What other kinds of institutions would have been started by an idealistic revolution in an advanced country that would turn oppressive once the means of bureaucracy were turned and twisted by runaway fear, tyranny, demagoguery, etc? Hospitals? Schools? Prisons? Temples? These could all become hellish organizations for PCs stuck in Galt.
While it might not work for PCs (unless you're playing a very unusual game), a Victorian-style orphanage seems to be one of the usual suspects for 'institution of evil'.
And a workhouse could be bad too.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
|
What other kinds of institutions would have been started by an idealistic revolution in an advanced country that would turn oppressive once the means of bureaucracy were turned and twisted by runaway fear, tyranny, demagoguery, etc? Hospitals? Schools? Prisons? Temples? These could all become hellish organizations for PCs stuck in Galt.
While it might not work for PCs (unless you're playing a very unusual game), a Victorian-style orphanage seems to be one of the usual suspects for 'institution of evil'.
And a workhouse could be bad too.
Anyone read B. Akunin's "The Winter Queen"?
While it might not work for PCs (unless you're playing a very unusual game), a Victorian-style orphanage seems to be one of the usual suspects for 'institution of evil'.
And a workhouse could be bad too.
I wonder if the main issue here wouldn't be keeping the feel/flavor of whatever the fuller depiction of Galt/the particular GM's adaptation of Galt turns out to be. Orphanages and workhouses make perfect sense to me in a communal revolution where people have lost old occupations and many children have lost parents to state or mob violence. They could be fine-tuned as needed.
No, TD. Please to dish.
|
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
|
The novel makes interesting use of an orphanage.
A secret international organization uses orphanages in several countries, including Russia, to train orphan boys to be operatives in their eventual world takeover.
Translate that to Galt:
A faction within Galt uses civil unrest and the arrest and detention of dissident parents to gather particularly intelligent, attractive, and healthy young people to be trained for infiltrations of Cheliax, Andoran, and Taldor. ... The Galtan version could be much nastier and make use of magical means of training.
It's quite a good read.
This is a fantastic thread. While I a beleiver in Pathfinder RPG I have had some reluctance to adopt Golarion as a campaign setting. Reading the campaign setting, Elves of Golarion, Gods and Magic of Golarion just seemed dull compared to the books about Kingdom of Kalamar. This discussion has given me some ideas on how to switch to Golarion in the future.
Doug
|
The novel makes interesting use of an orphanage.
** spoiler omitted **
Translate that to Galt:
** spoiler omitted **It's quite a good read.
ohhhh i must get my hands on it...
i like how you think :D
Heh...heh. The funny thing is, I didn't have any excitement about Galt going into this, and always thought of other areas when I thought of where I'd love to venture. But the more all this has gone on, the cooler and more full of potential Galt seems to be as a setting.
Welcome, Doug. If you don't mine me saying so, give Gods and Magic a chance. The first time I looked through it, I thought, "aaaa". But as I've had opportunity to go back to it, it really has grown on me. I think there's more packed in there than one might first (or second) appreciate. Haven't had much a chance to do the same with Elves, although the stuff I've heard about magic food really got me excited as being a perfect fit for elves that has gone under-appreciated heretofore.
|
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
|
Okay, I was thinking about something else ... the whole believability aspect. Galt is believable for those of us who have lived in countries where ideology doesn't just trounce reason but grabs ahold of reason, beats it against the wall, interrogates it about its activities, and then throws reason in a holding pen for looking suspicious. What makes these countries really creepy is that that only happens some of the time.
To make Galt believable, it needs to be a place with a landscape and cities, and streets, and markets, and residences, and children and all the ordinary things you might encounter anywhere else. PCs need to be able to live and breathe and explore Galt for days without any kind of weirdness. Galt has to be normal. Until it isn't. Just when the PCs are thinking, "Well, this place isn't so bad" the strangeness comes out. The PCs find out everyone is eating carrots today and if they ask "Why are you eating carrots" or say "I really don't feel like carrots" they become suspected of being counter-revolutionaries.
Does this make sense to anyone else?
