Patrick Stuart's Blog, page 3

Deep Janeen - VotE Remastered Development

[This will be more of an ‘exploded’ development documentas I look through the entry I had for ‘Deep Janeen’ (which were essentially areskin of AD&D ‘Dao’) and try to find a place for them in the developingcultures of the Veins, which also makes them useful and interesting in a‘D&D world’, where the purpose of everything is ultimately to interact withadventurers.]

 origin unknown

The Deep Janeen are spirits of the of the earth. Creaturesof timeless, decadent intelligence, they live deliciously in palaces set downwithin the living stone. (They cannot work their magics on worked stone.The greater the mass of masonry around them, the safer they feel (from otherDeep Janeen).) 

Deep Janeen are larger than men, with skin like blueveined marble, an strong, thick-limbed bodies curved like the sides of a vase. Theirvoices are like water being poured into an upturned bell. 

Voracious and confident, Deep Janeen take pleasure intheir rank. Lords of Stone, commanding much submission from the earth by magicArt, these master can grant wishes and, it is said, attain all a soulmay dream of, if it pleases them. They might be called half-gods of theUnderworld, were they ever to leave their Mazes and the Courts within. Butleave they rarely do.

 Filippo Baratti

[Design Logic

The power of a Dao, or Janeen, over stone itself,combined with their many other powers, makes them astonishingly potent in thevolumes of the Veins, where stone is the substance of all things, and where thechallenge of transporting ‘stuff’, of feeding, lighting and sustaining, is soall consuming. 

Why then do they not rule the Underworld? And what rolemight they play in the intrigues of adventurers? 

To answer this; the logic of the Maze-Court; a grand,expensive, eternal and eternally changing folly, or bower-bird nest, of workedstone, within which the Janeen dwells and to which they dedicate almost all oftheir substantial yet always-perishing wealth. 

Culturally and psychologically, the Deep Janeen aretrapped within their mazes and their courts. Economically they are trappedwithin their status and their culture, for a Deep Janeen seen doing usefulwork, and getting gain, by other Janeen, would be mocked, ruined,exiled and destroyed (socially), and this is the worst thing that could everhappen to a Deep Janeen. So they must relentlessly gain resources, yetnever be seen to do so, and must spend even more relentlessly, on highlyvisible luxuries and on their Maze. And so they are poor. They have a lot ofmoney and a lot of luxuries, but they have even more expenses and demands.]  

 

Maze Courts 

The Court is a Maze and the Maze is the Court. To reachthe Janeen one must pass through the Maze. The Court lies at the centre of theMaze, or beyond it, or above it looking down. But the Court also interlaceswith the Maze. One is never certain if one has fully left the Maze. 

The Maze is always under development, always being workedon. (Not directly by the Janeen, that would be abominable), but byslaves, or, for those of a liberal temperament, employees. 

The Maze drifts, moving through the stone ocean ofthe Veins, both via its eternal and continual building and re-building, and throughthe magic of the Janeen, whose maze it is, so it is like a magic island whichmoves slowly about a sea. 

These are not just dungeons. The mazes are works of art -works of status in every sense, works of pride and competition. The Court-Mazeis the highest expression of a Janeen’s power, intelligence, style, and anuntranslatable form of potency, of class, of virtu, a transmissibleenergy or spirit which both shapes and displays the vital selfhood of theJaneen. They need not eat, or sleep, and can live for mortal eternities. Theirexistence is a status game. The opinions of others are the truths of their lives.The mazeworks are like riddles: if everyone can understand them then they areworthless; if no-one can, then the same is true. They are set like palaces, atleast in terms of statuary and stone. Water aspects and others will be of aluxurious, (yet lethal), mode, like Turkish baths. Think the Alhambraunderground. 

Indeed some Janeen are crowned with Mazes as some surfaceGods were crowned with city walls. A Janeen without a maze is not really aJaneen. Maze-loss creates, not a physical transformation, but apsychological and cultural one so total it may as well be. A Janeen with a poormaze is a Poor Janeen, regardless of how much specie they control. A Janeenwith a stupid Maze is a stupid Janeen. Or an unfashionable maze, or a simpleone, a crude maze or an ugly one… and so on. 

 

Why Seek the Deep Janeen? 

The Janeen can answer wishes. To an extent theycan re-make reality, by fair means or foul. And their powers are greatest inthe earth, where we are. Even their lesser powers of change and transport, ofalteration, creation and exchange, are enough to wipe slates clean. If theirfavour can be won. 

If that is not enough, consider these lesser, but stillpractical treasures; a stone-road stave. An iron ring that holds a hero’s soul,bound for seven services. A lantern with a rock-evaporating light. A pet firespirit which will serve you so long as its golden chain is linked. Songs ofUnbecoming. Warping wands. An eye of Lapis Lazuli which terrifies the spiritsof the earth. Crowns of mutable stone and sheaths of living Jade. Maelstrombombs. Tongues of transport. A serpentinite torc that becomes a venom’d swordat your command. Ascension wells. Lithomantic potions. A book of sliver-thinslate with the means to make golems of stone. 

 origin unknown

 

 Pauper Princes  - Why They might meetwith You. 

Wreathed in luxury, they are poor. Well.. not exactly. Theyhave resources. However, they are likely in staggering debt. They are inthe red, or at least in the black. 

The Maze, the Maze, the Maze costs all, consumes all,absorbs all. The sheer prices involved! You would not believe! The Maze mustgrow, must breathe. The Maze must live so the Court might thrive and theCourt must feed so the Maze might grow. All this requires stone, slaves, foodfor them, logistics, organisation and so on and so on. And that’s just theunending construction, the Court itself requires servants, entertainers,musicians, dancers, illusionists, poets, cooks of various kinds and so on… 

Worse, nearly as bad as owning an inferior maze; a Janeencan never be seen doing useful work. They must not toil. They are beingsof Pure Nobility. 

Yet, somewhere, somehow, work must be done. They do itthrough shell organisations. They do it in disguise, through other names,through deniable servants. They do it any way but directly and in public view.They all absolutely deny doing it, and they are all doingit, and will mock those seen doing it, while doing it themselves. Such isthe toil of the Deep Janeen. 

 

Conflicting Cultures of the Deep Janeen 

Aesthetic Questions rule the scene; Schools on stones andmazes, arguments over treasures, gold and dreams. 

The Two Schools of Shadowed Mass; many Deep Janeen lovegloom and the beauty of huge masses of worked stone. The first, Umbral, regardsthe placement of massy shadows of prime importance and arranges all stoneworkto produce precise gradations of shadow and depth. The second, the Lithic,regards the placement of shadowed mass to be the true path to beauty and arrangesall shadows to highlight masses and arrangements of stone. Few but the DeepJaneen can tell the difference between the two schools, though they loathe eachother. 

The Six Schools of Maze-Making; Softling, Towered,Monstrous, Braile, Falling and Fincular. Don’t askme what these mean. They seem to have some relation to the styles ofMazes, (of which, more below), but how the theory intersects with built object,and what the borders and definitions of each are, is a source of argumentamongst all Deep Janeen. A “Fincular Crystal Swam Maze, with Softlinginfluence”? Sure. 

Schools of Dream interpretation and defence. Musicalstyles. Schools of poetry and aesthetic magic. Argument upon argument. Pointupon position. 

Janeen like sculpture but tend to loathe painting,as well as any material that pretends to be what it is not, though thedefinitions of  what exactly this means,again, vary deeply. Is a Bernini sculpture acceptable? How about a Trompe ‘dOil painting used as part of a trap to confound rogues in a maze? 

They love beauty but only bound. Free beauty is nothingto them, but lock it in an object or trade it as a service and they love it. 

 Weeks Edwin Lord

 

To Meet the Janeen 

You do not meet the Janeen. Certainly they are not outand about (unless in disguise), and one does not simply challenge a JaneensMaze (unless invited). 

You meet their Vizier; 

Janeen Viziers 

Their forms are many; beautiful golem factotums, lesserspirits of stone, living statues (of the Janeen themselves obviously). Rugweave and tympanum zoom calls (the rug threads shift and change - you can hearthem whispering). A statue of stone containing a caged spirit of air, water orfire. A whisp of salt. A clicking mosaic. A Vampire in Jade. A Mirror Liche – theircorpse dead but its reflection still live and subtle. A Corpulent Immortal or HotUndine. A drifting cobweb golem, its voice that of a certain harp, played by ablind, mute slave. Three stone ladies, one of igneous, one sedimentary and onemetamorphic, (they finish each others sentences), or a big intelligent bird,kind of like a very fancy muppet – it’s not clear who or what it is the‘puppeteer’. 

 Arclord of Nex - Pathfinder Community

The Vizier - “Behold this value.” 

The Vizier writes down a certain number or total, andshows it to you. 

“This is a value which shall be two parts and two, thatis, split into equal thirds, and the last third halved so that the totals arethus; one sixth, one third, one third and one sixth, for a total of four partsin these proportions, and in this order. 

Do you understand? 

The first part, should our speech go well, you shallsurrender to me upon its’ end, in any portable form. 

Know this first; The Janeen does not do business.The Janeen does not make deals. The Janeen entertains Right NobleGuests. 

Are you such kind? 

 

The Right Nature of Guests 

A Right noble Guest is any of the following; 

·       They are born of Aristocracy and Nobility.

·       They have notable gifts of Art, Speech, or Music(not Painting).

·       They have great and recognised magical power andskill.

·       They are of great and well-attested Wealth, forone who possesses so vast an accumulation of wealth is no longer like othermen.

·       They are of personal beauty or charm.

·       They Amuse. 

Are you such as I have said? If you are not, leave now.” 

 

The Maze-Court 

The Forms of the Mazes are many. Maze-Court stye andaesthetic, as well as its nature as a maze and nest of puzzles etc, issomething else that Janeen will argue over and mull over themselves. Some aresever classicists and use one of the below styles only, and that exploited tothe maximum effect with every possible Here are some; 

1.      FromsoftStyle - trickly 'looped' mazes where the Janeen’s court is visible almostimmediately, but you have to do a lot of fucking about to actually get to themain bit

2.      KnightmareStyle - Like a pit dungeon where the Janeen’s court stands above lookingdown on the party - last part is stairs up, so they join the court and they inturn can look down on others

3.      TowerStyle - Court is at the top (though the 'tower' itself may be simply aseries of cave or rooms in stone, the 'court' is usually kept somewhat open, inimitation of a real tower, perhaps with a mosaic-view of an imaginarysurrounding land

4.      ZzarchovStyle - rooms all the same size, linked by visible and invisible dimensiondoors, locks, keys, riddles and codes. Lots of going back and forth, solving weirdproblems - fucking annoying!

5.      GravitationalStyle - Rather normal dungeon/maze design but in places you walk 'up' thewalls and stand on the ceiling. you can look up or down at people or things'above' you, other than that, this is often a pretty standard dungeon (thoughin a Janeen style)

6.      Fallingwater- A bathhouse, (artificial) waterfall. Plenty of fountains, a 'water level'with swimming, underwater monsters, mysterious grottoes (artificial),

7.      Mazeof Transformations - somewhat Alice in Wonderland style with lots ofshrinking, growing, possibly transforming into animals or other things, withseemingly escher-like arrangements and lots of tricky unfair bullshit mixed in,but often without the clear recursive discipline of the 'Zzarchov' style,where, though the answers may be cryptic, there *is* an answer while in 'Alice'mazes, there may be an answer, but the maze itself may be broken, irregular, orjust perverse.

8.      Mazeof Crystal Swarms - the walls made of some swarm or flocking creatures madeof glass or crystal. The actual volume of the maze is not that great but themaze itself reformats around the PCs like the structures of a computer gamewrite themselves into existence as they pass and turn through it, the flock orswarm moving in great clouds and reforming behind. Some Janeen would say thisis more a 'method' than a style. Though it demonstrates incredible wealth, skilland magical power, that doesn't necessarily make the form of the maze as-a-mazethat good, other Janeen, those who can afford a Crystal Swarm, tell them to gofuck themselves. 

 Steven Craig Hickman hopefully not slop

 

Meeting the Janeen 

Lets say you actually get through the Maze, and to theCourt, (or at least the Court-like parts of the inner maze. This is the DeepJaneen; 

Titles

The

1.      Shaker

2.      Dreamer

3.      Luminator

4.      Judicier

5.      Composer

6.      Navarch

 

of/in 

1.      Knowledge

2.      Tectonics

3.      Sleepingstone

4.      TheMountain Metamorphic

5.      TheFlawless Fault

6.      TheStone Wombs Heart

 

Face 

1.      Haughtybut smiling often with the dazzle of a diamond tooth.

2.      Alabaster,like a carved youth with the combined cruelties both of youth and of age.

3.      Eyesof starry glass and hair a slow stone river woven with gold boats.

4.      Apotter's abortion but delicately repaired with gold.

5.      Flesh,except the eyes and mouth reveal the skin is shallow stretched on perfectstone.

6.      Anegg with a cruel crack smile and glittering blue peridot eyes. 

 

Clothes 

1.      Skinmarble, dark, and rippled with red. Her robes are black wire, woven subtlyenough to shame silk. They draw the gaze toward her crown of ashen tar, stuckstork and bright frozen peacock feather.

