What seemed like Psionic disciplines could largely be "talents" grafted onto people by some kind of Uplifting Engines. Just like the Intelligence making "Sailor Scouts" these other Engines would be seeking to create warriors for long forgotten conflicts utilizing technology so advanced it seems like magic (and maybe it kinda partially is - see below). Some of these "psionic" talents would be advanced cybernetics, others might be nanite payloads. (Yes I've been watching Dark Matter...)
There could still be a place for actual Psionics but I wanted to make its stronger aspects rarer and more tied to mysticism and even the occult. Speaking of the occult, this great article from Uncertain Worlds got me thinking of forgotten empires with mysterious tech along with traveling to malevolent psychic dimensions ("Hell") as they did in Event Horizon. (Which it turns out is an adventure for White Star.)
Pulling me further into a kind of dark science fantasy setting was this beautiful "advice column" by Catherine Valente. The idea that there was a Mars in every solar system seemed too stringent a requirement to accommodate in the kind of setting I wanted to run, but Strange Stars did mention Psionically triggered Jump Gates. I could see different kinds of Jump Gates with one set leading to systems that did always feature a red planet named after a deity of war. And this, I think, would be sufficient to raise the questions Valente asks in her own piece - Is the recurrence of mars some kind of "quantum mirror" effect? And to raise a related question - are these particular Jump Gates going between Parallel Universes in some kind of Multiverse?
This science-fantasy story of hers, combined with the other stuff bouncing in my head, then made me think of a setting where war gods (and worse) might still be worshiped, where scavengers seeking salvage from floating wreckage might come across sigils and summoning circles painted with blood. Like Alan Moore's Empire of Tears before the current age of space travel there were conquerors who laughed at the idea of a rational, scientifically amenable cosmos supporting Utopian or even Democratic civilizations.
On a less gruesome note, there could be space structures built to take advantage of something from astrology.
So what is the present like? I figure there are some Corporations which in their greed driven hearts might be willingly shelter evil mystics/Void Knights/psionicists, and on top of that they're probably seeking out magi-tech and psi-tech that is better left alone. Religion abounds, ranging from small Mystery Schools to large Churches. Advanced AIs live in the Noosphere, but they've mostly hidden themselves in order to survive the previous Cataclysms. Transhumanist levels of technology are for the most part only just being recovered though successful salvage of both the tech and robots (Morvecs as Strange Stars calls them) has enabled some of the services offered before the Fall.
I'm hoping to take the above and have it buttress a Present that is somewhat Space Cyberpunk. At the same time I don't think the Corporations should be as powerful and oppressive but it seems natural to me that such entities - along with Churches and Empires - would not only form but also begin to dominate the space ways. But like in Numenera there have been multiple times interstellar - and apparently intergalactic - civilization has been wiped out. Where we are now is in the aftermath of one such Cataclysm with some few brave souls willing to try power up their FTL drives and go adventuring in the Void to see what treasures can uplift civilizations and what threats need to be neutralized before they threaten the fledgling recovery.
Some questions that will hopefully drive the players:
-What happened to the previous intergalactic civilizations?
-Given the advantage of Jump Gates even over FTL drives, who gets to decide who controls them? Corporations? Governments?
-What if the Uplift Engines aren't granting talents & powers for a previous, forgotten conflict but in preparation for something awful on the horizon?
-Are the Jump Gates safe?
-Does the Void have a Voice? Do the Stars?
As a base setting you can have Jedi (Star Knights) fighting the Borg (Assimilants), which is very cool from the POV of a designer's toy box but harder for me to get my head around. In fact I like the Star & Void Knights, and the supplement Between Star & Void, but I also like the Psionics & Psychic Warrior Supplements plus the Vren stuff.
On top of that the Sisters of Aquarian Order & Magical Girls are also calling out to me.
The advantages of the stuff that's based obviously on existing, popular media properties is that I think it will draw the players in. It's cool to play a "Jedi" or "Sailor Scout", or even to see familiar setting trappings in the mix like the "Borg" and "Sith". On the flip side having some stuff like the Sisters and the Vren can make the setting feel like its own place rather than just a grab-bag of call outs. What I'm hoping to find is the right balance.
Firstly I wanted there to be something different about the Star & Void Knights that would distinguish them from their obvious reference to the Star Wars universe. I settled on the idea that at first there were only Void Knights, born from a cult that seeks to emulate the cold darkness of space. Members of an individualistic religion of selfishness and callousness, the Void Knights function as mercenaries and sometimes rulers with their command of the Way. They wouldn't have an Empire, nor would they necessarily be driven by anger and malice. Less Fire, more Entropy basically.
