Distant Worlds: Aballon Rising

Game Master Grimcleaver

Quotient, also known as "the Exodus", is a divided city. Providing power to fulfill the limitless hunger of the deep mining aballonians has granted the energy interests of Quotient, a small council of brain-bots and their logistical cadres, a staggering amount of wealth and power.

Quotient is also a factory city, home to a gifted and idealistic master designer known as the Lyracist and a priesthood of obsolete or outdated aballonians who make the arduous trek to see him--their only hope that he will see some inspiration in their malfunctioning grotesquery and remake them into the envy of machine society. Otherwise they face dismemberment and reclaimation.

Meanwhile in the backstreets gangs of outmods band together to target and assimilate the dragonfly shaped reclaimers that are always on the prowl for them. These old model bots have remade themselves into the apex predators of their sectors--and when they have finished with each reclaimer, they part out their foes amongst themselves, retooling themselves in a frenzy of backalley upgrades to become even more fearsome carbon scarred monstrosities.

There are others as well, political dissidents and revolutionaries, pilgrims choosing deletion on their own terms by striking out on heroic suicide missions, upgrade addicts so maddened by their desire to outrun obsolescence they have turned to cannibalism, and researchers intrigued by the strange organoforms that have begun to teem and multiply in the liquid water coolant shafts established in the ice wells surrounding the city.

Ever since Distant Worlds came out I've been excited to do a game set entirely on one of those amazing worlds. Quotient is a noir machine city flavored by Blade Runner, Tron: Legacy, the Machine City from the Matrix, with a little bit of Cybertron from the old Transformers cartoons.

So if you're interested in getting in on it, let me know!

Sounds really interesting, but I'd like to know more details.

Is Distant Worlds a pathfinder setting? If it isn't Pathfinder, is there an SRD for the system?

What character generation protocols should we use?

I'm interested too, but will this be a PbP or VTT game?

Distant worlds was one of the most interesting reads and playing in a game set in one of those worlds does sound really interesting.

I too have similar questions then Doomed Hero though, how do you see the character creation? Will it be the standard Golarion fantasy heroes that for some reason end up on Aballon and find themselves in an unknown environment or will the players be native to Quotient?

Anyhow.. dotting for interest!

I'm also interested. Same questions as above.

Awesome. Glad to see the interest!

To answer some of your questions: I'll be running the game play by post style here on the forums, no virtual tabletops or anything--pure narrative, no maps (well maybe a little doodle map in Paint if folks get confused).

Distant Worlds is indeed Pathfinder. Aballon is in fact a planet in the same solar system as Golarion, the equivalent of Mercury. It's rich in metals, lead-meltingly hot by day and freeze you solid cold at night, and peopled almost entirely by artificially intelligent robots. There are quite a few "ice wells" on the planet which support miserable forms of biological life...one of them even has a handful of poor schlubs from Golarion stuck in it. It's called Horsethroat. It's pretty unpleasant.

My hope for the game is that it be a story set on Aballon with aballonian characters (so yeah, robots--yay!) This brings us to character creation. Distant Worlds has a prebuilt mid level aballonian, but I think for our purposes I'd like to do something a little different (and easier). Build your character with 20 ability points (as per the "Purchase" option for stat generation on pg. 15 of the Core Rulebook). You may modify these values with a +2/-2 to any two stats if you'd like.

Special abilities include: Shortwave Communication (100' range), Sunlight Dependant (sickened in areas of darkness), Lowlight vision (60'), and Construct Traits.

Classes are nearly the same as for a regular character. There are aballonian wizards and monks and barbarians. It's spelled out pretty clearly in the book that since aballonians have no souls, there are no aballonian clerics, and probably no paladins or druids either. Bummer.

Money (aka. Value): These things work a little differently. Machines don't carry around gold coins or spend them in marketplaces. Instead every Aballonian has a Value, which corresponds roughly to the gold per level listings in the book. Likewise as machines, most gear takes the form of upgrades--and are physically bolted on. You start with a Value of 100. Machines will be gladly granted upgrades by the modification bots of any city up to their total value. There's going to be some reflavoring here. A heavy mace might be an auger drill assembly. A longsword might be a reciprocating powersaw. A sling might be a low voltage shock emitter. Same goes for armor and adventuring gear--it's all upgrades.

So hopefully that helps. If there's more questions please ask!

That does sound all kinds of awesome. Need to think of a character concept :p, and will definitely make an character application for this.