2.      Smokeblacked armour, brass cast, etched by vandal artisans with one thousand and onevictories of the Deep Janeen.

3.      Ahermit's simple robe or a sacred thinker’s cowl, made from one thousandtorture-sourced silks in the blues, blacks and bruise violets of the sky’sstorms.

4.      Albinofurs and pearls carved into linked-up chains. Her shoes, paired slender spiresof colourless gem, stabbing the ground with each purposeful stride.

5.      Stoneclothes, carved so expertly it’s difficult to tell except by touch. The gems ineach of his many rings hold maps, impossibly detailed air bubble depictions ofeach architectural triumph.

6.      Ametal articulated robe discards a trail of scrolls as it scrapes a furrowbehind her thundering boots. Lackeys pick and continually re-archive herforgotten plans in the robe’s metallic folds.

 

 Manner 

1.      Pauseslong and whispers more than yells.

2.      Crueltiesare always a little kind but kindnesses are without mercy, reason or restraint.

3.      Gazeis an extension of its grasp; the Janeen studies to own.

4.      Freshskinned gloves finger lists of plans and inventories.

5.      Eachhalf stroke of the hour everything is stopped, servants scurry forth, teas,meats, and glistening delicacies arrive. Calm and mild pleasantries rule untilthe last drop of tea.

6.      Asmall live animal is presented to be crushed with each and every footstep. 

 

Opulence 

1.      Slaveswave slow pennants of black velvet in their shadowed wake to intensify theirgloomy majesty.

2.      Kebabson silver skewers which they use to pick their teeth, then throw away.

3.      Aticking harem of clockwork courtesans in polished ebony and blazing gold.

4.      Everystone and tool and fold of cloth enchanted to whisper their praises with eachmove, the air fills with a susurrus of quiet adoration.

5.      Zooof surface animals kept petrified when not in use. Awakened and re-petrifiedwith insanely expensive potions sprayed from golden tubes.

6.      Lampsare petty fire spirits bound in silvered skulls of Ælf-Adal. 

 Earth_Djinn from Guild Wars

The Vizier Continues; 

“…. Noble Guests who adore and respect the Janeen, andwho often bring gifts they hope shall please. Curiosities, which they know theJaneen does not need, and which the Janeen will refuse 

But they shall offer again. 

The Janeen will, again, refuse. 

But, wounded by this, (though not explicitlyso), the guest shall offer a third time.

And this time, purely to avoid offence, and out ofcharity, the Janeen will accept (though a servants hands, they will not touchthe gift themselves). 

The value of this gift shall be no less than the value ofthe second part, which was one third of the total value I have shown you. 

At this time the entertainments shall begin, which shalllast for no less than eight hours, and during which, it may please the Janeento place an idle bet on this thing or that. 

As you know, fortune, at all times, follows virtue, nobility,greatness and courage, and so the luck of the Janeen is uncommonly good. 

Do you understand me? 

Though it may pass in whatever proportions you wish, inthe course of entertainment, the total shall not be less than that of the thirdpart, which shall be, again, one third of the total I have given you.” 

 

Activities Amusements 

1.      Smashingin their vaulted roof, slowing it in time, having chained-up poets scribe thefalling stone.

2.      Nakedgirls in golden cages locked 1001 times. Each good story earns a key.

3.      Tattooingchildren’s backs with idle thoughts, making them run around till sentencesform.

4.      Collectedcourt of Clerics of each god, Deep Janeen converts to a new religion everyhour.

5.      Archeanorchestra on toxic instruments, so slow it plays one note each hour.

6.      Forcingscholars to debate the merits of a grain of sand. Winner rewarded, loserkilled. 

 

Strange Dreams 

In their endlessly-rebuilt palaces deep beneath theearth, the Deep Janeen are often troubled by strange dreams. Explaining thetroubling dream in an effective way, without inadvertently insulting the DeepJaneen, can vastly raise you in their esteem. 

1.      “Istand upon a yellow shore. A silver ship burns. A survivor turns to me andsmiles. ‘Is this ever acceptable?’ he asks.”

2.      “Iam a Lion (which I know is good) and eat a ghoul (which is bad). I tastecinnamon and sleep for seven days.”

3.      “Acity of glass and shadow. I wait. The dawn comes, but not the dawn star. Why?”

4.      “Iam speaking to a giant that crawls around my house tying knots in my columnsand doors; the giant whispers names I cannot hear.”

5.      “Icrystallise, memoryless, in the magma chamber under the hill. It will not letme out.”

6.      “Iam a souk in a city of brass, merchants trade in my veins, thieving childrenrun across my golden heart, yet I protect them.” 

Fear of Sleep 

The Janeen fear sleep and the power of the Aelf-Adal. Dueto this they avoid sleep and are often insomniac, and some would say,irrational. Many Janeen employ a Dream Guard or Praetorian of Sleep whosepurpose is to protect them even while they dream. 

Fear of Plots

The Janeen is convinced everyone around them is plottingagainst them and while this is never completely true, it is still largely true.

 

Petulant Rages

Intervening in the murderous and easily-triggered ragesof the Deep Janeen can be deadly; so can not intervening in them. 

1.      Constructionsof anything but stone. The existence of ‘plaster’ and ‘wall-paper’. Deep Janeenhas never seen them but hates them.

2.      “Thereis a forged coin somewhere in this room. Find it! By the stones of the abyssyou will bleed fire till it is found!”

3.      “YouIfrit Fuck!” Deep Janeen thinks the fire in a lamp is laughing at them. Huntsand smashes lamps, lights and flames till it is found.

4.      DeepJaneen convinced reflection in a particular pearl exhibits a single flaw.Curses pearls, casts them aside then hunts through them, demands larger andlarger pearls.

5.      DeepJaneen stricken by violent self-loathing over inferiority of own mazework.Believes counter-arguments proof of secret contempt.

6.      Universaland malignant incompetence of inferiors. Demands your agreement then turns onyou. Demands agreement of others re – your worthlessness, then turns on them.

 

 

 Secrets of the Janeen Hidden Economic Engines

The Janeen is making money some how, though they donot wish anyone to know exactly how, they do wish everyone to know there ismoney being made… somewhere.

1.      Theyare a River Trader

2.      Theycontrol and organise transport between Realms of reality.

3.      Theyare in mining.

4.      Theyscout mines for other powers.

5.      Amercenary company or similar.

6.      MassGolem Construction.

7.      Writingsaucy novels on the side

8.      Silkweavingsweatshop

9.      Manufacturingdimensional transport which makes underground economy possible -bags of holdingetc 

 

Deals They Must Make... Now! (But Must Not Be Seen To....)

The Janeen has a secret, desperate need, but the PCsdon’t necessarily know about it, or even know that it exists (the Janeendesperately tries to keep this from them, without also revealing it).

 

The Need

1.      Silk

2.      Gold(its amazingly heavy stuff)

3.      Slaves(they keep dying)

4.      Politicalcover in some elemental political situation.

5.      Endthe Tariff!

6.      Dolphins(don’t ask why)

7.      MiningRights

8.      Migrationrights

 

From;

1.      Aelf-Adal

2.      KnotsmanLord

3.      RayMen

4.      dErO

5.      Archeans

6.      OlmClan

7.      Dvargir

8.      FunginidMentality

 

Clues/Evidence PCs might stumble into

1.      SingingFish

2.      BellMusic Notation Code

3.      Wordformshadow elemental

4.      OpalBat Snitch

5.      ActualLetter from...

6.      GracefulGolem Courtesan

7.      WhistledCode from Bird

8.      WakingDream 

 Pathfinder, creator not known

The Vizier Goes On 

“It does, at times, occur, in these hours of intimatediversion, (but never before the fifth hour, or beyond theseventh), that the intimates of the Janeen, in the course of conversation. 

In the course of conversation, you understand? 

May confess to this or that trouble, or disappointment,be it in this thing or that, which afflicts them, and, in the course ofconversation, they might discuss with the Janeen, their Intimate Lord andnearly-friend, potential cures and alterations to their sad state, and theJaneen may reply "How terrible! Surely something must be done!"or words to that effect. 

There the matter shall rest, and no more shall be said ofit. 

When the entertainments come to a natural close the Intimatesof the Janeen will part Joyously with the Janeen. 

Now, after a certain time, it may be that thecircumstance or amelioration so desired by you shall be attained, thoughvarious means, perhaps obvious or unknown. 

When this should occur, the Intimates shall send viasecure and trusted means, another gift, to the value of the total of the fourthpart, which was one sixth of the value I have given you - to the Janeen, viamyself, with a fulsome and full-hearted written thanks for any efforts theJaneen, may or may not, have taken or ordered to be taken on their behalf inthe mater which happened to pass between them as Intimates at that time whenthey were guests of the Janeen, and if the Janeen themselves took no visible orprovable action in the matter, no doubt it was the great fortune which attendsto the Janeen and all that they do, which did mark the weave of fate in thismatter, in which case even greater thanks are given (though the value of theenclosed git need not be greater, (but should be no smaller) than I have said). 

The matter shall then considered to be closed, and nofurther contact either accepted or desired"

Navigating Paintings - a review of the Rogue Trader CRPG

I bought this for Christmas and was playing it a bitevery evening during my temp job, then I lost that job unexpectedly and at thesame time UK got paralysed by dirty snow. I was depressed and  frustrated because I thought the game screwedme out of an achievement, so I made a decision, a really BAD decision; Idecided to restart, use a mod to activate ALL romanceable characters across genderand remove jealousy, and re-start the whole game with a new character - a gloriouslyfancy noble with a high fellowship and moneymaking skills and rock bottomtoughness and willpower and commit myself to playing the whole game again asthe fanciest boy imaginable. 

And that is what I did, for much longer than I expected, abouttwo weeks I think, though time got a bit formless during the experience, andnow I stand before you, finally free from the Koronus Expanse, having completedthe whole game, or as close to whole as one persona can reasonably get on oneplaythrough.

 Raszard

I have deleted Rogue Trader. Never let me play a CRPGagain. 

 

Vast

RT is a vast, ridiculously fat, byzantine structure. Itssheer weight, scope, and the interconnectedness of all its multifaceted systemsis both the flaw and the draw. The systems sing when they interrelate ininteresting ways that provokes more than the sum of their parts. 

Draws; The gigantism is appropriate for the Warhammeruniverse and the ever-collapsing Imperium of Man. It actually makes you feellike a Rogue Trader, desperate ruler of a small empire, drowning in problems  and facing everything with the fracturedmorality of the 41st Millenium. 

Flaws; There are multiple intersecting types of crunchand grind, (which I probably made worse by downloading DLC and leaving ALLromance options open), from grainy grindy battles towards the second half, tothe literal accountancy job of progression. There is an Imperium-appropriatecompanion quest in the game where you literally have to stand in line for daysin an Administratum complex and its more fun than the actual bureaucracy oflevelling your characters. 

The systems of Rogue Trader are; Navigating Paintings,Reading and Clicking, Murder Chess and the lesser systems of Navigation, SpaceBattles, Empire Management and Storybooks.

 

 

Navigating Paintings

An isometric system like the old Infinity Engine classicsbut with the scenes and arenas modelled in 3D and with a swirly camera so youcan spin around, and limited 3-dimensionality. 

By limited I mean there are sometimes two 'layers' orlevels to a game, with advantageous sightlines, ways to get up or down to andfrom places and ways to bottleneck and control areas in combat, but the areasyou run your little figure around when you are just being a Rogue Trader andtalking to people are the same as those you use for combat, to the gamesadvantage when gunfights erupt in places you thought were safe, which they doconstantly in the first part of the game, or turn into negotiations, which ismore rare but does happen sometimes. 

Most potentially-tactical areas have one or two aspectsor elements you can use in combat, like a secret or less obvious flanking pathyou can find by exploring, or a perch to put a sniper on, and in the latergame, some limited interactable elements, like stairways you can materialiseand remove if you are in the right place, and objects and items you can messwith to alter the circumstances of a fight. 

They are pretty. Really actually beautiful, and characterfulenvironments, and are all limited in size, very much not procedural orsimulated 'real scale' environments but more like 'stages', 'scenes' orchessboards with the narrative being made up of journeys between these stages.And that is both good and bad, because there is no insane wilderness wanderingthrough procedurally generated hexes, like you might have had with earlierCRPG's - but the game has to communicate its sense of scale and vastness throughthese many journeys between limited stage plays - making it more 'like' a play,in which a story of great events takes place, but  the scene moves from 'court' to 'battlefield'to 'wilderness' with only the inference of an in-between. 

