Tah interest check: detailed worldbuilding, explore inhuman mindsets or be a human in a pseudo-cretaceous world

[obfuscobble]

I have done the worldbuilding legwork for a planet called Tah, its biomes, inhabitants, countries and cultures. Even languages. I think it is a fun and mentally-rewarding place to set stories.

The Perks:

Tah is a rich and vibrant land, and I would be more than happy to lay out the setting details for any part of it. The global setting is the Earth with its continents in the late Jurassic period, so Africa and South America are still one continent, and so are Antarctica and Australia. However, the plants and animals are those of the Cretaceous period, with a few exceptions such as a lot of trilobites and an advanced group of therapsids. (mammal-like reptiles) Put simply: Dinosaurs! We have dinosaurs! ("And trilobites!" I say with glee, being a fan.) (And whatever these are.)

On Tah, there are 3-4 sentient species (depending on who you ask), all of whom would offer a chance to play a character with an inhuman mindset. There are hermaphroditic flying therapsids, you could even call them dragons, who only look like humans at a first glance, fungal space bees who construct doll-like shells to blend in, sentient cuttlefish messing about with the origins of life, and black builders who are... very different. As well, if the interest check gets good results, we could set the RP at a time when Tah is open to interdimensional visitors from other Earths where humans are the dominant species. So you could have the fun of any human (modern, mediaeval, or sci-fi) in a foreign land.

And ... I will ... draw ... every ... thing.

Finally, unlike my art, I can't immediately demonstrate my four years as a games master. However, please take my solemn promise that I can provide plot hooks well worth a player's and a writer's time. Also, I have a passion for collaborative storytelling! After all, that's why I'm here at FOG.

Needless to say : you don't have to be a science expert to play.

Possible problems:
I am currently writing two novels set on this planet (one aimed at adults, one at the 10-15 set) : thus why I know everything about the place. The RP would be in a different time period not related to the novels. I would not personally play or have any novel characters involved in RP, so canon is not an issue. I will of course have no qualms about developments that the RP-players would make to the setting. Such developments are enrichments to any setting, and the right of every player ; perhaps even half the fun is to make a change in the world of an RP through a character's actions! I understand it could be offensive for me to offer up my brainchild for this forum to play in. If so, I offer my apologies.


Please post here with yeas or nays. I love learning from my mistakes.

[Mustakrakish]

Personally I think this is a wonderfully clever creation you have come up with. Consider yourself as having at least one interested player to your game.

[obfuscobble]

Faaabulous! I wasn't expecting a reply so soon! three or four would be great to start, so let's see! After three replies, I'll start putting out som initial worldbuilding so we can whittle the setting down to a more definite area. Opening it up to the whole world would be problematic for having characters meet up, I think.

[Guest]

Sounds awesome, count me in.

Though can I make my own species?

[obfuscobble]

@raptorman
If I set this after the Timescape is opened, anything's game! Just keep this in mind: your character will be subject to the laws of physics. The only "magic" in this system is called "Deep Math", and is carried out by slide rule toting pseudo-sorcerors who literally mess with the equations that hold together the universe. It's 100% okay to have a race that can cast magic in its own universe, but when it comes over to Tah, its powers might work differently! I'm very glad you're interested.

[Bird of Hermes]

hermaphroditic flying therapsids

I am very interested as to what that looks like.

[Guest]

Well then I do hope we have the timescape opened up. I have some interesting Ideas.

[obfuscobble]

That's three people interested! I'll get up some basics later today (Thursday) to help wheedle down our setting. Probably a map of the continents with country lines (without all the cities and sea currents etc.), some very basic drawings and descriptions of the races, and a brief history. I will be posting all of this in the interest thread, in case it can attract more people, unless it's better to start up an OOC thread in the OOC subforum. You all would know better than I!

@Raptorman
TImescape opened, it is!

