Sep 13, 2015 10:18 pm
My Skyrealms of Jorune game is open and looking for players: Strange Allies (link to game). The game world of Skyrealms of Jorune is unusually rich with lore, which can seem simultaneously intriguing and overwhelming at first. To help you get your bearings, here's some background information, mostly general to the setting, but some specifics of my game. Take a look, feel free to ask questions. You can also look at the forum for the game.
Setting overview:
Skyrealms of Jorune is set on an alien world populated by many sentient species: humans, mutants and aliens. In the setting, humans discovered the world, which was already populated with native sentients - the "shantha" - and colonized by several other alien sentient species. Humans negotiated as best they could with the shantha, and were granted space to set up their own colonies. The first colonists were scientists, studying the flora and fauna of Jorune, and preparing the way for the other colonists that followed. One problem was food: the native ecosystem did not contain all the nutrients that Earth life requires, and Earth life’s digestive enzymes did not break down Jorune edibles. So every creature from Earth needed to take enzyme and nutrient supplements to be able to digest food and get enough nutrition. Even the flora of Earth had difficulty growing in the alien soil, and scientists worked hard to hybridize and mutate bacteria, fungi, and plants that could thrive on Jorune. Some success with a native tuber called "durlig" (engineered to produce Earth-like nutrients and to promote Earth creatures’ production of digestive enzymes) encouraged brave settlers, and the Earth-native population began to grow with immigration and the frequent import of Earth grain and animal stock. But after a generation, all contact from Earth stopped, and the colonies on Jorune were left to fend for themselves. Desperate to feed themselves, the colonists violated the treaty boundaries, and the shantha retaliated in force, in what is known to a few historians as the human-shantha war. Most human technology and infrastructure was destroyed, along with 95% of the human population. Suddenly, the shantha stopped their attacks, just short of exterminating all human life on Jorune. The few survivors banded together around the few places like the Ardoth colony outpost that had escaped destruction. But as the technology slowly wore out and broke down, man regressed into barbarism, roving tribes of hunter-gatherers descended from the scientists and settlers.
All that happened more than 3500 years ago and is at best a rumor to the few really educated historians in the world. Civilization has struggled back to an early industrial level, aided by occasional finds of ancient human technology. Despite the benefits, few in the modern day care about ancient history; surviving and thriving in the present are of more concern. What is known is that the world is generally hostile to life, and there are few places where people are more safe. People (of the six playable PC races) must regularly eat the root vegetable "durlig" to survive. There are many other sentient species on the planet who do not, but many have their analogous dependencies (members of the ramian race need shirm-eh to avoid psychosis, for example).
The colony sites that were not destroyed by the shantha are the oldest human settlements. One of them is Ardoth: largest city and capitol of Burdoth, the most prosperous and powerful nation on Jorune. Burdoth rose to world prominence fifty years ago, after a cache of intact ancient colonial technology (called "Earth-tec") enabled its military to defeat an invading crugar army from Temauntro and then force opportunistic forces from Dobre to sign accords, over the course of a few years in what is now called the Energy Weapons War. Today, Ardoth is an unusually cosmopolitan city, with members of nearly all sentient races in residence. But Burdoth’s is a classed society: foreigners and residents are born "toth," peasantry with no voting rights. "Drenn" are full citizens, with many additional privileges, including voting, rights of protection and service, as well as some access to Earth-tec. "Kesht" are the nobility. Anyone who has not violated Burdothian law can seek to become Drenn; residency is not a requirement to start the process. This process of seeking to become Drenn is called "tothis;" toth in tothis are called "tauther." Every player character in my game will have his or her own reason for becoming tauther, and all of you are far along in tothis.
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System overview:
Characters in Skyrealms of Jorune have attributes, which are determined randomly or are calculated with a point-buy system. Attributes are modified by which race the player chooses: human, boccord (large humanoids), muadra (small humanoids with the best ability at manipulating "isho"), crugar (big cat people), woffen (wolf people), and bronth (bear people). Most rolls in the game are skill checks using a d20: roll equal or less than your skill rank and you succeed. Each character has an occupation, which are templates (a bit like West End Games' Star Wars RPG) that give sets of skills that are then customized by the player. Combat is pretty dangerous: successful hits reduce a target's stamina and usually impose a wound; enough wounds usually incapacitate a combatant, rather than running out of stamina. Some characters may be able to wield Earth-tec, while others have some ability to manipulate the crystal energy of Jorune itself ("isho") to magic- or psionic-like effects, such as healing, blasting, binding, teleporting...
Details of a game on GP:
I'm expecting to post once a day, once I start the game. I expect I'll run anything between 5 and 8 players. Inactive players' characters will be run as NPCs (along standing behavior rules if provided by the players), unless there are other players agitating to join. If there are others waiting to join, I may give completely inactive players grace of a week of inactivity before I let someone else take their place.