There is a mild conflict, or at least, a managed polarity,between the complexity, detail and baroque nature of the painting-scenes andthe gameplay. The 'scenes' are a rhapsody of wild detail, from fecund junglesset with sapphire streams where snakes wriggle between the feet of yourcharacters, to spiky space elf megacities (Drukhari are very 90’s), to theendless pipage and grating and plates of a cogboy world, and this deepoverflowing of detail and specificity makes them very good at imbuing the gamewith the spirit of 40k in all its heaving byzantine gigantism. 

But the tools and methods used for navigating thesebaroque digital paintings are highly limited, specific and well-honed frommaking many previous CRPGs. There are traps, which can be found and disarmed byyour not-D&D-thieves in the same way as the strangely-rectangular goblintraps in Baldurs Gate, (they are actually a little more complex), fiddlyhidden things that glow or are outlined so you can click on them, and secondaryroutes to places, (but very rarely tertiary or more, there will be an obviousway forward and, if you explore and click about the margins, maybe aless-obvious way, but not the infinity of choices presented by, for instance, areal forgeworld or space ship interior). 

Of course actually making functional use of allthis visual and spatial detail would make the game virtually unplayable -investigating every crevice in something like a hive world map would bemindbreaking, though it does leave open the potentiality for a much narrowermore 'arty' game with a few very detailed maps and a large amount ofcontext-dependant executable detail in them, I suppose something like being abelowdecks investigator looking into smaller scale dramas.

 

 

 Reading And Clicking 

The next most common activity in Rogue Trader is readingdialogue text and clicking one of a range of options. It’s through this thatyou feel much of the 'reality' of the world. The dialogue is solid, thecharacter writing somewhat better. 

An interesting case of 'known unknowns'; dialogue willsometimes highlight when an option will require a skill test to pass, and willsometimes visibly grey out dialogue options based on how you have played thegames morality path - so you could have said this, if you were more Iconoclastic  or more Puritan etc, but aren’t, so you can't.The game is letting you know and making it clear there were other possiblepaths, but I think there are also truly hidden options, lost and found thoughhigh or low intelligence or fellowship scores, though done or undone events andrelationships with various characters and organisations. there are times whenthe game wants you to know you are making a choice with certain consequencesand times when it will hide the existence of that choice and thoseconsequences. 

The question of knowing and not knowing when you aremaking a choice and what it might mean goes down to one of the core conflicts Ifelt when playing the game. 

if you've played infinity engine games or their ilkbefore the slightly natural/unnatural sometimes looping gamic structure of thedialogue its more questions-and-answer than more natural dialogue and flowsmore like an interview. 

There is almost too much dialogue for me to simply reviewit. The main impression it left me with was its own giganticness, the sheermass of it, and the incredible organisational systems that must be required toarrange all of it, and to update it. On my second playthrough I added the voidshadows expansion and that adds characters and integrates their conversationsinto the game throughout the whole thing. I almost want to watch a documentaryon how Owlcat manages this stuff. 

To return to the known and unknown element; there arecharacters we meet as NPCs who can clearly become companions, as this is set upin their introduction, we can lose companions, though it’s usually very explicitwhen this will happen and usually has to be a deliberate choice, (many reviewsof the game criticise the fact that your clearly one-way aligned charactersstick around way too long if you are obviously going in a different moraldirection and don't respond to that enough),

and there are a handful of secret companions who startout as NPCs and can possibly be recruited if you  have the right alignment and pick the rightdialogue options. 

I know that if it was easier to 'accidentally' losecompanions, like if the battle sister sees you becoming heretical and eitherleaves or even tries to kill you, this would probably draw complaints, but theaddition of more unknown unknowns really adds to the feel and flavour ofexperiencing a living world, and knowing, or not knowing, precisely who mightbe recruitable, deepens immersion.

 

Murder Chess 

Though all chess is murder chess I suppose. 

The square-grid turn-based combat is one of the most funthings about the game. The combination of moves, actions, attacks, cover,mutual support, area control etc, makes the fights feel very lively and fun,especially in the early game when you only have shit guns and your charactershaven't levelled to absurdity. 

The combat brings together a lot of the 'material'aspects of the game; all the weapons you found, recovered or traded for, theelaborate procedure of 'dressing your dolls' with the best possible armour andclothes, and the mildly pleasurable autism of balancing boots that give plusone movement if an adjacent character is upset vs shoes with knives that letyou kick someone in the nuts and so on

The weapons also 'feel' chunky and appropriate. Sister Argenta’sfamiliar bolter sound was so loud I had to go into the settings to turn downeffects. 

Positioning and planning your little chess pieces, preparingsightlines and trying to control areas with grenades and magic powers, tryingto make sure your psyker or nutty tech priest only explodes the enemy and notyou, planning when you will pull out your special sword for a super swing, ororganising your character build so you can dual-attack, trying to position yourofficer character so they can hand out buffs and extra movements, settingthings and people on fire, is great fun. 

I played this on normal difficulty and by the last partof the game most fights were too easy to be interesting in themselves. A fewstuck out as having abnormal or wild difficulty. I could have turned thedifficulty up, to make things more interesting, but by the last act the sheet lengthof the game and the number of battles I had to fight became a weight on its own- many had turned from something I 'got' to do into something I 'had' to do toprogress (also I probably should have turned off the non-attack animations, thegame does give you the options for this), and the general deep sweaty graininessof the combat and character progression system also became a weight of its own 

If you are a different kind of person I think playing onvery hard and continuing to carefully analyse and progress your characters mightstill be fun 

A few interesting points; 

The true currency of the Krononus Expanse is....GRENADES! Especially sustained area-effect grenades like smoke, toxin or fire.These are incredibly useful for dealing with big fights where your best tacticwill be to try to lock off areas of the board and control the flow of enemiesinto choke points where you can maintain your characters in close proximity toaid each other. Even at the early points, I was the master of a city sizedstarship and hope of the dynasty, but I kept running out of grenades and especiallyuseful ones. Like, I can have a gun that fires alien dreams or whatever, andapparently we never run out of ammo for that, I get infinite reloads, but Icannot get a fire grenade to save my life - I'm meeting with the Governor of awhole world who is offering me a trade deal and I'm looking for the option toask for a handful of grenades. The same is true of melta-charges; specificdemolition items that can open boxes and sometimes in open up new paths andareas of the board - if you are trying to 100% the game I think you canactually get soft-locked because there are not an infinite number of melta chargesin the Koronus expanse - you can only buy or find so many so be careful. 

Sightlines work surprisingly well and intuitively. Sidlingup to a corner to peek round is something that actually works. Turn basedcharacter will hide behind something and pop out to shoot. Neat red linesindicate all their possible sightlines, snipers and careful skilled single shotranged weapons users can often fire into combat but your normal close range guyand mid-range people will have real trouble doing so. Having a sniper is funand satisying, they are someone who can deal with enemy snipers, which is veryuseful, reliably dish out high damage on key enemies, but there is again aslightly grindy quality to carefully selecting a target, then one after anothersequentially applying all your different buffs, each time the cameraswiiiiiings across the battlefield and you have to drag it back, then clicking'fire' and hopefully watching some goon hiding behind soft cover a mile awaytotally evaporate. Again it’s the crunchyness and the infinity of mild effects,the careful application of the same buffs in fight after fight, that might besomething you 'get' to so, but might turn into something you 'have' to do. 

 

The Space Marine character, once you get them, issurprisingly mid. Or at least, they are a very chunky tanky guy who hits mildlyhard and shoots reliably, which sounds like a disappointment but is actuallyhow space marines tend to play on the tabletop, (unless they are optimised for somethingelse); very very survivable heavy infantry that shoot reliably at close rangeand fight ok, but less good at any of those things than your by-now more specialisedcharacters. 

I feel like the combat system, and Owlcat generally,really need to make a Necromunda game. In terms of personalities, drama, largescale intersecting systems representing a complex world;

they have worked that out, and the early fights arebetter specifically because you have crappy tech and weapons, limited buffsthat relate more clearly to the imagined world, and limited character optionsso you have to think more about using them, which fits well with Necromunda. Owlcateven managed to get their engine to create a 'dark' level where you can barelysee anything and your little lumen servo-skull follows your cursor, whichsurely they could adapt into Necromunda. Their visually dense and carefullymade maps are already good, the one limitation is dimensionality. Most RogueTrader area have two levels and that’s about it, and characters cannot pass'underneath' other characters if they are on a gantry or something, so reallyits one level but at different heights, which would be a challenge forunderhive play, but their ladders and movement up and down work really well, andthe often fancy oblique sightlines and stuff like throwing a grenade from aboveactually function well 

 

Crunchy Levelling 

The levelling is really where the systems gigantism andhyper-detail brings together its arguably-less-good aspects. I feel likecomputer games are a good place for the very crunchy but still human-operablesystems like the Final Flight system Rogue Trader is built on, since themachine can handle the endless series of buffs and details but the core numbersystem is still comprehensible enough that humans can fiddle with it. 

In RT you level up across three 'wheels' and you level upa LOT. You start with basically a core class which often relates to yourcharacters lived background; Soldier, Psyker, Officer etc, then once your charactersmax that out you go to a second wheel that is a bit more abstract; ‘Arch-Militant’,‘Executioner' ? Then once you max that out, you go to a third wheel which isnearly the same for everyone, the 'Exemplar' wheel. There are fifty something'levels' in the game and five 'chapters' so you will be levelling regularly. 

ITS VERY GRAINY 

Some core choices are simple, like 'you get this magicpower', 'you get dual-wield (its shit without the right stats and buff)' and'you get another action point' or 'you can wear heavy armour now', but a lot, alot a lot, are more like 'you get times two this derived value in when X equalsdouble efficiency stack'. (THE FUCKING STACKS). Basically if you have a highIQ, or just really really like excel sheets and deriving figures, you can buildprobably some insane broken characters to do specific things, but if you arelike me, in the middle of the graph or just fucking basic, the 'normal'sensible choices run out quickly and it’s very easy to soft-lock or bollock upa character, like did you know an 'Executioner' specialises in deepening andexploiting long-term damage like people being poisoned or on fire? So if youwant to select that when it comes up, you really need to have a character thatis good at those things, or a bounty hunter gets big bonuses for personallytaking out characters they have marked, so they need to be mobile or havestrong range. 

None of this is super-difficult, and is quite fun tobegin with, but it’s the main drift of the game where its scale, detail andlength all add together to make it more of an annoying weight rather than a funweight. 

Did I mention that all of your companions all level atthe same time? You can only ever take six on a mission - the rest just hangaround on the ship, (presumably training hard), so, every time you level up andget back to the ship you have to go through the HUGE lists of feats and incrementalbuffs and special tricky powers, which are usually a bit different fromcharacter to character, compare those with your companions core competencies,stats, improved stats from items, favourite weapons, the way you tend to usethem in fights, and, if you are a drama queen like me, the type of person youthink they are, and you synthesise these all together and click 'this' or'that' option from a huge range and hope you haven't accidentally soft-lockedyourself from not being able to wear power armour or something in twenty levelstime (which I actually did with my main character, and had to re-train them,which you can do, but again, you have to choose EVERY level again, which is aten minute job). And you have to do this for ALL AVAILABLE CHARACTERS withevery level-up. THE FUCKING CRUNCH! 

This is the part of the game most like work. I still hadfun with it, especially in the early to mid game. It went along with the whole'dressing your dolls' aspect but it became less fun as the game went towardsits end and for characters I didn't 'like' or rarely used, I just ended upclicking whatever to get them out of the way. I did go from 'yes, anotherlevel' in acts one and two to 'oh my god fuck not another  level' in acts four and five. 

[A side note; the instability and violence of imperialsociety, and the constant intrigues and real physical dangers at the top of thepyramid, (in the first parts of the game you get attacked pretty regularly inhigh and low status areas, even to the extent that it becomes a bit silly), alldoes fit with the background, and does make sense of imperial characters takingsword and pistol literally everywhere they go. If I was any of these people Iwould be taking my looted drukhari blast pistol into the bath and to bedbecause of course someone is going to try to assassinate you in thebath, it’s the best place for it, and of course demons will materialisein your bedroom during a warp transition, and of course the local rebelswill try to shoot you down over the governors palace, where else would they doit? yes I am taking my fucking chainsword to the dinner reception, and so iseveryone else, are you fucking stupid?]

 

 

The Lesser Systems Navigation 

This is neat. It’s a really simple system butencapsulates an interesting paradox of navigation and exploration in games. Aterrible incident destroys your dynasties knowledge of the stable warp routesof the expanse, and warp routes in this area shift regularly anyway, so whatyou have is a map with a bunch of stars with mysterious names, some of whichyou know are important to you,

and are a handful of potential warp routes alreadyhighlighted. Every time you reach a new system you can hit a spooky button tochart new routes which sends out a magical sonar blip which might highlightsome new routes between places, maybe some whole new systems you didn’t knowabout before, it also gives you Navigation points, which represent yournavigators skills and knowledge gained from going to new places, and you canuse these points to either make warp routes less horrifically-dangerous,  or to forge brand new routes to discovered oralready known systems. 