But then, over time, a few of these Knights began to fixate on the life giving warmth of starlight and idea of a possibly fragile but still holy Benevolence that had seeded these orbs of flame across the dark. Suddenly struck by the Call of the Saint, these former Void Knights became obsessed with the Good and the desperate need to redeem themselves. The Star Knights would then be manic Chaotic Good paladins (so Paladins of Freedom if we're going with 3e ideas) - compassionate & honorable to a fault, haunted with guilt-ridden nightmares but also filled with a religious ecstasy like Socrates at the top of Diotama's Ladder or Dante seeing the White Rose.
The Void Knights of course simply believe these apostates have gone insane. And upon observing the erratic Star Knights most of the galaxies' populace is inclined to agree with them.
The supplement on Magical Girls even mentions most of them dying an early death in the war against the "Gloom". Given my love of Magical Girl Madoka , it was easy to go from there and conceive of an Intelligence (like the demigod AI mentioned in the RPG supplement's text) recruiting teenagers from across the galaxy. Was the Intelligence correct when it told them the Sailor Moon plot - were the girls really incarnations of warriors meant to fight against a forgotten kingdom's enemies? Or was it merely executing its programming and possibly intentionally lying to the girls?
From there I came across two additional supplements, really system-neutral idea generators, that helped me to flesh things out some more. One was Strange Stars with its fun Transhumanism + Guardians of the Galaxy tone, and the other was the wonderfully imaginative Uncertain Worlds.
Transhumanism seemed like a good way to introduce some of the powers of Psionics without taking away from the mystical factions like the Sisters of the Aquarian Order. What seemed like Psionic disciplines could largely be "talents" grafted onto people by some kind of Uplifting Engines. Just like the Intelligence making "Sailor Scouts" these other Engines would be seeking to create warriors for long forgotten conflicts utilizing technology so advanced it seems like magic (and maybe it kinda partially is - see below). Some of these "psionic" talents would be advanced cybernetics, others might be nanite payloads. (Yes I've been watching Dark Matter...)
There could still be a place for actual Psionics but I wanted to make its stronger aspects rarer and more tied to mysticism and even the occult. Speaking of the occult, this great article from Uncertain Worlds got me thinking of forgotten empires with mysterious tech along with traveling to malevolent psychic dimensions ("Hell") as they did in Event Horizon. (Which it turns out is an adventure for White Star.)
Pulling me further into a kind of dark science fantasy setting was this beautiful "advice column" by Catherine Valente. The idea that there was a Mars in every solar system seemed too stringent a requirement to accommodate in the kind of setting I wanted to run, but Strange Stars did mention Psionically triggered Jump Gates. I could see different kinds of Jump Gates with one set leading to systems that did always feature a red planet named after a deity of war. And this, I think, would be sufficient to raise the questions Valente asks in her own piece - Is the recurrence of mars some kind of "quantum mirror" effect? And to raise a related question - are these particular Jump Gates going between Parallel Universes in some kind of Multiverse?
This science-fantasy story of hers, combined with the other stuff bouncing in my head, then made me think of a setting where war gods (and worse) might still be worshiped, where scavengers seeking salvage from floating wreckage might come across sigils and summoning circles painted with blood. Like Alan Moore's Empire of Tears before the current age of space travel there were conquerors who laughed at the idea of a rational, scientifically amenable cosmos supporting Utopian or even Democratic civilizations.
On a less gruesome note, there could be space structures built to take advantage of something from astrology.
So what is the present like? I figure there are some Corporations which in their greed driven hearts might be willingly shelter evil mystics/Void Knights/psionicists, and on top of that they're probably seeking out magi-tech and psi-tech that is better left alone. Religion abounds, ranging from small Mystery Schools to large Churches. Advanced AIs live in the Noosphere, but they've mostly hidden themselves in order to survive the previous Cataclysms. Transhumanist levels of technology are for the most part only just being recovered though successful salvage of both the tech and robots (Morvecs as Strange Stars calls them) has enabled some of the services offered before the Fall.
I'm hoping to take the above and have it buttress a Present that is somewhat Space Cyberpunk. At the same time I don't think the Corporations should be as powerful and oppressive but it seems natural to me that such entities - along with Churches and Empires - would not only form but also begin to dominate the space ways. But like in Numenera there have been multiple times interstellar - and apparently intergalactic - civilization has been wiped out. Where we are now is in the aftermath of one such Cataclysm with some few brave souls willing to try power up their FTL drives and go adventuring in the Void to see what treasures can uplift civilizations and what threats need to be neutralized before they threaten the fledgling recovery.
Some questions that will hopefully drive the players:
-What happened to the previous intergalactic civilizations?
-Given the advantage of Jump Gates even over FTL drives, who gets to decide who controls them? Corporations? Governments?
-What if the Uplift Engines aren't granting talents & powers for a previous, forgotten conflict but in preparation for something awful on the horizon?
-Are the Jump Gates safe?
-Does the Void have a Voice? Do the Stars?
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