@ Bird of Hermes
It's not a good anatomic chart like I'll be providing soon, but here we see two species of hermaphroditic flying therapsid:

(yeah, it's the picture linked under "whetever these are")
He's a somewhat foppish character, but it'll do, especially to allay any fears you all might have about falling into the "world of pretty, pretty men" trap. Unless you think this character is pretty. If you do, and are single with a love of salawas, you can contact him of the root at 344.15.8675.t12 ~hello, "ladies"~
The larger one is called an orla. The larger one is only four feet tall (122cm), with an 11.5 foot wingspan (3.5m), and he's taller than average. Large muscles on his back, shoulders, and chest power his wings. His long legs help him push off of surfaces to take flight, as well as hanging from trees thanks to his arboral ancestors. He's trimmed off his foot talons, but if he didn't, they'd be as long and sharp as the claw you can see on his right wing. The dark blotch on his chst is only an areola, since these therapsids don't have true breasts ; after a stage of crop feeding like birds, the areola secretes a monotreme-like milk. Not that this guy ever plans on having any children other than his salawa "babies."
The two smaller animals are the non-sentient salawas. They're from the same evolutionary line to an extent, sort of like a human keeping a new world monkey as a pet. Tails were lost in the orlas, but you can see the same wing structure and beginnings of long legs in the salawas. Some orlas have horns, but it's a recessive trait. We have two breeds of salawa here, which only coincidentally demonstrate the progression from long-headed evolutionary ancestors to the short-faced orlas. I'll be providing pictures of an orla skull leter today, so look out for those extra skull holes left over from the size-shift.

I have babbled too much! On to preliminaries!

[obfuscobble]

PRELIM ONE
This prelim kind of got out of hand, actually. Whoah information with which to choose things...

In Sum:
1. Kapet is mostly wild savannah except along the river. Not much timescape interaction.
2. Mii is the hub of timescape interaction, and also a very strange place. It's relatively modern and free, though.
3. Pulu Sule doesn't like outsiders.
4. Kumoto is secondary to Mii in timescape interaction, but also a dictatorship.
5. Zhilmuhl doesn't have any fun biotech, and likes to keep its people as slaves to the state. No timescape interaction.


This is Tah!

Timescape
It's been many decades since Tah opened up into the Timescape. The Timescape is a web of universes, a sort of universe where all the other universes reside like stars. People can travel between universes in set timeframes. So if you travel from X to Y on X's Wednesday, you can't then travel from Y to X back in time to X's Monday. There are a few more-or-less stable gates between universes. New gates are being tested, but most of them open up into interstellar space, which is less than helpful.

Countries
The story should probably take place on one of the southern continents, shown here. North America and Eurasia exist, but are sparsely populated. The few colonies on these continents are for mining or logging, controlled by corporations like factory towns or plantations with workers paid in company scrip. So unless you all want to play "Blue Heron, Kentucky, the Simulator", the south is probably the way to go.

There are four countries on the southern continents. While this may seem to be too few, they are all empires after an age of expansion. Also, the dominant land race tends to live in spread-out communities, with flight allowing for quicker travel.

Life in all countries is centred around the "dan" to some extent. A dan (said like "don", plural dan) is made up of 3 to 6 unrelated individuals who live and work together. Often, marriages happen inside the dan, so it doesn't stay unrelated for long. A dan gets together due to a shared purpose between members, such as scientific research, a farm, a political party, the local post office, etc. Dan evolved socially from the ancient dan which were hunting parties. Many dan still meet up due to hunting together after school.

Kapet (in green) is the grain basket of the north. (The north of the southern hemisphere.) Most of its population lives along the "river" that runs down the middle of the northern continent. This river is actually the beginnings of an inland sea. There are two deserts in kapet, one on each side of the river in the south, while the north is taken up by savannah and grasslands. Kapet also owns many islands as part of its old trading empire. The islands are laid back places to live, but business is still brisk. Kapet has the largest population of titanic and "classic" dinosaurs, which are considered a tourist attraction.
Most people in Kapet are still farmers or even hunter gatherers out in the bush. The state is run by the military, and military service is both compulsory and a good way to rise in social status. Kapet is in a state of cold war against Zhilmuhl which occasionally braks out into skirmishes along Zhilmuhl's west coast. Kapet devotes squadrons to Mii for timescape enforcement. Outside of the nobility/high ranking officers, there isn't much timescape interaction in Kapet. But the country has its eye on some interplanetary expansion.
Kapetian civilians have a very laid back attitude in general, not just on the islands. They are open with other people, and more accepting of other cultures than the other countries. They are honestly community oriented, used to different tribes coming together on the trade routes. In the military, life is more structured. Kapet supports the west coast pirates.