This balance of discovery to opportunity to making-safe,all bound by your rate of exploration itself

works... pretty well. Like a few things in RT, it can bepossible to accidently soft lock yourself out of things and in my firstplaythrough I didn't understand what I was doing, accidentally burnt my pointsby making an inconsequential route green and then got attacked by demonseverywhere else. But its a fun system generally. 

The paradox about game navigation I feel it highlights isthe discovery of the known. Because actual totally undiscovered places in reallife, I mean places undiscovered by anyone, are actually very dull and notuseful. At takes sustained human interest and activity to turn a totallyunknown place into one where exciting and useful things might be found andexploited, and where dramas might happen

so, like in a lot of games and stories, what you areexploring in the Koronus expanse is the forgotten rather than the unknown, andthe game deepens this in many ways - there are lost imperial ships, forgottenfrozen colonies, strange bunkers, abandoned mines, lost cities, mysteriousresearch sites around impossible objects etc. This adds to the deep sense thatthe border of the imperium is not something it is expanding into, but a deeptidal zone, that imperial power expands into and retreats from on the scale of millennia,reaching forth when strong or driven, fading away at other times, only to  be rediscovered by new ages, that what youare exploring, others have explored, many times, and will again, and this addto the sense of tragedy and deep time that creates part of the sorrowful natureof the setting and which feeds into the morality or sense-of-self of itscharacters. They are truly the children of the ruins. 

 

 

Space Battles 

There is a cool ship combat system based on the BattlefleetGothic rules, where space ships manoeuvre in curves and arcs, trying to geteach other in their prow or broadside ranges, and in the case of imperialships, trying to set up the rare ramming opportunity. Few things are more funthan the occasional chance to Plow madly into the prow or stern of some giantchaos battleship or mysterious alien artefact, one thing I miss from myoriginal character was her crazed voice lines from ship combat, she went offlike a lony supervillian with every battle; 

"CHAAARGE THE LANCES! FIIIIRE!" 

Winning these ship combats gets you access to certainplanets and spaces. Planets either have nothing, but you get xp for discoveringthem, some have exploitable resources to feed your growing empire, some havedialogue-only away missions where you send guys out to investigate mysteriousruins etc, and some have actual full adventure zones. 

Ship Battles interlock with two factions in the game youencounter in various forms; the Navy and the Flellowship of the Void (Pirates),each of which can trade you various handy things if you build enough of areputation with them. 

 

Empire Management 

Once you have a few planets under your belt you can startmaking horrific management decisions about what projects to build there and howto govern them. Depending on how good a ruler you are, how much resources youcan gather etc. There are limits on what you can build, some projects gettingyou certain rare resources, special items, (my late-game familial power armourcame from one of these options on my main planet), and locking off other lateroptions. 

There are also mystery events or crises that require yourpersonal intervention, which means you have to hare off across the map again toreturn to a colony to tell them to stop being idiots about something. Having ameaningful empire means doing a lot of governing, so I hope you spent thosenavigator points carefully to green the routes between your main planets. 

A fair amount of the mid-game of RT is being in themiddle of something important and getting a message saying your need to raceacross the expanse to deal with something else. 

 

Storybooks 

The last system is an interesting one. Certain events orsituations will trigger a multiple-choice storybook section. This is like achronicle or a tale told from a certain perspective, of a time someoneencountered the Lord  Captain, where yourprotagonist is a character in their story. 

So at various points, you might be about to invade aworld to free it from chaos and the story of the invasion is told from theperspective of one of the grunts on the ground with your decisions and skill tests deciding how theinvasion goes, or at another point your get the first person story of aDrukhari Scourge given the contract of assassinating the mon-keigh leader, withyour character being the subject of their hunt and your choices deciding howthe hunt goes, or as the tribal retelling of the story of when the greatleader came from the stars and what they did. 

These are interesting for a variety of reasons; theyoffer a relatively quick and cheap method of dealing with huge events andcomplex situations without having yet another dialogue tree, they build thesense of gravity of the reality by showing your character from a variety ofdifferent perspectives - to a tribesman or soldier you are a semi-mythicalfigure, they challenge your skills and abilities with the familiar known andunknown unknowns, in most dialogue and painting-navigation sections, yourcharacter can 'use' the skills of your retinue to deal with challenges, whichleads to you carefully developing and selecting characters to be good atcertain things, if you think there might be traps you need the Aeldari rangerhigh perception to find them, and someone good at demolitions to disarm them,if there is warp fuckery you might need to bring the inquisitor, but in thebook sections is it’s your abilities alone that decide things. 

In my first playthrough my character was smart, strong mindedand good at shooting, so they were an icy intelligent type that made them a competentsniper on the battlefield, gave them perhaps hidden dialogue options from ahigh intelligence and let them face down scary threats with high Willpower. Butshit fellowship, persuasion and commerce, so actually not that good at a lot of'governing a star empire' events. My second character was a noble fancy boywith super high fellowship and commerce, but I actively tried to keep hiswillpower and toughness low for as long as possible, so he was rubbish in afight unless he had people to command. 

These storybook sections really highlighted thedifference between them, with the icy sniper Isabella dealing relatively wellwith physical stuff when isolated, but being bad at persuading people oraltering events, while Valerian Von Valencius, my posh fancy boy, was inabsolute pantsshitting terrorgdanger with solitary adventure sections, butactually very good at managing people, doing diplomacy and managing his empire.

 

 

 Love And Failure - Did I Fail The Game? 

I played this game one-and-a-bit times. Once with myfirst character, when I nearly go to the end of the second act, and again withmy second character, where I played the whole thing all the way through. 

My first time I really didn't know what I was doing andmade a bunch of mistakes, soft locking myself out of certain things and generallybeing non-optimal, but my sheer lack of knowledge about what I was doing leadto me being much more immersed in every individual choice as that character

even though the game was going less well overall. I was overwhelmedby events and systems and everything, but this frantic sense meant that I feltlike my protagonist; constantly on the move

uncertain, not knowing what choice or option might leadwhere, weighting my dialogue choices and strategic choices more like a personthan a player. 

On my second run I knew more about the game, already knewwhat would happen in much of the first two acts, and my character wasdeliberately unbalanced, designed more to be a particular person with a strongset of abilities and weaknesses. I also downloaded the Void Shadows DLC, whichadded a whole bunch to the game. 

In some ways Valerian Von Valencius felt more like arogue trader, while my first character, Isabella, refused to take a bath,Valerian did so immediately, presumably as a noble it was simply his nature, andhe ended up bathing with every member of his entourage over time, but in otherways, though he was, in some ways, more optimised to be a 'person', he,(meaning I), had lost our ignorance, our unknowing of what meant what and whatwas to be. I was less immersed, because I knew more. 

It’s very hard to play a game and not try to optimiseyourself, but that very instinct is in conflict with a deeper desire orimpulse; the need to really experience events, from the first time, un-warnedin advance and unknowing of their consequences. 

Throughout the game RT deliberately plays with veils, givingyou some choices with clear causes, consequences and mechanics, others blind, somegiven without reason, others removed. You never really know when the game willrespond 'as a game' or when it will simulate a world, with strange long termconsequences resulting from apparently minor choices or effects. This slightlyshadowy 'magic trick' quality seems another curious paradox of play, onecentral to the RPG experience;

the strange gift of ignorance. 

I did cheat at times. 

There are cheats I defend and would do again. Using thetoybox mod to activate ALL romance options across gender and removing thejealousy feature; why this is simply how a true Rogue Trader would play. 

Likewise, there were a handful of annoyingmultiple-choice shit riddle questions where you have to either relentlesslyexamine tiny fragments of environmental information and then postulate fromthose the correct sequence of answers with no indication of which in thesequence might be right or wrong, or just brute-force them. I looked those upand I feel fine about it. They were shit challenges. 

The deeper question of what it actually means to playblind, and what and where the value of a game lies, of the fundamentaldifference between meeting an apparently complex situation for the first time inignorance, and therefore treating it as fundamentally more-real, and meeting itfor a second or more times, and the deep conflict within myself of wanting toexperience vs wanting to 'get things right', I am no closer to resolving. Thoughperhaps by accepting it I can manage it better.

 

I got a Goth Girlfriend, and a hot Mutant Bae, but theyboth left me in the end…..

Chaos Goblins - VotE Remastered Development

Anarchists of the infinite dark. Chaotic where nothing so uncertain should be able to survive. By chance alone they thrive, by chance they die
Russ Nicholson
Physical AppearanceAre these monsters even Goblins? No two are quite the same. Most have no heads. Instead, big gawping faces occupy the centre-mass; lumpy spheres ringed with limbs; long dandling legs and nearly indistinguishable arms spreading out like spiders limbs. Others so crooked-backed that they are grown into hoops, even rolling along on their knobbly spines, bouncing the ground with pugnacious faces on each turn. Others long and loopy, with fifty eight vertebrae and six to eight limbs, who scurry like centipedes along the ground.
The chaos goblins sunless skin stained black with crazed tattoos, full-body or half-body black paint, tattooed vantablack ‘gloves’ or ‘boots’ so that they seem to move along like ghosts, or one half blackened, the other kept pristine. Others graffitied with crazy notions and scurvy pictures. In off hours the Chaos Goblins tattoo each other and themselves with whatever they have to hand; blood, brain paint, ash, ichor, mondmilch. Don’t confuse it with a Culture.
The Chaos Gobs have monocoloured eyes. Either utterly black, like a sharks, or and infra-white sclera and iris that backscatter unlikely radiations into visible light, meaning the whites of their eyes, which are the whole of their eyes but for the pupil, glow or stand out clearly in the dark, especially when there is no other light at all. Such goblins often paint or tattoo themselves utterly black, leaving only their eyes. They find this hilarious.
Chaos Goblin eyes can also ‘bulge’ and ‘flex’. Rings of muscle around their cartilaginous orbits, and very robust jelly, mean the eyes themselves writhe and warp in shape, sometimes pushing and squeezing the ball into a peeping scope, or even ‘closing’ entirely, making the face a blank,
Somewhere equatorial to the eyes, swivelling radar ears turn like blinking chameleons. Beneath; their twitchy noses poke and point this way and that, leading the way, and under those the mouths are full of teeth of knives, while the Goblins carry knives of teeth, along with the most bizarre assortments imaginable; umbrellas, hats, man-skin gloves over tattooed black hands, geegaws and trinkets. Always jiggling and poking, snorting and chuckling are the Chaos Gobs.