PS. One of the first things that popped straight in my mind when reading your post is the machinesmith class (D20PFSRD), that could function as a repair-o-bot in such a setting. Don't know if that's something you'll allow or you prefer to stick to Paizo only material.

Anyway, need to find some time to browse through the core class archetypes to get more inspiration for things that work thematically as a robot.

Oh hell yeah.

I'm thinking of a shapeshifter ranger who's abilities I can re-fluff as parts rearranging themselves like a transformer.

I'll have a full submission up on Sunday or Monday.

This sounds very interesting. So we'd be playing a bunch of constructs? I think an aballon magus who uses Spellstrike with his slam attacks would be awesome.

Dotting, will wait for more details to make a character. Do Aballons have an alignment?

This sounds very interesting. So we'd be playing a bunch of constructs? I think an aballon magus who uses Spellstrike with his slam attacks would be awesome.

Dotting, will wait for more details to make a character. Do Aballons have an alignment?

As sentient artificially intelligent machines they have alignment and class levels (with class based hit points. The construct traits are listed here for you.

Basically they get 20 bonus hitpoints if medium (or 10 if small), don't need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe, are immune to necromancy, bleed conditions, stunning, poison, disease, mind affecting abilities, ability drain, fatigue, death or sleep effects. They have lowlight and darkvision. They also can't heal magically or naturally (they must be repaired or magically mended). They are irreparably destroyed at 0 hit points and cannot be raised (though a wish would probably still work). They are also immune to anything that requires a Fortitude save and effectively have a Constitution of 10.

Sunlight Dependant (sickened in areas of darkness), Lowlight vision (60'), and Construct Traits.

Darkvision 60' is already part of Construct. Interestingly, Sickened, is one of the few conditions Constructs are not immune to...

As Constructs, do spells like Mending & Make Whole work to heal the PC's?

Probably going to go with either a Sorcerer or Wizard I think. More likely Sorcerer since 're-skinning' a Spellbook seems odd to me. Will check & see which Bloodline would be most appropriate, I think there is a 'Stargazer' type bloodline, that might be interesting, the time when the character is most 'spiritually' whole is also the time when most 'corporeally' disabled...

Yeah, I noticed the darkvision thing after I'd already posted it.

As for Mending and Make Whole, yep those are your healing spells.

Y'know actually it was a lot easier for me to envision an Aballonian wizard with a digital spellbook uploaded onto a special arcane drive. The bloodline part of sorcerers is the weird part. Dragons and elementals and whatnot can't really breed with robots at all, so where would you get a bloodline from? I haven't really been able to figure out how to handle that. It's been hard to see a way for the class to work, but I really want to kill as few class options as possible.

I could see maybe certain lineages of machine share a lot of basic archetecture, so maybe there could be arcane "bloodlines" that come from machines of a similar model or created by the same design-bots.

But on the whole a wizard is a lot easier to grasp...for me at least.

It could be as simple as semi-organic structures with the constructs that can manipulate arcane forces the same way that particular bloodline does. Microscopic arrays that mimic organic cells in some way.

You mentioned researchers that have become obsessed with the basic organic life growing in the water systems in some sectors. Perhaps their experiments gave rise to the sorcerers?

Also, as the Paizo Devs have pointed out with regards to Android Sorcerers, don't get quite so hung up on Bloodline as regards Sorcerers.
In essence, an Abalonnian Sorcerer could just as easily have had their core AI code 'infected' with some manner of arcane virus, particularly as I was re-reading the Bloodlines in the CRB, APG & Ultimate Magic & I'm actually leaning more towards Protean or Maestro than Starsoul now. Maestro might make sense if we/I were associated with Lyracist & Protean or even possibly Aberrant could readily represent such an 'infection'.

I kind of like the idea of arcane computer viruses. That's really cool.

I guess my big request would be that whatever the aballonian bloodlines are, that much like gear they should probably be reflavored quite a bit to reflect the machine nature of the characters (whether arcane viruses, related design models, or other causes) rather than having to do with the kind of mortal/monster gene-mingling of which aballonians just aren't capable.

By the way, I'm not super privvy to what the developers have revealed about Aballon and it's inhabitants yet--but I'd love to stick to all of it as much like gospel canon as possible. Could someone give me a primer on what we know beyond what's in the Distant Worlds entry? Thanks!

