Waldi's page
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Well, I wondered, if a Scenario like "V" or the new X-Com2 could work in the Starfinder-Universe. What about this first ideas:
The scenario takes place on the remote Planet of Gayan-3. The third world of the Gayan-System is almost exclusively inhabited by humans and was hit hard during the gap. While Gayan progressed from a technological level of the ironage to an early-modern Level of civilisation during this period, Gayan-3 was never the less damaged. The turmoil during the gap rose some Gayan nations to Power, while destroying others utterly. Nearly all magic-users perished and the Gayans connection to their primary goddess Sarenrae weakened, leaving the Planet without any magical Tradition. Today, Gayan-3 resembles Earth during the 1980s - even complete with its own version of the cold war. This cold war nearly errupted into a full blown nuclear conflict 3 years ago. Luckily, an Aspis-Consortium-Exploration-Cruiser passed the System. The ships captain decided to intercept the nuclear warheads, that were already launched, thus rescuing the Gayans from atomic anihilation. The Consortium used this incident to present itself as a High et, benevolent force to the Gayans and is about to overtake the planet completely. While most Gayans believe the Consortium really to be some power of good, a small minority of them start to see the sinister thruths behind Aspis. Maybe, the nuclear incident, that helped the Consortium to take over Gayan-3, was staged?
The Consortium tries to keep other spacefaring Powers away from Gayan-3, but that doesnt keep Agents of AbadarCorp from trying to get a foothold there....
I must admit, that I like the Idea of having a version of "Kingmaker" in Space. Building and defending your own colony on some untamed. new planet would be quite neat. But since "getting there is half the fun", I would throw in a big dose of "Battlestar Galactica". The SCs would be, at first, Mercenary-Escorts of a colonisationfleet. Maybe, the would-be-colonists are refugees of some sort, chased by some evil force. The first third of the AP would be about bringing the fleet to some wild and dangerous sector of space to the destinationplanet, the second third about exploring the new planet and establishing the colony and the last third about defending the colony against the evil force, that finaly found the new home of the colonists.
Some other neat AP-Ideas for Starfinder would be:
A Voltron-AP. The SCs find components of a magical (or even divine) giant robot and fight the Azlanti Empire.
A Bravestarr-AP. In a newly settled "Space-Western-System", the SCs become Space-Marshals...
An AP, that is inspired by "V" or "Earth: Final Conflict". Initialy, the SCs work as freelance agents for an "altriustic" power, that is about to "pacify" and "elevate" a world, that resembles Earth during the late 20th century. Over the course of the AP, the SCs realize, that their employers are not altruistic at all...
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Perhaps users of arcane magic would count as "augmented" because there is a strong connection between technology and arcane magic on Verces. It´s a bit far fetched, but sounds somehow reasonable.
Quote: Augmented angels! Of course! This reminds me a bit of "Desolation Road" by Ian McDonald, wich could be, together with it´s semi-sequel "Ares Express" also a source of great inspiration for Verces! (Desolation featured a artificial godess with a whole bunch of solar-powered, cybernetic angels).
Quote: Divine casters as God-Vessels seems obvious enough, but do druids that don't follow a specific deity get rolled into that as well? Possibly with them being seen as embodying a divine force, nature in this case? I think, vercite druids would be found mostly outside civilised areas. This whole thing about the godvessel-caste could be a very urban insitution. While vercite clerics of the godvessel-caste can be found mostly within the vast cities of Verces, the druids would dwell in remote or rural areas. Maybe, their ancient religion is considered a thing of the past in the cities...
Quote: How is the passage of time percieved, as colored by the views of their ancestors that didn't have clocks? Possibly some form of satellite, be it moon or otherwise? Or some other form of natural/magical atmospheric phenomenon that happens with dependable regularity? Maybe, it´s the moon? Does Verces have a moon?
I also imagined, that Verces was not tidaly locked naturally. Before the Twins collided to form the Diaspora, Verces rotated just like the other worlds of the golarian system. Then, just after the collision of the twins, Verces was hit by several asteroids and the massive impacts stopped it´s rotation. The then primitive civilisation on Verces just survived barely. Nowadays, there are several legends and myths about the "time of the moving sun", but mostly, life on Verces got used to the eternal day (or night).