Russ Nicholson
Culture (?)Horror Goblins banished from the sun for deeds too-queer. Worshippers of primordial chaos, and the chaos Dukes they find in worms, in pies, in dung, in eyes… Even Goblin Lands won’t take them in. Thus came they, blindways, nightwayes, west of Midnight, north of Quiet, down down down to the Underground, where no sun shines and dreams and dark are one.
Even here nobody likes them! (Maybe the dErO, who use them as hunters and deniable ‘proxies’, (like a rabid frog on a candyfloss leash). Or at least they try to. The Chaos Goblins find the dErO hilarious, but they find everything hilarious.)
Anarchists of the Veins. Hell Gobs! Terrorists! Friends to slime and slug. Goblins who got a little too dark. Chaos! Or expressions of it.
They must engage in some kind of economic activity, if only for the fun of it. They seem to have…. stuff. As well, they must have some kind of irregular pipeline to other multiversal goblin cultures - they have some animated weapons and goblin guns. They have met David Bowie. (The actor, not his character in Labyrinth.)
Too twee? Too cringe? Too twenty-twelve blog post? They don’t care. In fact, that makes it better. In the whole of any Veins-World, the Chaos Gobs are the only creatures who may have met David Bowie, or will even know who that is, when even the Player Characters don’t.
I’ll say this; the Chaos Gobs have so much respect for Chaos they will usually respect a bet, and the more inane and chaotic the bet the greater respect it has. Cards & Dice? = FOR CUMPS. Lets bet on flies landing on shit-piles, or whose eye pops out first, or who can eat more of a live snake, each starting at a different end. Yes, the Chaos Goblins will respect a bet, for the five to thirty minutes that makes up their short-term memory. After that they stop caring at all.
But that doesn’t mean they will chase you down. They are chaotic after all. Might simply doodle on the walls, or sing a song, or eat each other. Best to run while you have the chance.
Pathfinder
Material CultureWherever they are the Chaos Goblins ‘Chaos Aura’ (see ‘Mutational Effect’ below), warps and alters the environment in various ways, but they also make raw physical changes that anyone could do.
In the living expression of course, its hard to tell where madness ends and the extra-real beings. The Chaos Gobs certainly don’t know.
They shit everywhere, paint the walls with shit. They poop in many colours. They paint the walls with Brain-Paint, (see below), and who knows what that might do? And they paint the walls with paint, if they happen to have any. They carve passages into goblinish shapes, their halls are like cathedrals where only gargoyles and grotesques are allowed. Gieger would enjoy them, and yes! He was one of them! They bore random holes to nowhere, build castles made of moon-beams, imported from the seas of the Imprisoned Moon (How did they get them, since they are so poor in every other way?)
So, imagine this; a ridiculous cathedral with the windows being crazed paintings in luminescent shit, or actual para-reality doors…
Yes they might have some treasure. They might have the treasure. Of course they don’t know what it is, or care. Its in a bucket and the bucket is what they value. They will chase you TO THE ENDS OF THE FUCKING EARTH about that bucket!!!
On the move you might find them hiding Man-Camels in a hole that wasn’t there before, or collectively inside a box that shouldn’t be present at all. (Many Chaos Goblins can climb out of one thing.)
Storyforge art
Tools And WeaponsMan-CamelsTrepanned or brain-screwed naked human beings with elongated limbs. Used as beasts of burden.
Brain-PaintVital Chaos Goblin tech, and a major source of conflict with Soft-Heads who also needed those brains. Brain-Paint is made from the brains of wizards, or anything analogous to a wizard in Goblin eyes, mixed with.. whatever really. What a Chaos Goblin paints with Brain Paint becomes conditionally-real. A tunnel painted on a wall becomes a tunnel, a hole becomes a hole, a princess becomes a princess (a Chaos Goblin version of one anyway). This may be how Chaos Goblins gain irregular access to other Goblin Realms; by just painting them on the wall and walking in, then getting out fast before they forget they can’t really be there. The useful effects of Brain-Paint for non-chaos-goblins are highly irregular, and it doesn’t work at all if not painted by a Chaos Goblin. The negative effects usually work.
Living WeaponsChameleon Whips actual chameleon tongues make their targets appear differently, Sting Stones are wasp-souled sling stones, Spider-Guns like silk-spewing bagpipes. They are rumoured to use tame (?) Ungulix as hunting hounds.
MadlightsImportant in the Veins, Chaos Goblin lamps are always varicoloured and always move madly, either flung and whirled about the head, or actual living bugs and floating frog-balloons lit from within but still trying to hop. They are carried like child’s balloons or like toys, or streamers, bouncing and whirling about.
Other ItemsPotion-Pots, Sticky Pokers, Fiddle-Diddles, Hidey Box, Boomerangs, Hooks, Grease, mall-bought shuriken, Madness Pipes.
Russ Nicholson
The Power of Chaos!Existence for the Chaos Goblins is a dark, violent, anarchic comedy that never ever ever ends. A cruel, surreal, picaresque from which they cannot escape, from which they cannot wish to escape.
They are like a corruption, a Cancer on Reality. Causality bubbles and warps around them. Extremities of chance become common, rare events; regular, humours change. Their physical environment also warps, becoming emblematic, expressionist, arch and Caligarish, somehow performed.
Those who are captured by Chaos Goblins, inevitably monstered, stripped, tattooed, altered, are either made into man-camels, or slowly devolve into Chaos Goblins themselves, as they go utterly mad. These ‘Changed Ones’ are the Chaos Goblin shaman who perform their Grand Transformations.




Chaos MechanicsChaos Goblins don’t roll dice, they just flip coins. Heads is a crit, or the highest number possible from the equivalent die roll, tails is a fumble, or the lowest number possible. A die-equivalent can be managed by making all ‘odds’ crits and high and all ‘evens’ fails and fumbles.
All Chaos Goblin action oscillates between bizarre flukes of terrifying good luck, and the most laughable and deranged failure, with nothing in-between. Their 'magic' is the ability to act like cartoon characters.
Chaos Aura!The Chaos Aura around a Chaos Goblin randomises the effect of any spell cast upon them. Usually this just randomises between any spell of the same level, but on a d20 roll of 20, it randomises between all possible spells of any level.

Knightmare Miniatures
Chaos-Tricks!Thankfully, each Chaos Goblin can only use one Chaos Trick at a time, and usually only one Chaos Goblin can use each Chaos Trick in each encounter.
It takes actual concentration to do it. But more important than concentration is circumstance. In the words of Roger Rabbit, ‘it has to be funny’. Though ‘funny’ for a Chaos Goblin doesn’t mean funny for anyone else.
Still, in effect, if a Chaos Goblin uses a Chaos Trick during an encounter, that Goblin can only use that one power, and only that Goblin can use that ability. Otherwise it wouldn’t be ‘funny’.
Elongating ArmsExtend your arms like a huge accordion! Or like long loopy animated limbs! Or like big mad snakes!
Inflated BodyHuff and puff and a Chaos Goblin can inflate itself just like a balloon and float about in the same way, waving its limbs for some level of control. Pierce it and it goes ‘vvvveeeeeeeeee’ and flies about like a balloon, instead of collapsing like a body of equivalent mass.
Deranged DisguiseA Chaos Goblin can disguise itself by dressing very crudely as whatever it wants to be seen as. They can even disguise themselves from the Dungeon Master. For instance the Dungeon Master might say;
“In the middle of the battle, a hot princess appears and starts making lovey dovey eyes at you?”
“Where did she come from?”
“I have no fucking idea.”
Bear in mind; Chaos Goblins are mad, stupid and cringe, so while their disguise might be impenetrable in a metatextual sense, it will often stand out as being utterly retarded. (But look out for those occasions where it isn’t.)
Harmless LiquefactionA Chaos Goblin can be liquified and poured into something, before being decanted and reassuming its form. This honestly has limited combat utility.
HidingA Chaos Goblin can hide behind something that has no space to hide behind, like a long thin rod, or under a rug.
Limb FixA Chaos Goblin can lose a limb and replace it with something else that is sort of like a limb, simply popping or screwing it on or in. This might be sword, a hook, a bone, another Chaos Goblin or anything really.
Impossible Shadow PuppetsA Chaos Goblin can make shadow puppet animals or beings on a cave wall and use them as actual creatures.
Grand TransformationsA Shaman is required for this, or someone the Chaos Goblins think is a Shaman. A Big Ritual takes place and one, or more, or all Chaos Gobins are transformed, either randomly, or all into Bat-Goblins, or Fish-Goblins with smiling goblin faces, or Mist-Goblins or are agoblimated into a single Mass Goblin Mega-Goblin.

RayMen - VotE Remastered Development

The RayMen, slight and fast, aged-but-ageless, backs inherentlystooped, with bright, intelligent eyes. 

At the edge of the comprehensible world, where darknesssculpts itself an active form, the RayMen feel a purpose that strikes likelightning in the tempest of their daily lives. The flame to live is quickened andfed on pure melodies of light and space. These are a people without shouts,without tears, without hopes, without regrets. They value only four things;Life, Light, Techne and The Deed. 

 Rayonist Lilies (Goncharova,1913)

Life-Preservers 

The RayMen value any living thing. For them, life is thespine of reality and justifies the world. All else is a fiction; only life and action,child of life, are authentically True. Life is what is real. 

Life knows neither good nor bad nor justice, so it is acold charity the RayMen offer. They may be the only people in the Veins tryingto keep you alive as a matter of principal, but it is principal, notaffection. There is nothing personal about it. Neither do they specify ‘safe’,‘sane’, ‘free’ or ‘well’. Only ‘alive’. Neither aretheir offers free. RayMen can offer food and simple tools to keep a wandereralive, but this is a debt which will not be forgotten. Not the crushingcompound-interest debt-slavery of the Knotsmen, but a precise repayment ofresource, pursued with calm but existential ferocity over terrible reaches oftime. 

Almost alone of the cultures of the Veins, RayMen do notpractice slavery, not quite. They acknowledge its legal existence. To dootherwise would put them at permanent war with every other civilised power andthey will trade slaves, if they think such trade more likely to securethe slaves life. 

 

Masters of Forbidden Slime 

RayMen culture much of the fungi, lichen and algalgrowths which feed on magic, heat or other things, and which form vital pillarsof the food chain for many civilised location in the Veins. What magics theyhave interlace with technology and this is used to enter strange and forbiddenrealms, seeking biological bounty; bugs which feed on dreams in nightmarelands, the black crops of hell or the entropic slimes of the Final Eons. Theseare manipulated and cross-bred with normative lines in the attempt to createstable food-types for the great caverns of the lightless depths. 

The successes are always curious; airborne plankton whichfeed on music, consumed in-turn by swarms of the ghosts of insects, themselvesdevoured by micro-bats which digest their sprightly food into material calories.Physical fungi that feed on sentience itself, producing great fields of fertilemycelium tended by hollowed-out P-Zombies. Summoned grey tendrils which piercethe veil to drink the deepest darknesses, leaving only glitched zero-grey, butwhich can be harvested with scythe and sickle. 

Even the positive and stable relationships can producestrange ontological pollutions, but such is the price of life. The ‘control’ ofcrops and fertile systems possessed by the RayMen forms part of the triangle oftheir power; if you want to eat, sooner or later, you come to them. 

And of course, they will assist you. 

 La musica, Luigi Russolo

The Calcinicus Doctrine 

Life-supporting warfare means an emphasis onincapacitation rather than destruction and the RayMen dedicate their brilliantminds, and the power of their techne to such ends. They are the mastersof gas, legalistic avoidance, illusion engines, chemical alteration,madness-cannons, blinding rays and other forms of non-lethal warfare. 

Many RayMen wear their Gas-Masks semi-permanently. Gas ispotent in the closed atmosphere of the Veins and they make use ofincapacitating mustard gas, tear gas and chlorine, in bomb, grenade or sprayforms. Or, when necessary, in mass-dispersal tanks. 

More strange and complex technologies are used; Sleep-Grenadesare extensions of RayMan alchemical-engine technology, turning words to instantsleep, so that whoever talks, or thinks in words, in their dozing-field, fallsright asleep. Peace-Hogs are mines, grenades and sometimes spikedblunderbuss-guns firing crystal slivers that dissolve into a harmlesscalm-imbuing ichor in the blood. Madness-Cannons are weapons of last-resortwhile Illusion-Guns are portable expressions of RayMan stealth technology. ExpertIllusion-Pistoleers use twin guns, one in each hand, modulating a single senseeach. In the Veins, vision is not always the most significant sense and smell,echolocation and ‘air-sense’ or ‘volume-sense’, (really a fine form of touch),can all be more important, depending on target and situation. 

RayMen have more terrible and destructive technologies,but these are reserved as weapons of a last-resort. Due to their quasi-pacifistdoctrine, RayMen have no concept of limited warfare. Once the last of theirboundaries has been crossed, they commit every art they have to the dealing ofabsolute death. 

 

Weapon-Trade 

RayMen never trade their weapons. Rewards for handingthem in are high. Bounties for those who, for whatever reason, find themselvesin possession of such, but do not hand them in, are much higher.. veryextremely high. Making the pursuit of, or trade in, stolen orrecovered RayMan techne a trade in death. 

Neither do RayMen take weapons in payment, regardless of circumstance. 

 Giacomo Balla, Street Light

 

Lords of Light 

RayMen see the Veins as Space and Light, highlighted by Mass.They consider themselves lucky to live here. As they see it; no-one from Aboveknows what space and light truly are. Those who live beneath the stars drown inboth, merely using each; space to ‘keep things in’, light to ‘see’ otherthings. But space is not a piece of luggage. Light is not an errand boy. Light Is. 

Active, alive, it races faster than a waterfall,soundless and eternal. Space Is. 

Infinite, all-holding, reality-imbuing. They have theirown quality. 

RayMen value gems, but only for the light within thegem, like thoughts within a mind. Beauty worked from Space and Light has allthe properties of a real force like gravity or heat. The body is superficial,accidental. Tone, brightness, occluding or refracting, that is all. The eyesbut not the face. 

 

Lume-Traders 

Here Below, they dominate the Lume-Trade. Spider-ridingRayMan pedlars and traders always carry wild arrays of luminescent gear, fromthe simplest biological lamps to the subtlest artifices, to the queerest magics. 

They own the Light-Banks; vaults of luminescent material,as well as precursor elements and mechanical necessities of every kind. Greatarmoured tanks of Whale-Oil. Racks of candles. Forests of glowing fungi andaquaria of sparking eels. 

A common RayMan tool is their Lume-Conversion mechanicalcalculator; a semi-cylindrical brass device of startling capacity with everypossible form of Lume describable via complex key-sets of its brass buttons andlevers. These are re-set at every Light Bank and themselves transcribe theirconversions into the banks own engines to keep right the grand conversions andcalculations of all the Light within the Veins; an ever-replenishing equationof economic, and near-religious importance to the RayMen. 

 Umberto Boccioni, 1912

Techne 

The RayMen have ever been masters of Techne. Notquite systematic mass-produced technology, more like the conceptual structuresof spells, cloaked in metal, described in systems and moving parts. RayMan technecan be used by others, if they can work out its non-intuitive activation, andoften seems to have a little more life in it than a mechanical device should;clicking, ratcheting, re-setting and unlocking at curious times to unknownstimuli. 

 

Rays 

The power of the RayMen is bound within their Rays;lances and scatters of light and force that spear out to blind, illuminate,transform, to pierce stone or spike minds. 