It reminds me of the race Warforged, am I close to the basic concept/idea. Not 100% sure if I am committed but interesting setting irregardless :)

By the way, I'm not super privy to what the developers have revealed about Aballon and it's inhabitants yet--but I'd love to stick to all of it as much like gospel canon as possible. Could someone give me a primer on what we know beyond what's in the Distant Worlds entry? Thanks!

To my knowledge, there isn't really much of anything beyond the Distant Worlds entry regarding Aballon. There may be a paragraph or two in the Inner Sea World Guide, but that is more likely to be information that was then refined in Distant Worlds than it is to be completely unique from the information in Distant Worlds.

Doomed Hero here.

After some thinking I changed my idea. I decided to go with a Summoner.

The idea is drawn from the Replicators from Stargate. Amalgus is an entity comprised of a whole bunch of component blocks that can be rearranged into smaller specialized forms. They run out of power quickly so they have to be reintegrated with the core system to recharge.

Essentially, Amalgus is an animated pile of self-willed lego blocks that rearrange themselves as needed.

Really digging Amalgus. Making a summoner whose "summoned" creatures are modular bots that he's composed of Voltron-style is freakin' amazing man. Congrats, you're player #1. I'm hoping to keep this group to a cozy three player game (four...maybe if my mind is blown by a must-have character pitch). I'll be really interested to see who else we get! This is gonna' be a good one.

Will design and pitch a character this evening as soon as i get home from home.

You didn't answer my previous question, would you allow the machinesmith class? Been meaning to try it out for a while but so far it has never really fit in any game i played in, but sounds fitting here.

If not, no worries, I'll find something else to pitch ^^.

Will design and pitch a character this evening as soon as i get home from home.

You didn't answer my previous question, would you allow the machinesmith class? Been meaning to try it out for a while but so far it has never really fit in any game i played in, but sounds fitting here.

If not, no worries, I'll find something else to pitch ^^.

Sorry I hadn't caught your question. I took a look over the class and it seems like a fun fit for the campaign, yeah. I'll be interested to take a look at your pitch. Thanks for your interest!

Whew. Glad you like the concept. I was kind of afraid it was too out there conceptually. Combined with the fact that Summoners are a class that not everyone is a fan of, I was thinking the combination might be risky.

This looks like the game for me. :)

Looking forward to the rest of the submissions.

Her_Lotho here.

Started writing some background (see profile), might need a bit more work. Feel free to let me know you like it or not.

Still have to do the crunch as well, hoping to do that tomorrow.

Her_Lotho here.

Started writing some background (see profile), might need a bit more work. Feel free to let me know you like it or not.

Still have to do the crunch as well, hoping to do that tomorrow.

So far I like it. Two things though. First off there isn't any glitch required for aballonians to rise above their code and become self aware--the entire race are AIs by default, from the teeniest nanoform to the most gargantuan mining bot they are born free and choose their philosophies and politics for themselves. That said, there's a possibility of secret black factories that make preprogramed drones that can't think for themselves as tools to further their agendas, but it'd be a practice akin to slavery and wholely abominable to ordinary machines regardless of faction.

Second, a little background on the Lyracist. He's a banner carrying member of Those Who Become and spends most of his creative process rubbing axles with the cult of malfunctioning outmods that flock to him for salvation. He is fascinated by their deformities and often uses them as a jumping off point for revolutionary and popular designs. An outmod thus upgraded becomes the new apex of the Becomer design aesthetic and is saved from certain doom at the claws of the reclaimers. He's the last bot in the world who would scrap a design for being old or broken--that's where his passions lie. He like the Tim Burton of the machine design world, creepy and old fashioned is like gold to him.

This is not to say that your series weren't created by a rival designer affiliated with Those Who Wait, spreading a doctrine of uniformity and the purging of imperfection as the ideals that will call back the First Ones. That's actually a fun ideology and creates a nice antagonist for the pro-Lyracists. Not to mention it's wonderfully in keeping with the atmosphere of destructive factionalism and ideological fanatacism that runs rampant in Quotient.

So it's your call whether you'd like to keep your character a Lyracist design in light of this new information or if you'd like to come up with your own designer as part of your storyline that I'll weave into the story. Either way should be a lot of fun.

I'll sleep on it and update it tomorrow :)

Whew. Glad you like the concept. I was kind of afraid it was too out there conceptually. Combined with the fact that Summoners are a class that not everyone is a fan of, I was thinking the combination might be risky.

This looks like the game for me. :)

Looking forward to the rest of the submissions.