Yes. But it probably WON'T make sense next week ;-)
Really, though, having stuff NOT completely dependent on the revolution aspect is important... I.e., the revolution will respond to something totally unknown and crazy, otherwise it mucks down in itself (which seems to be the case as presented in Campaign Setting)
...I do think the aspect of "anarchy" is more central to Galt than any "overlording 'Revolutionary' state"... (I didn't get the idea from the CS that some 'Ideology' was powerfully ordering things, as much as an Anarchic self-sustaining chain of reactions had manifested itself)
The mysterious grey order seems to me less interested in 'dominating' society per se, than in subtlely averting the "present" from becoming a "future", I.e. the Grey are opportunistically keeping the "revolution" in a meta-stable instability solely to achieve some metaphysical malevolence for which Galt is merely a staging ground. Isn't there some demi-God of "The Void"/the Moon, who would presumably most enjoy seeing every interest/faction completely cancelled out? Hmmm.... Something like some sort of psychically distributed/ disembodied/ emergent Desire countered to a controlling/ surveilling/ extinguishing element would be a cool meta-plot.
I'm definitely all about Galt being the perfect playground for the Priests and Priestesses of the Chaos of Desire (Calistria)... And whether or not it's developed in a game-stat/magical effect-relavent manner, the Printing Press/Mass Communication/Propaganda seems an important trope in Galt (besides the Guillotines :-) )
...oh yeah... Gnomes!
|
|
Does this make sense to anyone else?
it does, it does... which increases the horror when it happens
aye indeed
I'm definitely all about Galt being the perfect playground for the Priests and Priestesses of the Chaos of Desire (Calistria)... And whether or not it's developed in a game-stat/magical effect-relavent manner, the Printing Press/Mass Communication/Propaganda seems an important trope in Galt (besides the Guillotines :-) )
...oh yeah... Gnomes!
the Printing Press exist
you don't need gnomes for thatquite possibly the current goberment outlawed them and forced to keep quiet in the citizens gardens or they get a date with mademoiseele guillotin
no no, I mentioned Gnomes not as being (particularly) related to the printing press phenomena (which was mentioned as signifigant in Galt as well as Andoran, Absalom, Cheliax, I think...?), but because they just seem a super awesome/fun way to inject extra magical playfulness in a setting full of ultra-chaos. Golarion Gnomes just LOVE novelty, right?, So wouldn't they want to be right in the middle of somewhere where NOBODY has ANY idea what the next week or month will bring? :-)
If Gnomes wither away WITHOUT novelty, with TONS of it, they may flourish and go strange ways even Gnomes can't fathom! What if some Gnome convinces everyone to start speaking a new language, and then it magically becomes "Real", and the whole town starts "remembering" a completely divergent history to match! :-)
|
|
If Gnomes wither away WITHOUT novelty, with TONS of it, they may flourish and go strange ways even Gnomes can't fathom! What if some Gnome convinces everyone to start speaking a new language, and then it magically becomes "Real", and the whole town starts "remembering" a completely divergent history to match! :-)
gah!!! madness madness
jeje sounds interesting indeed :P
|
The novel makes interesting use of an orphanage.
** spoiler omitted **
Translate that to Galt:
** spoiler omitted **It's quite a good read.
I think that there are orphanages in Isger run along the sort of lines you are looking for; frankly, I'm not sure that the chaotic situation in Galt would allow any kind of long-term planning/goals like that. Every time the revolutionary council changed the newcomers might well decide that such orphanages needed to be burnt down or turned into marketplaces, or palaces, or....
You need a stable regime or in the absence of such in somewhere like Galt you would need very powerful spellcasters to provide security for a long-term location based scheme like that I would think.The latter part of Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, with the mob loving someone one minute, and demanding that he be executed the next is very useful 'mood' reading for Galt, I think.
I could imagine a cabal of mad bards manipulating crowds in to waves of destruction. Perhaps even working against each other, maniplulating crowds without them knowing it.
Perhaps setting of magic fireball "bombs" in certain parts of cities to get the populus worked up.