Stone-Rays are common alchemical weapons – enter a cavernto find blasts and spars of fragile stone exploded from a central bastion, nowfrozen in place, slowly crumbling. Relics of a battle with RayMen besieged atopthe central tower. 

Sky-Rays emit an imperceptible force that causes the eyeto perceive a lucid sky-blue field for a moment. This signals death andwhomever saw such light will soon sicken and slowly die. A weapon of lastresort. 

White-Ray projectors suck in air or water and transformit to a lance of bright-burning white phosphorous which sticks to flesh. 

 

Other rays can look through the body to perceive brokenbones, or hidden items, or can even peer through stone as if it were glass, orcan count time from stellar wonders far below the earth, or can burn or cut ata distance. RayMen can travel by rays they say, though only in straight lines,and can transmit words, images or thoughts, again, only ray-wise. In theCaverns of the RayMen the rays crackle and flash amongst eternally movingmachines powered be electrical stromatolites washed by alkali canals.

 

Futurist Flower 1 by Giacomo Balla 

Strange Alchemical Engines 

Engines of transformation, alchemical capacitors - littlecornucopia. These are the keys to the RayMens rays, to many of their weaponsand tools. Few outside their ethno-culture know they exist and less know howthey work. 

Night-combustion engines burn darkness into light creatingontological pollution; fumes of pale shadow that seep across the stone andcurdle in the earth driving the stones insane. A scientist who believes in notomorrow is a dangerous thing. 

 

Trogoloautomata 

Clock-Spiders and Pneumo-megapedes. RayMen ride aachinesmade in the shapes of Veins predators and wanderers. Hyper-clockwork builtinside impossible ‘long-cabinets’ and meta-cupboards’ with the aid of tameSubstratals. Incredible grinding and clockwork sounds echo into animperceptible distance inside the machine. Pipes contain more pressurethan went in. If destroyed, they explode like bombs. 

Bright with blinding searchlights and the loudesttravellers of the deep dark due to their terrible grinding sounds and infiniteclicks. This is almost a sensory assault in Veins-culture and only the RayMen,the Lume-Traders, could get away with it. 

Keeping damp off the machines is a continual problem.Scrub them down with the Evaporation Ray. 

Horizontal Volumes by Umberto Boccioni, 1912

 

The Deed 

To Raymen the past is dead; the future is nothing. Canyou eat it? To speak in future-tense is nearly to lie. Today is the deed. Theyseize the day. 

They are intelligent. Can plan for the future andinterrogate the past. They do not indulge in this. Such things are onlytools. Things to be got out of the way. They stand between light of the mindand the Now. 

 

The Do-Box 

RayMan phrases are shaped in terms of action, not meaningor reflection. They talk dungeon masters; “what are you doing?”, “what did youdo?”, “what will you do?”. “Who did what?”, “how did they do it?”, “how was itdone?”. “What is happening?”. 

RayMan culture is doing. Speech is atertiary concern. The word is just the bodyguard to the deed. They areunimpressed with oratory, hard to persuade. Even reason works less well than itshould. Deed is the highest and surest of all truths. 

 Giacomo Balla sculptural construction of noise and speed 1915-

Whence the RayMen Came? 

This is RayMen as they are now. Skilled miners inhabitingvision-cities cloaked from view by high technology. Lords of strange bounty inthe desert of stone. Beloved by no other culture, yet feared by all for theirterrible techne, their merciless exterminations and the simple removalof their food-production guild. 

Why are they here? Legend speak of failed insurrectionsin distant lands or forgotten realities, of crazed ideals and Revolutions stillin-progress, in the mad-but-airy theoretical, of a keen-edged godless immanent Now.Perhaps such idealists could only hide here, in the archipelago of theforgotten and blackly doomed. 

No-one comes here to look for them. 

Ælf-Adal - VotE Remastered Development

Their Origins in DreamThey come from out of Nightmare, though whose, or why, no-one remembers now. They may have been the dying dream of a coma-locked god, that cracked its sleeping skull and clambered out into our world. They may have been a shadow in the deep dark mirror-world of man, the fearful place we go to in our frightened dreams, brought forth by art, or chance or ancient science.
But they spring from the ecology of dreams, they are born from its substance, made to feed and feed upon and fight those visions of our fear.
Imagine a world composed only of the nightmares of all the thinking, sleeping minds, a strand of hallucinatory darkness shifting in its substance as dreamers wake and sleepers slip in and out of terror in the night. A world where the only stability comes from the mass memories of shared catastrophes. A world that contains all knowledge held by any thinking being, yet only in its dark reflected form. A world where predation is absolute, where all things hunt and kill and there is nothing that does not, in some small way, do harm. A world whose demiurges and creating gods, those beings that fill it with their life, who imbue its every moment with their black creative fire, are also its victims, targets and foes. A world that hates its creators.
This is the world of the Ælf-Adal, where they slowly grew, shaping themselves from the coagulated stuff of thought. This is where they first formed independent minds, where they made their society, where they built their mighty civilisation, a city seen in many dreams but never recognised.
How long they lay there thinking dreaming thoughts, nobody knows. Some say longer than the life of man, some say longer than the life of the world, some say longer than the stars.
Their War Against the DreamersNo-one is certain who declared the war, whether their psychonaut scouts broke out, hunting dreamers as they woke, unwilling to let go, even on the borders of night, or whether some psychic human crusade discovered them and penetrated into Dream to burn out the parasitic thought. But, in dreams and sleep, and in the daylight of the waking world, a war began.
It was a war of tragedy and loss. The regularity and substance of our world made it a kind of hell to them, and the impossible fluctuations of Nightmare swallowed whole cultures of man.
The Ælf-Adal were made from the memory of pain and knew, in some form, everything we knew, and held strange magics impossible to counter and understand. But we were their creators, or the sustainers of their world at least, and they could never fully understand the sights they saw unfolding as the sun rose. The substance of humanity was dense and strange and different than it was in dreams and here, man did not always run but sometimes fought, and sometimes won, and as the numbers of mankind decayed, the world of Dream began to shrink and tighten round the black cities of the Ælf-Adal.
As well as that, once the war began, the nightmares of mankind filled mutually with one shared terror: the fear of the Nightmare Men, and these twice-reflected visions, the Nightmares of a Nightmare, filled their ancient civilisation. As monstrous and strange as they, but not independent, not truly-thinking beings, mere reactions and distractions, but dangerous enough in their way.
The Prophet of the Aelf-AdalIt was a prophet, or strange Nightmare-God that led the Ælf-Adal beneath, away from the light, away from the reach of man. Here, in a dim strange corner of the material world so dark and fluid that it seemed almost like a part of Dream, they lay and waited, rebuilding their mighty and decadent civilisation, one based on and drawn from the shattered memories of the greatest cities ever made. Yet now real, encoded in stone deep beneath the earth.
The Ælf-Adal are not-quite-real and not-quite-dream, but they are beautiful, the colour of the darkness, and they never age.
They can live and eat and breathe and die. And hate.
The Hatred of the Aelf-AdalImagine an ocean, a deep one. Imagine the water is black and dark like North Sea mud. Imagine things living in it, thickly-knitted limbs churning like a mower motor left tipped up and switched on, cutting blindly in long grass. You can’t see the limbs, or the things to which the limbs attach, but you can feel their movement in the thick black sea. They regard you. They hate you. A hate so deep they tear frantically at their own flesh in substitute for reaching yours.
Imagine the sea restrained by glass. Like the walls of an aquarium built on titanic scale. You stand before the sea that rises out of sight and curves to the horizon on each side. You can hear the surface fretting up its waves in storm a distant mile above your head. The glass holds everything back. Inside it you can see brief writhings of that midnight high-pressure world, raging at your presence just beyond its reach.
Imagine that the glass is beautifully made. Etched and engraved with perfect smiling forms. Beyond it, the black water, but, when the light slants just so across the pane, a field of translucent harmony gleams, worked there on its surface by hands and minds that leap the greatest human art. A genius casually employed that vaults with ease the best that man has ever made. Crystal signature of thoughtless superiority. So perfect are its fields and processions that when seen, even glimpsed in a trickle of lateral light, you want to live there, with those frozen people, inside the surface of that glass.
This is how much the the Ælf-Adal despise you.
This is how much they control that hate.
The knowledge of you stabs them in the flesh with every recollection and event. Though they know it well, the wound of you will not close. Each memory of you, each experience, all evidence of your continued being, is like a knife twisting in the skin.
No other species could absorb such titanic contempt and remain sane. They would be reduced to raving berserkers, living only to kill, directly, the loathed enabler of their pain.
But the Ælf-Adal are old; they know much of patience and control. And they know that they are born from the substance of your fear and that if there was nothing left to feel afraid, they might well die.
So.
Their Great PlanEverything that can be done is being done. The situation is difficult, but there is time. There is always time. They must endure, as they have for so long. They wait and plan for an inverted world, a world where societies and civilisations and empires and species exist purely to instil and sustain fear. A world where dreams enslave the dreamer. Where the walls between sleep and waking tumble down and both realms become one sweet eternal whole.
They will live to see it.
Flayed Skin and Stolen EyesFleshThey have real bones and bodies, and beautiful infra-black skin, void against the dark, but diaphanous gusts of smeared flesh can alter in an instant, bones elongating into trollish stalkers, or warping into crone-curves, Darkflesh bubbling with screaming faces - a blistering cancer of fear.
Light will sharpen their teeth and tightly-fitted skins will remind them of their form. They trade in Elf-Skins, or other skins of form and beauty, stitching themselves into suits of the finely tanned flesh, Wrapping these in equally tight clothes, and those in diaphanous gusts of cloudcradle silk, as if to mimic via textiles the formlessness of the twice-bound flesh beneath.
They breathe in the light to sharpen teeth and tongues. Exhaled breaths of darkness curl around their masks like rising steam. Only in light do their teeth sharpen and tongues point so they can speak clearly. In light do they hunger and in light do they feast, tearing at red meat and drinking bright blood and dark wines.
MasksEach wears a mask, they claim these suppress the natural terror-imbuing presence of the Aelf-Adal, without which they might have no congress, and this is partly true. The unspoken part says that only these remind them of their identity and shape. To take a mask is to tear much of the solidity and sanity of an Aelf-Adal, for they cannot easily organise ‘I-am’ without one. This is another cause of their nobility for they choose only fine and beautiful masks – the faces of princes, kings and queens. Though they may become hounds or monsters if they choose.
Above the mask, at times they seem to have great horns, or black medusa hair; not snakes but things like snakes; blades or sharp penetrating pseudopodia, or they may have washes of ink that move like comic book art.
Beneath the masks are curious mouths; usually matching their assumed identity and role, though with sharper teeth, though in darkness, or extremis, they can twist and melt into vertical slits, tentacled holes or savage crosswise cuts.
EyesTheir eyes are never their own, for natural Aelf-Adal evolved within a psychosphere, alive to scent and meaning but knowing only imagined light, which does not shine where no attention guides. The dreaming mind, like a theatre-keeper, sends the wash-lamp of its thoughts here and there, highlighting fragments of scene, leaving where it passes, a deeper darkness than just absence. This darkness was the birth-caul of the Aelf-Adal, and so they have no natural eyes.
Thus they must steal or purchase eyes to see with. Always the most beautiful eyes, always the rarest and most prized. The eyes behind their mask are not their own.
The Deathly StareThe un-masked full-face stare of an Aelf-Adal invariably kills. This nightmare instinct bursts from them in times of stress or intense joy. The false eyes fall from their faces and are trod underfoot in ecstasy. All who face them die, and no closing of eyes will save them, for the face-sight of an Aelf-Adal penetrates flesh like a black sun while the chaos of their horned medusa-hair writhes like a corona of worms.
Fear-EatersWhile they occupy solid, predictable form, bound to a mask, a name, wrapped within a skin, the Aelf-Adal must eat as mortals do, (though only occasionally). Yet at all times they eat fear.
For the Aelf-Adal, the terror, dread and disquiet that emanates from living things is like streams of water falling in a desert land – each life is like a roving fountain moving through a stony maze like ghosts - appearing and disappearing - and the Aelf-Adal like parched Pilgrims who must seeks these miraculous ever-replenishing gourds which pour their bounty in the shapes of living men.
Without Fear they waste away into ghosts or scurry into dreams as petty thoughts. Given too much they mestatise into apocalyptic angels, primal extra-causal terrors. Neither is their desire, so they must farm terror calmly, and spook in moderate ways. Moderate from their perspective anyway.
MagiciansThey gain naturally in magical power as they agelessly age. An inherent gift, existing as they do between real and unreal. A world that contains all knowledge held by any thinking being, yet only in its dark reflected form. Though they are not above learning ‘lesser magics’.
Sleep and WakingThe Aelf-Adal recognise no boundary between sleep and wakening, between reality and dream. Naturally amphibious to thought, they are equally present whether you are awake or asleep and can walk through dreams to reach you - dreams which curdle into nightmare in their presence, so that one affected with regular nightmares is said to be Aelf-Kissed.
One might dream of an Aelf-Adal and awaken to see them physically before you, carrying on the same conversation as if nothing has changed, or meet with one and fall into sleep, only to find them still there, again, continuing on. To them, there really was no boundary, the matter is like turning one’s head, or switching between well-known tongues.
M certain twitching morphia hangs about all those who deal with Aelf-Adal - so much involved with those who recognise no bounds to sleep, they themselves seem druggy, now narcoleptic, insomniac, not knowing what is real.
The danger for dreaming mortals is that for the Aelf-Adal, an agreement made in a dream, is as binding and real to them as one made awake.
The Palaces Of NightThe Palaces of the Aelf-Adal bleed into the imagination, for they are built across the bridge of night, with foundations in reality and dream. A gentle terror impregnates all they touch whether they will it or not; Auschwitz fantasies, Ed Gien Decor and Giger-Ossuary Aesthetic, archipelagos of darkness where the unconscious and abyssal meet, courts of dark luxury existing in the limerence of dread. Marked with the emblem of the screaming face, they are always bigger on the inside, and once the inside has been experienced and the boundary broken, larger then beyond.
The SunIt is not light itself they fear, (and they would say they fear nothing, for Fear they are), but the mass collective concept of 'The Day', the dream of the Above. To them the waking world , with its burning Sun and sharp alien divide between reality and dream, is a conceptually toxic realm.
There is no equivalent, but imagine this; you move to a nation where right-angles do not exist, or where no lines are straight, and even the understanding that things might be otherwise fades slowly from your mind as the collective impossibility takes hold, persisting only as a deep sense of impossible wrongness and an alien nature which you no longer have the concepts to delimit or the words to describe.
Even the dreams of those who come from above can be dangerous, for they remember sunlight and dream of sunlit lands, a dangerous, but yet.. intoxicating, circumstance for the Aelf-Adal.
Society and EconomyFamilyWhile they have a mask, a shape, a name, the Aelf-Adal must eat, must breathe, know pain, hope and, (though they deny it), fear. They even love their children, in a way.
They can mate with one another, or with anything else. Half-dream, they can marry fantasies in nightmares and become pregnant with wonders, or with monsters, and breed fantastic children. It might be that many of the strange and singular things in the Veins of the Earth are their children, and that many wild and black ideas are too.
As they assume nobility-as-selfhood, (there are no common Aelf-Adal, all are Princes (less those formless ones, lost and given to the dark, perhaps they are trolls. Or the mothers of Trolls)), so they must take on the consequences of Nobility; hierarchy, family, descent, inheritance, dynasty and intrigue, even war.
Of course they live for ever so the only means of inheritance is mask-theft or murder, and there is never enough land, or places to rule, but that is not so different from ordinary noble lives.
NobilityBecause their terrors must be harvested gently, they are fine Princes. As utterly inimical to life and sanity as they are, Such power alone does them little good.
Good Governors, Masters of the Silk Trade, Lords of Civilisation. Their interest in complexity exists because they feed off the terrors it sustains. No life means no fear. Therefore they wish to see civilisation bloom. Therefore they are like Renaissance Princes, bountiful characters, often willing to finance and resource expeditions and new settlements. The Courts and Houses of the Terror-Men uphold the cities of the Veins.
Of their meta-culture, few know much, for extended contact with the Aelf-Adal usually destroys even the strongest souls.
EconomyTheir 'civilisation' is an act of rationing, and self-control, of drug addicts or vampires measuring and controlling their feeding, and turning that control itself into an artistic act, and a source of further pleasure. Dread is their currency. They trade in hope and dreams, even more than silk, Elf-Skins and beautiful eyes.
................................................................................
The Question of HatredDo we actually need the Aelf-Adal to hate?