Seeing as your character is a Lyracist design, it got me wondering who he used to be before his redesign. I sort of like the idea that he was a bot who'd been attacked by cannibals and salvaged and parted out, his undercarrage picked clean and left for dead--but while he sat helpless in a pile of scrap he was able to contact a number of much smaller bots and forge an alliance with them, to use him as an armature, a skeleton for a bigger, more powerful form--to pool their resources and join together to become...Amalgus.

At some point then the Lyracist became infatuated with the idea and offered you a redesign, to make your collective seamless and more functional, to give your various members greater symbiosis with one another, and to raise you up as an example of machine evolution.

That sounds like an excellent backstory. It gives me a lot to work with.

Physically, I'd pictured Amalgus as an open framework of vaguely humanoid design with a central power source anchored in it, covered in a commune of smaller robots.

There might only be ten or so cat sized bots at first, but as Amalgus levels up, it's components will get smaller and more complex. At first it will be something like volition or devastator, but eventually will become more like a walking beehive full of nanomachines who can all interlock to form many types of complex units.

Very cool.

In line of what you posted:

I was thinking, what if IPA-42 was part of a series of uniform units , followers of those who wait, who make it their life's work to stay as uniform and updated as possible by constant self-repairs and upgrades.

However life in Quotient among the grotesqueries of the Lyracist has perhaps made IPA-42 doubt whether all this work is worth it.

So IPA-42 decided to abandon the constant self-repairs and self-maintenance for the time being to try and figure out for itself what the meaning of its life should be.

Personality-wise: I would assume this makes IPA-42 somewhat paranoid about becoming damaged or outdated.

I really like this idea of a group that pursues perfection at such a cost that they are willing to sacrifice all distinctiveness--down to their very sentience in their desire to please the First Ones, and wonder the streets of the Exodus preaching their doctrine, like a cadre of perfect unblemished machines, beautiful and symetrical. Like an army of supermodels sent to convert people into getting plastic surgery and liposuction because the way they look is "wrong". That's very creepy and fun and has a cool THX-1138 vibe to it.

I'm intrigued enoug to give this some thought. If the group is veering too far into the arcane direction, I can come up with something else, but my first thought is to grab Doomed Hero's sorcerer idea and run with it. I can see either an elemental or primal sorcerer, with his air elemental powers being explained by quirks in his design, such as the fact that he runs hotter than usual, or say, exposed wires. He would likely be one of Those Who Become, with possible religious attitudes about the Epoch.

Or possibly a gunslinger, who could be a warrior for either group.

Sure. I think your gunslinger idea could be a fun way to go. Type up a pitch and I'll take a look at it. You might be our third player which means we could get this game going soon.

Grimcleaver, I saw your reply to my reskinning question and your promotional post. Consider tentatively interested in this campaign.

I'm not sure what character class to choose, though, nor do I have a backstory thought up.

Grimcleaver, I saw your reply to my reskinning question and your promotional post. Consider tentatively interested in this campaign.

I'm not sure what character class to choose, though, nor do I have a backstory thought up.

Hey! Good to see you. Found your question whilst skimming the forums for additional reveals on Aballon culture. Figured since I'd been pondering the same things for this game I'd give it a shot.

We'd love to have you in the game. So far we have:

IPA-42 (Machinesmith): A rogue propaganda street prophet model once affiliated with a cult whose belief is that the First Ones are set to return but machine imperfections and irregularities (including free will) must first be sacrificed. Freed from that doctrine, but also disconnected from the flow of constant upgrades that comes with it, she is exploring the world for the first time--free to make up her own mind.

Amalgus (Summoner): Once a wholly different bot, he was assaulted and salvaged by a gang of cannibal outmods and left for dead. He was able to shortwave a number of smaller bots and make an arrangement with them. Together they would combine into a stronger more versitile form, a larger robotic endoskeleton covered in smaller bots that help it move and interact with the world, and which it can shed to operate independantly. They merged their consciousnesses and became a single being named Amalgus. The local Those Who Become design bot in Quotient, named the Lyracist, loved the idea when he heard it and as is his way, offered to remake Amalgus' body to elevate his revolutionary ideas and showcase him. He's since taken to performing freelance jobs in order to publicise and prove himself.

We've had a couple of other folks take interest but no other actual pitches as of yet. So far we've got two magic using types, one that's more a healer type and one that's more like a beastmaster. Any classes except cleric and druid are available (aballonians can't use divine magic--they have no souls). That said, this really isn't set to be a "dungeon crawl" sorta' game so you don't have to worry about filling any particular role. I'd suggest starting with your character's philosophy (Those Who Wait, Those Who Become, or something else?) and social position (High society? Outmod ganger? Researcher? Heavy laborer? Reclaimer? Pilgrim?) and then pick your class and abilities to further your goals and storyline. But whatever works for you.