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Questions, please?
Setting overview:
Skyrealms of Jorune is set on an alien world populated by many sentient species: humans, mutants and aliens. In the setting, humans discovered the world, which was already populated with native sentients - the "shantha" - and colonized by several other alien sentient species. Humans negotiated as best they could with the shantha, and were granted space to set up their own colonies. The first colonists were scientists, studying the flora and fauna of Jorune, and preparing the way for the other colonists that followed. One problem was food: the native ecosystem did not contain all the nutrients that Earth life requires, and Earth life’s digestive enzymes did not break down Jorune edibles. So every creature from Earth needed to take enzyme and nutrient supplements to be able to digest food and get enough nutrition. Even the flora of Earth had difficulty growing in the alien soil, and scientists worked hard to hybridize and mutate bacteria, fungi, and plants that could thrive on Jorune. Some success with a native tuber called "durlig" (engineered to produce Earth-like nutrients and to promote Earth creatures’ production of digestive enzymes) encouraged brave settlers, and the Earth-native population began to grow with immigration and the frequent import of Earth grain and animal stock. But after a generation, all contact from Earth stopped, and the colonies on Jorune were left to fend for themselves. Desperate to feed themselves, the colonists violated the treaty boundaries, and the shantha retaliated in force, in what is known to a few historians as the human-shantha war. Most human technology and infrastructure was destroyed, along with 95% of the human population. Suddenly, the shantha stopped their attacks, just short of exterminating all human life on Jorune. The few survivors banded together around the few places like the Ardoth colony outpost that had escaped destruction. But as the technology slowly wore out and broke down, man regressed into barbarism, roving tribes of hunter-gatherers descended from the scientists and settlers.
All that happened more than 3500 years ago and is at best a rumor to the few really educated historians in the world. Civilization has struggled back to an early industrial level, aided by occasional finds of ancient human technology. Despite the benefits, few in the modern day care about ancient history; surviving and thriving in the present are of more concern. What is known is that the world is generally hostile to life, and there are few places where people are more safe. People (of the six playable PC races) must regularly eat the root vegetable "durlig" to survive. There are many other sentient species on the planet who do not, but many have their analogous dependencies (members of the ramian race need shirm-eh to avoid psychosis, for example).
The colony sites that were not destroyed by the shantha are the oldest human settlements. One of them is Ardoth: largest city and capitol of Burdoth, the most prosperous and powerful nation on Jorune. Burdoth rose to world prominence fifty years ago, after a cache of intact ancient colonial technology (called "Earth-tec") enabled its military to defeat an invading crugar army from Temauntro and then force opportunistic forces from Dobre to sign accords, over the course of a few years in what is now called the Energy Weapons War. Today, Ardoth is an unusually cosmopolitan city, with members of nearly all sentient races in residence. But Burdoth’s is a classed society: foreigners and residents are born "toth," peasantry with no voting rights. "Drenn" are full citizens, with many additional privileges, including voting, rights of protection and service, as well as some access to Earth-tec. "Kesht" are the nobility. Anyone who has not violated Burdothian law can seek to become Drenn; residency is not a requirement to start the process. This process of seeking to become Drenn is called "tothis;" toth in tothis are called "tauther." Every player character in my game will have his or her own reason for becoming tauther, and all of you are far along in tothis.
----------------
System overview:
Characters in Skyrealms of Jorune have attributes, which are determined randomly or are calculated with a point-buy system. Attributes are modified by which race the player chooses: human, boccord (large humanoids), muadra (small humanoids with the best ability at manipulating "isho"), crugar (big cat people), woffen (wolf people), and bronth (bear people). Most rolls in the game are skill checks using a d20: roll equal or less than your skill rank and you succeed. Each character has an occupation, which are templates (a bit like West End Games' Star Wars RPG) that give sets of skills that are then customized by the player. Combat is pretty dangerous: successful hits reduce a target's stamina and usually impose a wound; enough wounds usually incapacitate a combatant, rather than running out of stamina. Some characters may be able to wield Earth-tec, while others have some ability to manipulate the crystal energy of Jorune itself ("isho") to magic- or psionic-like effects, such as healing, blasting, binding, teleporting...
Details of a game on GP:
I'm expecting to post once a day, once I start the game. I expect I'll run anything between 5 and 8 players. Inactive players' characters will be run as NPCs (along standing behavior rules if provided by the players), unless there are other players agitating to join. If there are others waiting to join, I may give completely inactive players grace of a week of inactivity before I let someone else take their place.
-------------------------
Questions, please?
Last edited September 15, 2015 7:50 am
