We Remain

Saorise, who is both the Great Desert and the world (for what is the world but desert), is dying. The Great Lasair, who is Aodh, pulls Saorise, and we on her back, and we in her womb, into his radient embrace. So it has been for ten cycles of the Clans. Our Brothers, Our Sisters, the Caillte, they are gone and we remain.

As all becomes hotter, we remain. And we pray. We pray to Arkai, who knows the fullness of what was and is and will be. We pray to the Mhuir Mharbh, who are our Fathers and our Mothers. We pray to the Caillte, who are our Brothers and our Sisters. We pray and we wait. And we remain.

Arkai - The Maelstrom

From the Citadel of the Detjin, Arkai grants visions of the fullness of what was and is and will be to both those talented and those initiated. It is said and it is heard that there may be yet other gods in the deep of the Saoirsen Desert. But for now:

When you open your brain to Arkai:

• On a 10, you answer questions about your current thoughts and get a picture of the Everpresent Now.
• On a 7-9. you answer questions about your future and get a picture of the Everlasting Was.

For Augury, you answer questions about your past and see the Everapproaching If. You can:

• Reach through the world’s psychic maelstrom to something or someone connected to it.
• Influence a future moment, granting a +1 forward to someone or a -2. For NPCs, you can give them courage or make them hesitate. The benefit can only be used if the thing comes to pass, in rough terms.
• Isolate and protect a person or thing from the world’s psychic maelstrom.
• Create a blank spot around the probability matrix of a person, rendering them invisible within the Everapproaching If.
• Isolate and contain a fragment of the world’s psychic maelstrom itself.
• Create a mental map of a future moment, held in stasis. One can “walk” the moment, inspecting its every detail, like a letter or weapons or what.
• Insert information into the world’s psychic maelstrom.
• Create a butterfly effect resulting in a message being delivered in some mundane way in the future. Messages are clearer the further they are pushed into the future, but ones trained in the Subtle Word, like the Detjin, can read messages much nearer the present. For instance, they can see battle plans in the way books are arranged on the self.
• Open a window into the world’s psychic maelstrom
• Create a physical viewport to a moment so that someone uninitiated may view it.

Outside the Great House

Fashion

A Watchtower

More, via Elsewhere

More, via Rowan

A Great House

Yep, More

Fashion

The Citadel

Ohhh, This!

More Clothing

And More

Fashion

And This, As Well

And This

These Are Definitely In The Game

Testing

First Session tonight. Notes posted onto G+:




a full list of game elements I'm bringing into the first session:

• Star Wars
• Dune (really the first 200 pages or so)
• The Book of the New Sun
• Just A Pilgrim
• Game of Thrones

Instead of the standard 50 years after the apocalypse, I'm looking at maybe a 1000 years, with our times a great mystery to our post-apoc denizens. The PCs wouldn't know any more than anyone else, unless it was, like, their thing to know. Clans are the predominate structure of the social society, along with guilds. The guilds, regardless of function, will have religious overtones.

In terms of aesthetics, I'm looking at very baroque, a la Star Wars and Gene Wolfe. Technology is past what we have now, but in the hands of the very few, and it's big and complicated and unwieldy and unreliable. Ostentatiousness is the rule of the day, with heavy robes and inlaid metals.

Thematically, I'm looking at the 99 v the 1, monopolies, power and power vacuums, and other class issues. Almost all elements of scarcities will present, albeit in the hands of some group or other that want to consolidate their power and form a monopoly. Tangential themes will concern religion and its place in controlling populations, "naturally" occurring gender roles, and familial connections v ambitions.