Wow, I haven't read the background for IPA-42, but I seem to be developing a character that is a pretty decent match, or at least, has a similar background. His name is going to be FAMAS G2, because that's the name of a cool looking gun, and it could also be the name of a robot.

What I have so far is that he was created by Those Who Wait as a guardian of one of the First Ones' cities, but somewhere along the way, he abandoned his calling. I haven't worked out the details of how or why, but somewhere along the way he became aware of the Epoch, and believes that it is the culmination of the Abollonians existence. He thinks that serving the Epoch would unite the planet and lead them on to untold greatness, if only the factions could be made to listen. He may have abandoned his calling, but he knows his place, and does not believe himself capable of leading anyone. He is, however, looking for someone who can lead them, so that he can serve them as a guardian.

Here is the gun he is named after, it looks pretty cool, even if it is used by the French.

I originally thought I wasn't interested in this story, but then I had an idea for a character, and I wanted to post it here to see how it would fit.

R-64Y is an Elemental Kin Barbarian. The site ate my first background, so I've put in a short version for now to give you an idea. Essentially it was a simple guard, but an electrical accident overloaded its programming and its battery, and it is now living on the fringes. The overloaded battery is the flavour that explains the raging, which can be discharged and re-charged. I'm going to focus on energy absorption (and perhaps later some discharging) rage powers to fit this theme as well.

As I build the stats, I wanted to ask if there were exceptions to the construct traits. 10 Con will limit the amount of raging that will be possible, but being immune to fatigue will mean that there is no penalty to stopping raging as well.

I've posted a mostly-final version, assuming that we're stuck with 10 Con for now. I'll continue to make tweaks, but assuming there are no major house rules, it should be fairly close to the final product.

One other question I had was what our base speed(s) should be? The model Aballonian in Distant Worlds has a land speed of 40 ft and a climb speed of 20 ft, but it is a spider-like creature. There are options in the entry for adding treads (+60 ft land speed), and a modified chassis to gain burrow speeds, swim speeds, etc.

So right under the wire we've got three folks pretty much locked for the last spot in the game. My thought is to give AlgaeNymph, Wolfman1911 and ianbl a chance to all submit fully statted out characters and I'll pick our last party member from those.

So now: Q&A!

Construct traits: Yes, we're using them all. That means Con is locked in at 10 (well technically they're locked at --) but as you point out this helps a barbarian bot more than it hurts him with all the immunities that come with and the huge gob of bonus hit points.

The Aballonian Writeup: I'm hoping to simplify things by taking the PC aballonians back to formula a bit (heck, there's a whole planet full of aballonians of every shape and description--including ones that are reskinned versions of all the creatures in the Bestiaries, right? Well the one's we're playing are reskinned PC races!) The alternative would be to start everyone at 7th level as characters who can level up at will by buying equipment--which would make for a really weird game. I'm handling the upgrade mechanic as new gear: armor as a reinforced frame, weapons as various built in upgrades (ie. cutting torch for a dagger, spark emmitter for a sling, hydraulic shear for a battleaxe, etc.)

Base movement is being handled according to size. Starting out you can be small or medium (like pretty much any standard PC race). Small aballonians move 20', medium aballonians move 30'. A feature like fast movement could be taken to assume an upgraded form of locomotion or just better coodination and footwork. Climb speeds, swim speeds and the like will be more or less how they'd be for a standard PC.

I'll field any other questions as they come up. Thanks for your interest, folks! We'll give it a few days for everyone to get their sheets done up (or prove they've fallen off the planet and aren't just lurking) and then I'll pick our final player and we'll get started.

Bit bussy last days so hadn't had as much time in the evenings as i would've liked to fully write down my char and sort out the crunch but plan to do it this weekend.

Just one question i already had, for hit points would that be class HD + construct HD depending on size, or does the construct racial HD replace the class HD?

Class HP + Construct HP.

A potential issue with Barbarian Bots-

Being immune to fatigue means being able to Rage Cycle from level 1.

If that bothers you as a GM, you may want to come up with a house rule to limit "once per rage" powers in some other way.

I don't see a problem. The limitation of Con means a barbarian bot only gets 4 rounds of rage a day. That should offset their ability to rage without having to wait out their fatigue cooldown.