Soft-Heads - VotE Development

The friendly Neurovore familiar to so many is only oneexpression of a much more complex life-form which, over the course of itsexistence, takes on many forms and roles, most so different to each other thatnot all realise the fundamental connection between them. 

The Soft-Head is a meta-cephalopodic species which eatsonly fresh brains and other complex nervous tissues. It can either devour thesewith its beak, or invert and extend its stomach like a trochomorphid limb tocover and envelop these materials. 

The Soft-Heads stomach is, in-effect, a second brain, possessinga combination of complex digestive milks and an extendible sheath of nerves andcellular-level micro-manipulators. In combination with the secondary brain thatforms a layer of the stomach, the Soft-Head not only digests the meat of thebrain, but absorbs its patterns. The creature absorbs the memories of what iteats. 

Soft-Head spawn are essentially Squid-Tadpoles which feedon microfauna and any ambient specks of protein. As they develop, they gain theability to inhabit and parasitise a wide range of bodies; eating the brain,tearing, or cutting off the head, or skull, infiltrating tentacles down thechest to massage the heart back into life and, inverting their stomach tointerface directly with the bodies nervus system and, with advanced creatures, simulatingthe flesh and substance of a hominids head and face with cephalopodic mimicry. 

These simulated heads have no bones, apart from abrain-devouring beak, so their heads are soft. The eyes are always a Squidseyes and hair is difficult to fake. 

It’s hard for them to talk. Keeping the lungs activewhile also simulating the complex mouth, palette, tongue, throat and breathingapparatus, along with the language and intonation of the living original, is acomplex business, so Soft-Head voices are voices are hesitant, breathy,whispery, sometimes choking or clotted. 

Though there are cults of soft-heads that specialise inthe hyper-specialised combination of skill and magic required to actuallysimulate a known person, it’s rare for a Soft-Head to take over a humanoid bodywith the active intention of replacing or pretending to be that person - thatwould be an enormous, almost savant level problem, and while the Soft-Heads dopossess much genius, in most cases this is spent on practical survival. Theytake complex bodies so they may leave the water for long periods and gainaccess to the 'dry world', and to an entirely different, and more complex,range of prey and tactics. 

 

Soft-Head Lives 

As a very general guide, roughly one in four of Soft-HeadTadpoles survive each stage of Soft-Head evolution and becomeNeurovores, meaning most Neurovore pairings need to produce eight or morespawns over their lifetime in order to maintain the species numbers. 

This also means that fully-functional 'Civilised'Neurovores are incredibly rare in comparison to even their more-developedWendigo ascendants, and even more so compared to the more primitive Body-Takersand man-eaters etc 

This is why most cultures in the Veins consider the'Neurovore' and their lesser incidents as, in-effect, different species, evenif they have enough knowledge of the Nature to understand that they are onelife-form. 

1. Tadpoles. Produced in clouds of a thousand ormore. With ‘Wild’ Soft-heads, these are allowed to swim free in the Veins,feeding on whatever tiny or insect prey they can find. If they can survive inthe wild, the general development cycle goes something like this; 

2. Frog-Eater. An insignificant small water-predator. 

3. Beast-Eater. Larger and more intelligent,capable of bringing down fish and larger animals if they enter the water, orwith very intelligent cases, if they only come near it. 

4. Man-Eater. A Soft-Head capable of huntingorganised prey with a human level of intelligence. Something equivalent to aSquid-Tiger. 

?. Body-Taker. At any point in this sequence theSoft-Head may develop its core skill set of destroying or removing the headfrom large prey and replacing it, using its tentacles and inverse stomach tosimulate it. This is a skill, not pure instinct, and must be learned. SomeSoft-Heads develop this ability alone, some see it in in the memories of theirprey, others may see the fear of it by observing the culture of their moreintelligent prey. 

5. Wendigo. A Soft-Head capable of fullycommanding the body of a complex hominid and using it to leave the water andpredate on land. This is a creature with the living body of the prey-speciesbut the flesh and eyes of the Soft-Head in place of its head. The Soft-Head isusually not yet capable of complex language and flesh-simulation, yet.Many cultures predated upon by a Wendigo-type do not fully connect it to theearlier or later developments of the Soft-Head lifecycle. 

6. Neurovore. A full Neurovore is capable oflanguage and complex thought, more akin to a rare and curious civilised beingthan a beast. In-effect, this is a ‘person’, of sorts. 

 

 

'Wild' and ‘Domestic’ Soft-Heads 

The creatures are culturally divided by the nature oftheir raising. Some live wild in the for their whole lifespan, others are‘raised’ in civilised Soft-Head communities, kept in pools and deliberately fedhigh-quality neuro-stuff. 

 

Genius loci 

A ‘wild’ Soft-Head that never migrates from its originalvolume can develop an almost perfect physical knowledge of their historichunting grounds and of the behaviours, and psychology, of any and all of theirprey species - almost a kind of savage love, as a hunter for their preferred  environment, making them likely to become'Emperor' or 'Game Warden' figures of a particular volume. 

They can become, in the minds of some, analmost-protective, many-faced Demon-God - leading to the proliferation ofidols, shrines and sacrifices, (much of which are practically irrelevant to theNeurovore, but may be psychologically or spiritually appropriate, since itsselfhood is made up of many memories of the inhabitants of these lands and itwill, to some extent, absorb their values. 

The physical and magical abilities of such a 'GeniusLoci' will be amongst the highest of all the typical skills of all thedeveloped creatures of that volume. As skilled in war as its greatest warriors,as subtle as its greatest hunters, as intelligent and wise as its greatestpriests and shaman, as imbued with magical power as the greatest local magiciansit could consume. 

Others will only remain ‘wild’ until they gain enoughknowledge and understanding to begin thinking of themselves as something like a'person', after which they often tries seeking out other Soft-Head communitiesand integrating with them. 

 

'Domestic' Soft Heads 

'Domestic' Soft-Heads are raised within a Soft-Headcommunity. There is little direct parental interest in young, since all parentsproduce huge clouds, and in many ways the upper echelons of Soft-Head 'society'are totally insane, but a general survival drive leads to a level of care,though with an attitude towards development that would seem absurdly Nietzscheanto most mammals. 

While Domestic Soft-Heads are much more likely to survivetheir initial development and growth, and while they grow in complexityquickly, fed on the brains and spines of complex organisms by their society,they are generally considered to be psychologically 'weaker' and more likely tofall prey to late-life personality degradation. 

The 'Wild' Soft-Head, while unlikely to survive anddevelop, if they do succeed, has a very long history of the gradualmastery and consumption of ever more complex organisms at their core, makingthem psychologically stronger and less likely to fall prey to the generalised Schizophreniaof late-life Soft-Head development. Their adaptation of more complexpersonalities and memories is more like the popular conception of a ruthlesspredator 'using' the thoughts and memories of its prey as 'masks' in order topredate more ruthlessly. 

There is something of a cultural gap between 'Wild' and'Domestics', with 'Wilds' Neurovore fewer in number and considered more 'real'and more 'pure' examples of the species, yet also, by some, less adaptable andless capable of fully understanding alternate points of view. 

 

Cosmopolitan Neurovore 

A fully developed and socially integrated Neurovre willoften have a staggering range of knowledge and experience from a wildvariety of different hominid and other groups. Fed on the brains of thestrongest, the subtlest and the skilled from youth, such a being would beequivalent to a multi-classed Fighter/Mage/Thief/Artisan/Trader etc. 

When considered as skills, there are few thingssuch a Neurovore cannot do, but these skills and memories do not necessarilycohere into a sharper or more coherent self. We might imagine anintelligent but not particularly heroic person with the ability to magically'use' memories, magic, abilities or talents of wide range of dead people, butnot necessarily that impressive on their own, or at their core, being in somesense, a mere shuffler of cards. 

Nevertheless, Cosmopolitan Neurovore do tend to be more 'successful'in terms adventurers can understand. Their higher population allows them todevelop specialists, like the classic 'Infiltrator' type, trained and specifiedto use skill and illusory magic to fully replace and simulate the members ofother races. Their more complex and wider ranging interactions with the maineconomies and cultures of the Veins also results in them having many moreresources, and simply in having more interactions with the kinds of thingsAdventurers are interested in. 

 

Economic Position 

Most ‘Civilised’ veins-polis will have at least oneNeurovore. Though rarely seen directly, their store, or home-front will be thatof a Butcher-Confectioner; flowers, wreathes and bouquets of the finest meatsarranged like cakes. A butcher in the veins is more like a confectioner -prepared protein being so rare and expensive. They are truly artists of meat,meat flowers, meat crowns and spirals, meat-pies etc. (Since they can only eatbrains, and these must be living - Neurovore are one of the few Ethnoculturesof the Veins which regularly have spare meat. ) 

Their public face will be one or more well-fed, extremelysatisfied and competent high-level slaves, often with the cross-skull circularscar of Neurovore person-surgery. The Master will only reveal themselves forhigh status guests or when their hands-on skills are needed. 

While nominally butcher/confectiners, Neurovore perform awide range of distinct services, including; Translating, Appraising, Crafting, Doctoring,Surgery of the Body, Surgery of the Mind 

 

Their Only Currency is Brains 

The only currency most Neurovor will accept is that ofliving, sentient brains, which almost always means the brains of living slaves,(or you could massively overpay in something like Knotsmen debt-threads orOccultum Coins). There can be a sliding scale for the brains of those withunusual abilities, memories and skills. 