Mii (in blue) is a highly cultured and technologically advanced nation. Mii has a temperate climate, full of forests, swamps, and mountain valleys. Technically ruled by an emperor, actual power rests in the hands of the Prime Minister's cabinet. Life in Mii is centred around one's duties to one's family, one's dan, other people, and the state. Elections are held for all government positions, but dan are elected to fill position-sets, not individuals. Thus, a change in government means a clearing out of the old dan for the new one. Civic service, entered into through government exams, is a good life. Mii still has a nobility and a class of hereditary warrior-poets within that. Class mobility is rare outside of arranged marriage, but any citizen can become very wealthy as a merchant, entertainment icon, or duellist.
Mii is a hotbed of timescape action, since the first Timescape portals were opened there. Mii is still in a state of cold war with Zhilmuhl, and is expanding its empire with embassies across the timescape. On the home front, biotech is in a boom, and timescape trade has opened up a bevy of opportunities. Although there's a healthy middle class, at least one third of citizens in Mii are still farmers or raw-material producers of some sort. Merchants and soldiers alike travel between worlds to trade with or subjugate locals, often at the same time. Mii is famous for its cultural icons and technology, setting the standard for fashion and high-tech.
Most of the technology of Mii is based around bio-tech and the black builders. Black builders are shapeshifting creatures that are indispensable in building cities, synthesizing organic compounds, and running utilities. Thanks to the black builders' actual consumption of waste, the lands and waters in Mii, Kapet, Pulu Sule, and Kumoto are clean and fertile. The root is an internet of sorts passed along by specially engineered plant-systems. Most diseases are treated with bacteriophages or virophages.
Mii is not a perfect country. Mii people are highly class conscious, and although polite to another person's face, they aren't very accepting of other timescape races behind closed doors. Mii people think they are superior to everyone else, although they also think that Kumoto people are Mii people. Their culture is full of arts and celebrations, with a rich tradition of myth, literature, and sciences. Their culture is also full of ritual cannibalism of the dead. Highly organised and competitive gangs thrive by the country's nature, and small scale warfare between "businesses" is common.

Pulu Sule (in violet) is the Switzerland of Tah. Famous for its banks, luxury merchants, mercenaries, and political neutrality, Pulu Sule is a fertile land of mountain valleys and a long sloping coast. Its climate is Peruvian, with changes in temperature and humidity varying by altitude, not latitude. Pulu Sule is ruled by a council of elders culled from the tribes of the nation. Pulu Sule is a small, plucky country that thinks its best off taking care of its own people.
Pulu Sule is even more xenophobic than Mii, but it has deep ties with that nation, accepting Mii's tourism and allowing more relaxed trade with the country. There are many Pulu Sule expatriates in Mii. Pulu Sule merchants sometimes join Mii merchants in timescape trade, especially the jewel and precious metals trade where they are the experts. Pulu Sule is also famous for its export of luxury-outfitted devices with efficiency surpassing Mii. Pulu Sule has very rich cultural traditions and ceremonies, but few are shared with outsiders.

Kumoto (in red) is a fairly new dictatorship. Carving its lands out of Mii and Zhilmuhl, Kumoto is inhabited by a green-haired race of people who have long held their own cultural traditions under the rule of other kingdoms. Kumoto was liberated at the same time the timescape was opened, and is ruled by an aging dan under an iron fist and a silver heel. Culturally similar to Mii and speaking a dialect of the language, Kumoto is distinguished mostly by clothing, food, and its mythical and literary traditions. Kumoto is allied with Mii in the war against Zhilmuhl, and its border is heavily fortified and often hot with battles. Away from the Zhilmuhl border, the dictatorship is prosperous and manages to be at peace with Mii. The general consensus in Mii is to continue to believe that Kumoto is only a province of their empire, but be glad that the complainers are quiet now. Kumoto is very active in timescape trade and politics, and is the administrator of the timescape academy.