Beside this, I wonder, if the Stewards would make a great campaign-background. I could imagine them to be a mixture between the UN-forces, the X-Com, SHIELD and so on. While most nations on Verces live in peace together, a lot of otherworldly forces try to destroy the Ring-Nations and vercite civilisation in general. So the Stewards are constantly battling infiltrators from Eox, Demons or agents of the dark tapestry...
Perhaps Brigh was the first Augmented on Verces. This could some nice transhuman spice to the augmented caste. There could be an augmented secret society trying to achieve apotheosis via technomagical augmentation. If Brigh could become a higher beeing by using transhuman modifications, others could do this also. They could be a heretical, evil cult or a group of basicly good but misunderstood, ultra-progressive scientists...
I also guess, Sarenrae would be a big thing on Verces. Most Cities seem to use solar power - so there would be a great deal of devoution to the sun-goddess. :)
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Well, Eox or the Moonscar are also quite evil. But basicly Gorbacz is right - just as most golarian Realms, most Planets would have the aligment "Neutral". But beside this, I would still not see Verces as the typical hightech-crapsack-world. There are, of course, certain Problems as various monsters on the bright and the dark side, mad extremists from each cast who threaten the planets harmony, the normal share of criminality and so on. But overall, things on Verces go well and the planet isn´t a hellhole.
As for contact with other worlds: What if the vercites would be a kind of "young upstarts" as spacefaring race and show the typical happy gung-ho-mentality? (Just to keep a certain "pioneer-flair" as in those old pulp-sf-novels)
Spacetravel is a relative recent inovation and a lot of places in the golarian solar system still have not been visited by vercites. There is a lot of trade with the Diaspora. Some moons of Liavara and planet Akiton are also frequently visited. Much of Eix ist still a mystery, since the bone sages intercept most space-crafts. The outer worlds just as the three inner worlds past Akiton are still waiting for Visitors from Verces.
Could also be. In every case, they have an allmost neverending source of clean energy for their cities - the sun!
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Well, this is definitly a great way, Verces could look like! I also prefer Verces to be more a more friendly and bright Sci-Fi-Planet. I really really hope, Verces doesn´t become "grim-dark" in the coming publications. (This whole grim-dark-and-gritty-Sci-Fi-Thing was a bit overdone during the last few years...)
As for the sold monks....this hasn´t to be a kind of slavery. I could imagine some of the monks "selling" themselves to the vercite Spacefleet to serve their planet - meaning, they become living spaceship-parts voluntary. Since they don´t need any worldly goods or a payment as a living Starship-computer, the payment they would get as a regulary crewmember, is mainly used to support the monks order.
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Currently, I am wondering, how the completely normal everyday-life on the planet Verces could look like. As far, as we know, Vercites are quite skilled scientists. As far as we also know, the vercite civilisation makes frequent use of electrical light, modern architecture (by using glas and steel) and mass-transit-systems (their cities are interconnected by a railway-system). Furthermore, a great deal of cybernetics is known and the Vercites maintain a large space-station and have mastered interplanetary spaceflight. Although we do not know, which parts of vercite science are magical and which are pure technlogical, the Vercites could enjoy a very modern lifestyle not very different from life in our early 21. century. But we also know, a significant number of pure vercites prefers a more rural, quasi-medieval lifestyle.
So, how do you think, everyday-life on Verces looks like? Would it be a retro-futuristic "The-Jetsons-Lifestyle"? Would it be a medieval-fantasy-style life in the shadows of gleaming skyscrapers? Or would life on Verces even look like a strangely "warped" version of our modern everyday life - with urban Vercites driving to work by car, watching television, buying stuff in supermarkets and cecking mails on the vercite internet ?
Wasn´t this Astromundi-Cluster-Thing also a solar system book ? But anyway...let's be generous and say "not as good as Distant Worlds." :D
The only weak point about Distant Worlds, I found so far, is its length. This booklet is faaaar to short. ;). I would have loved to read more about the moons of Liavara and Bretheda or about the various asteroids of the Diaspora. But maybe, we will get a more detailed, Solar-System-Hardcover someday. :D
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