I believe this is all in order. I'm not sure about some of it though, if there are any mistakes, let me know. Also, I don't know what I'l ldo for an avatar, I imagine him being not humanoid at all, but looking somewhat more like the cybran mantis from Supreme Commander. I may change my mind, though.

Updated Profile.

Character sheet can be found here: Link

I have completed my profile on my profile page, including completing the character's background. If there are any problems or changes required, I'm happy to make adjustments.

A few minor questions:

1) How do you want us to do HP? The PFS-standard of max at Level-1, and half round up at subsequent levels? This is what I assumed, but I'm happy to accommodate other ideas.

2) I assumed no extra Feats (i.e. Just 1 Feat at Level 1 in my Barbarian's case), and no Traits, but I don't think there were any explicit details here. I had some traits picked, but I don't need to add them if we're not playing with them.

I made a few adjustments to the background of R-64Y, connecting it more closely with the Lyracist. I'd still welcome feedback, but the only thing left is for me to buy any extra gear that may be useful (and figuring our a way to flavour it appropriately).

I had a third question, though, that may not come up in practice, but I thought worth asking:

3) Constructs are immune "to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless).", and "other statistics that rely on a Constitution score treat a construct as having a score of 10 (no bonus or penalty)." I have a 10 base constitution, but my question is, in the case a fortitude save comes up that affects objects, should I be applying class and/or rage bonuses to my Fortitude save, or will it always be no bonus/penalty for these types of saves?

1) I'd assumed people would roll their hit points when we level up, since we're just playing here and it isn't a society game where folks could be accused of making stuff up (the main rationale behind removing randomization from Society rules). That said I'd be fine with someone opting to take median HP each level if they didn't want to risk the roll.

2) Yes, one feat. I think picking two Traits as well would be fun, but I wasn't sure how many of the Traits were too Golarion centric. If you can find ones that work though, then awesome!

3) They seem to be saying that you get no bonus regardless of any other bonuses or penalties, so I'd say no bonuses from class or powers would apply...but I could be convinced. That said, I've always wondered why constructs are never concidered to be tougher than other constructs. You take a bulldozer and a color copier for instance (in a magical world where you have walking copiers). It would seem that the bulldozer would be significantly tougher, right? But they are the same. That's always struck me as odd.

I think picking two Traits as well would be fun, but I wasn't sure how many of the Traits were too Golarion centric. If you can find ones that work though, then awesome!

I don't think there are enough traits for everyone to take them "as-is", there are too many that don't make sense for constructs, or are otherwise too setting specific to really be used (maybe a case for a Distant Worlds Player's Guide some time!), leaving a small pool of options.

One thought I had was that we could take the Trait name and crunch, and reflavour the fluff to match the setting. For example, instead of the standard description for reactionary:

You were bullied often as a child, but never quite developed an offensive response. Instead, you became adept at anticipating sudden attacks and reacting to danger quickly.

one could adopt it into something like (this was one I was working on):

You were designed to act in dangerous situations, but for the purposes of defense. To excel in your duties, you became adept at anticipating sudden attacks and reacting to danger quickly.

It was just a thought, though, and I'm happy either way (traits or no-traits).

No I really like that. Anything you can repurpose like that will work great.

A word regarding the "leadership" of Quotient. The de facto leader of the city is a powerful and wealthy brain bot known as Azimuth. His messenger (spy) bots are everywhere in the city and keep him appraised of every detail of information they scour from it's passages as well as forming a web of communication between him and his army of agents whose value has become inextricably linked to his own. It is to this machine faction that R-64Y probably belonged.

The Lyracist, while a renouned designer with tremendous social position and power has little talent or interest in executive authority--Tim Burton has a tremendous effect on society, his opinions carry weight and his aesthetic continues to leave a mark on society, but nobody wants him to be President, least of all him.

As far as the battery overload condition, often in Aballon the pervasive metallic content has become a powerful lure to hateful electicity elementals from the Plane of Air, who are pulled in from across the planes as though by a lighting rod. Once here they invariably become trapped in the planet's extensive network of power cables--designed to trap and harness their electrical energies. Their rage at capture often manifests as power surges and system irregularities. What if R-64Y became inhabited by one of these creatures in the discharge he suffered? Its fury at its imprisonment within his systems the source of his new powers and a flood of inexplicable feelings of rage?

Sorry to say, I think I'm going to have to withdraw. School is starting to dogpile, and I don't think it will get any better until after finals.