 

Skilled Craftsmen, Translators & Appraisers 

With an in-depth memory of a huge variety of differentcultures, languages, life-paths and skills, Neurovore are known to sometimes begreat craftsmen, sometimes willing to produce the art or artefacts of anotherrace for payment when that race itself might not. (Some call them great'Fakers', good at producing versions of things, but somehow lacking in theexecution.) 

Along with their skill in craft goes a wide knowledge oflanguages and cultures which makes them excellent and trusted translators, anda general wisdom and neutrality that sometimes sees them called in asappraisers or judges. 

 

Surgeons Of The Body 

Often competent doctors, some Neurovore specialise in Cepahalopodlimb replacements; A semi-lobotomised young Soft-Head, specifically bred, isattached to the end of the lost limb and cultured to adopt the behaviours of theoriginal. 

They don't have bones and make bad legs by can be goodarms or hands – though they take some time to learn to use and you need to keepthem hydrated. (They can also develop half-ideas of their own.) They have less structuralsupport or rigidity but more dexterity and options for multi-directionalmovement, good for some fencers, climbing, thieves and magicians - who canlearn voiceless casting by making sigils with their cephalopod-hand. 

You can also keep the beak and eyes in for extraawareness, and as a handy tool. The longer the limb is attached the more theuser can sense through its eyes and the more sophisticated its utility. 

 

Surgeons Of The Mind 

Neurovore Brain-Surgery is much more sophisticated thananything so called in the Bright Lands. 

They begin by peeling back the scalp, sawing through theskull, then peeling back the brain-cowl. They then extend their stomachs intothe brain-pan, ‘tasting’ the brain, rolling it in their extendable gut,nibbling and altering. 

This can alter memory and selfhood in sophisticated ways- full personality surgery, (though it’s always easier to take things out thanadd them in). They can also sustain complex dream states in imaginary worlds -though these are as much a creation of the subconscious of the target as thatof the surgeon. 

There is some chance of infection and the skull will needto be fixed back on top and the skin sewn shut, which leaves marks, unlessextra cosmetic care is taken to disguise this. 

Also very occasionally the Neurovore will just eat thebrain, or maybe parts of it - for them it’s like holding food in your mouth,but not chewing or swallowing, while doing complex work. One needs a brain,after all, to recover from Brain Surgery. 

 

Objects and Treasures 

Neurovore produce a variety of rare and potent philtresand items, often produced from their own milks, or the secretions of theirsmaller kin, or made of complex weaves of magic and neurochemistry. 

Blank    

(The Protagonist Potion). Very expensive and must beingested orally. Blank removes all identity from the drinker but leaveslanguages, skills and abilities intact. The more complex skills you want left -the greater chance of remission. Blank cannot be 'healed' or fixed via magic. Isused by various cultures on their most useful and valuable slaves, or on highstatus targets in court intrigues 

Skill Philtres

Also very extremely expensive (almost as much in effortas actually gaining the skill would be). These philtres combine complexpatterns of understanding and action taken or distilled from living subjects,the core matrix suspended in a concoction that includes micro-soft-heads. 

Reading Books

Written on the finest skin, these works sometimes purportto be ‘ordinary’ books. Woven into their substance are specific mildneurotoxins and milk derivatives, combined with lesser opiates that oozeinvisibly from the book when held by warm hands. The text and images within areeither direct enchantments or, (more expensive), have such works woven intotheir text and seeming. These act to create a book which ‘reads’ its reader,and alters them, sometimes in mild but long-term ways, others in more directways. The book is usually at least slightly addictive. The longer and moresubtle the effect, and the more hidden, the more expensive the book. Sharp andstrong effects cost less, but are much more easily noticed by the reader andare more likely to provoke resistance. 

Memory Pearls

Strange curls of gold and pearl containing singlethoughts, or even alter-memory selves. More expensive depending on how completea self you want. These are often used by spies or operatives, those involved incomplex intrigues, or as sophisticated torture devices. 

 

 

Neurovore Psychology - A self-of-selves 

Psychologically, Soft-Heads are incredibly strange incomparison to most self-aware life, having almost, clusters of personalities,councils of selves, all unified by a coherent predatory instinct and an'othering' of brain-possessing individual life forms that forms the truestructure of Soft-Head society, (such as it is). 

Mere baskets of floating identity, minds whose selfhoodsflow like mixing scents, as timeless as ghosts, whom they often resemble inbehaviour, for the Neurovore feed as much upon memories and sentience itself asupon the meat of the brain, and every Neurovore absorbs almost all of theselfhood of whatever it consumes, making them astoundingly, sometimesterrifyingly, powerful and knowledgeable, and also often insane, deeply utterlymad by human standards. 

The greatest threat to a Neurovores survival is its ownever-shifting selfhood and its writhing protean memory 

As neurovore grow from tadpoles most of heir initialmeals are of simple beings with simple instincts

and do not present a huge problem to the Neurovorescapacity to absorb Selves, but as they grow, they hunger for more complex prey.If they successfully consume them, the neurovore gains the preys knowledge andawareness - making them even more effective at hunting that kind of prey,but this also presents challenges, as more potent and coherent individuals possesspowerful senses of selfhood. 

Memory and sentience is not a weight-for-weight matter. Identityorbits around particular experiences, powerful instincts, core philosophies, inherentbeliefs, particular attitudes to the world

and central organising memories. A particularly potentand coherent mind with a deep, strong and capacious worldview, and a powerfuldrive to live, can partially displace the Neurovores 'core' self. 

This is rare, and is, to an extent, a 'self-solving'problem, since the Neurovore is still an obligate cerebrovore and will still bedriven to eat brains, and in particular the brains of ever more complexcreatures. These complex brains of powerful creatures, in turn, presenting ahigh likelihood of displacing or fundamentally altering the current Ego. 

 

The Blood Speaks 

Ultimately, as the Neurovore would say, ‘the blood speaks’.All these powerful fractured creatures remain Neurovore, even if theydon't realise it themselves. They still need to eat brains and they are stillenmeshed in a society of creatures who need to eat brains, and who are notbeloved by others, and this society is their main power and source ofsurvival. 

As well as this, the instincts of the older, more nakedlypredatory, personality still swim beneath the surface of whichever superegocurrently thinks it is 'in charge'- putting its own tinge upon the values andworldview of the main soul. 

Each new brain consumed creates a new possibility toshuffle the deck of thoughts, shifting the perceived dominance of the currentarray of personalities, giving the original 'pure' Neurovore the chance tore-assert control, a newly introduced personality the chance to take the helm,or a variety of other things to happen. 

 

The Men Who Were Thursday 

Still there is a level of power and experience whereNeurovore society, such as it is, no longer really works as a coherentracial/species group, as of all those who are very strong, many are nolonger themselves, or they no longer believe themselves to be themselves,and are 'faking it', using the memories stored by their 'old' more-pureNeurovore selves to 'pretend' to be a 'real' Neurovore while they believethemselves to be the reincarnated personality of a prey-thing. 

Tn human terms this would be like an Empire being lead bya group of hyper-talented, very powerful schizophrenics, each of which believesthemselves to be some other thing, and is only going along with thegroup on the surface, while following a quite different set of desires anddirectives. 

This is a kind of 'Man Who Was Thursday' situation asmuch of Neurovore 'society' half-knows about this already and regards what wewould call the schizophrenia problem as more of an element to be managed than aproblem to be solved. In fact it’s quite useful in a number of ways.

 

Veins of the Earth - Workshop

'Queen Mab's Palace' will be moving to layout soon. My gigantic review of Hugh Cooks 'Chronicles of and Age of Darkness' is done. What will False Machine be working on next?
Veins of the Earth - Remastered
And by working on, I mean that I have started work, not that we have a book ready right now. This is the beginning of a long process. 
The new Veins will probably be A4, to fit in with other False Machine books, and will have new content, a new layout, hopefully some new images.
But what needs to be added? What needs to be changed? What didn't work for people last time? I have some ideas but I also want your input.
Drop your comments
 At the Substack [https://substack.com/@pjamesstuart]  The Blog [falsemachine.blogspot.com] My Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/pjamesstuart] Twitter [x.com/pjamesstuart]  Emails to pjamesstuart@gmail.com  Or even reviews and analysis on your own blogs and channels.

Ride! Ride! Ride!

Only 24 hours left on the best work of visionary transhumanist science fiction that’s also a medieval quest story that’s also beautifully illustrated that I could write!

Prices will go up if you want to get it in the future!

Did you know postage to the U.K. and E.U. is surprisingly affordable?

We are this close to providing FREE MICE with every copy!

Enter the Palace of the Queen of Air and Darkness, before All Hallows Eve ends!! 

The Sybermice!

A Queen must be served and Queen Mab is no exception. As unnatural and disturbing as they seem to some of the books narrators, perhaps the Scribe sees them differently, (or August just likes drawing them this way), for in these images, Mabs somewhat craven cybernetic and genetically altered footmice and maidmice seem... almost cute?


(just don't look too closely, or think too much about what it must take to create them)


All glory to the Queen of Air and Darkness! Her Age is drawing to a close! We only have FOUR days left of the Kickstarter and its likely we will hit the next stretch goal and provide a ribbon to the book, .... BUT;



We may even hit the goal after that! And if we do thereward will be as many Sybermice as August can comfortably drawn, in sweet sticker-form, delivered to backers along with their books. (And we will probably try to cram them into the book wherever we can in the form of marginalia).
If you like mice.. re-blog, link, follow, comment, like and subscribe! Bring us up in conversations with friends and co-workers!
THIS IS THE LINK!


You only have FOUR DAYS till HALLOWEEN! The dead will rise and this Kickstarter will end!!!!

Echoing Stars - Decayed Ritual Biomes

What could be more poetic than a ruined garden? Except gardens deliberately left to ruin, their slow decay being part of some great prayer or ritual observance by species now dead, sleeping, or sublimed?





1. The Hollow World.
A dark, extra-stellar, unnaturally hollowed world. Hurtling through the extrasolar void its mantle holds hidden subsurface biospheres held up my slowly-dying transmaterial technologies. Home to ecologies of dark-dwelling extremophile life which subsist from the roasting heat of the world itself, the dying megastructures of its surface make great rents in stone skies set with bioluminescent skies and pale deserts beneath previously unseen stars.

2. The Bubble.
Draped in a vast glassine caul spread from nanotech spires, beneath are bubble-forest holding pockets of hyper-oxygenated environment, with mega-insects evolving within. Outside those, the worlds lower atmosphere so glutinous and thick with ariel 'plankton' that it forms a kind of near-liquid layer. This is home to its own micro-species and food webs that never touch the ground or raise high into the sky - sound and light are dulled by the hanging fume of life but hyper-fasts bio-communication forms a kind of subtle 'weather' in the fume that can tell experienced beings what might be happening about. The mega-insects of the bubble forests  dive and trapse through the low oxygen 'fume' beyond to hunt and migrate across the surface.

3. Floral.
A moon hiding from its deadly sun in an eccentric orbit around an even-more eccentric gas giant. Floral is frozen much of the time but as it hurls through the tenuous atmosphere of its toxic gas 'father' the atmosphere burns. As the moon breathes poison, so does it live, the sky lit not with sunlight but with fire. Vast but temporary ecologies spring into life and colour beneath the burning sky. Glaciers holding long-stored nanonic plagues melt and release their 'black-goo' meta-mutagens - advanced viral constructs designed to inflict an unwanted advancement in intelligence on the quick life of the floral moon.

4. High-Rise
Deliberately, or accidentally blocked from orbital contact by an envelope of orbiting debris that makes any attempt to enter atmosphere extremely dangerous and difficult. No-one knows if this is a result of some ancient disaster or a deliberate act of art, or vandalism. Ancient greenhouse-walled space elevators dot the surface, their interiors given over to overgrowth, overrun and bizarre evolutionary branches. 

5. The Web of Moons
Oceans are strung between this nest of circling oceanic moons like glittering threads. Close passes send up flurries of water which sometimes freezes into strands of ice between the moons and rarely retains its liquid form, making brief intra-lunar tidal strands. Beneath the oceans immortal megafauna  have frozen the moons food web, making a permeant (on an individual sense) final block in the food chain - there are perhaps twenty such organisms, each massive, each unique. They spend much of their time quiescent and can rise up out of the oceans to devour whole biospheres with infectious fungal/nano symbiont organs/species assistance, they pass between mons with great leaps and if two share the same moon they battle.

6. Terminus
Deliberately perched in an orbit around the event horizon of a black hole, drawing its light, energy and seasons from the fluctuating Cherenkov radiation and the sunlike disc of evaporating matter which it will one day become part of, Terminus is a globe of unnaturally virulent poisons. The oceans of toxins, icebergs of subtle neurotoxin. The biome seeded with venomous genes - a food chain of subtle deception and careful resistance, a shifting world of deadly chemical warfare, vast plumes of eradicating spores rising into the toxic air. 


Queen Mab! - We may hit our next stretch goal, and maybe even the one after that!