Zhilmuhl (in yellow) is a terrible place to live. Ruled by the military and a greedy oligarchy, Zhilmuhl keeps its people trapped in cities and slums to feed its technological development. Zhilmuhl is also the country with a culture the most similar to what a player would be used to: people live primarily in cities, all technology is based on metals, electricity, and plastics, automobiles are everywhere, and it has an undercurrent of Victorian values. Before the world war, there was bio-tech in Zhilmuhl, but during the war, all bio-tech was abandoned and destroyed, along with all black builders. Thus, all technology had to start from the ground up using metal and electricity, unlike the standard everywhere else in the world. Some very old people still remember the black builders, and look back on those days fondly. However, most sympathisers were killed during the initial cultural revolution and subsequent political pogroms. Social advancement can only be had legally through military or civil service, and the cities are kept as government-dependant welfare states where everything is rationed.
Zhilmuhl manages to feed itself, and still has a large nomadic population on the plains and tundra. The southernmost country, it can get very cold, but is still covered in ferns. Zhilmuhl claims to be a union of equal states, but many ethnic groups still agitate for independence. The largest political problem comes from the west coast pirates. Zhilmuhl envies the timescape trade in the north and just across the Kumoto border, but it doesn't control any portals. Of course, the west coast pirates and the east coast black market travel east and north regularly to do trade with Pulu Sule, Kapet, and Kumoto.
Zhilmuhl people in the city are quick witted and as wary of their government as they are dependant upon it. The nomads out on the tundra still largely enjoy their bucolic life, but with the cities taking out most of the dinosaur population for its own use, it's getting hard to follow the herds. Zhilmuhl is coming up on an oil crisis, and its land and waters suffer from pollution.

[Guest]

So, how would my custom race group interact?

Also what would happen with magic using races, you mentioned differences in what happens, but did not specify previously?

[obfuscobble]

@Raptorman
Your custom race would have a wide choice of options for interaction, from mercantile, to political, to martial. If your character's coming to sell something, he'll have a firm position in the marketplace. If your character's a diplomat or a warrior, the courts and their intrigue are open to him. If your character's of a more scholarly persuasion, he could easily be called as part of an inter-dimensional study.
On top of being a person officially interacting with a country, there's also the possibility that your character managed to pop into Tah from a completely new portal unannounced. If the latter's the case, your character would definitely be a person of interest to the scientists who are interested in interdimensional travel. Ala: "How did you DO that?"
All in all, despite their misgivings, the people of Tah are more than happy to work with outsiders for everyone's benefit. The very fact that your character will probably be of a race they've never seen before will make him immediately in high demand.
However: I'm thinking that for the plot purposes of the RP, your character would already have a good rason to be there, even if he just pops in. If other players want to place in their own races, it's entirely likely your character won't be alone in having been called to Tah for a specific purpose.

and @ everyone:
I'm going to try to get all of the characters together for a specific purpose. I don't want anyone to feel left out! It'll be easier when we get together more specific character ideas. If anyone has any input on what kind of plot they'd like right now, please share! The world is open to just about anything you can think of, from political intrigue, bloody revolution, scientific exploration, and even alien invasion. (Even highschool... but I think we've all had enough of that phase of our lives.) Let's get into the spaceship of the imagination! (/sagan)

More on magic
In general, the rules of magic in the timescape say that a person's magic works only in the universe they've come from. They sort of get tagged by the universe as its own. Anyone can work magic in places that exist outside of the universes, inside the timescpae itself, such as the dreamlands. With a powerful enough magical object known colloquially either as a "toenail clipping" or "god tear", a piece of a timescape creature that's fallen into a lower universe, it's possible to work magic anywhere. If your character has insight as to where the gods have tread, the character can work magic off of the magical ripples that they make as they move imperceptibly through the universes.
If you have a character who was a wizard or sorceror from another universe, they'd probably know how magic works in this system, although with their own set of terms and explanations. If this wizard character wanted to do magic on Tah, he'd take along a powerful enough magic item.
If you have a character who had an innate magical ability, like breathing ice or telepathy, he'd probably be up the creek without a paddle on Tah, since what came to him naturally in his own universe wouldn't work on Tah. Keep in mind that many magical abilities can be explained with science, and would still work. for instance, the space bees can be seen as telepathic to ach other, but all they do is communicate via radio.
The superman / goku manoeuvre is possible. Come from a planet or a universe with higher gravity, and watch the character get super strength and hardiness. Come from a universe with different laws of magnetism, and your character could be highly magnetic, or even be able to control metal and lightning. Come from a universe with a different strong or weak force, and your character could walk through walls or turn invisible.

As with everything, I'm open to compromise because any setting and game should be about fun and satisfaction.

[Guest]

I am definitely staying with this one. This is really cool.

I personally wouldn't mind warfare and revolution stuff. And yes I think just popping in would fit fairly well with the race I have in mind.

[Mustakrakish]

I like the look of this so far. Couple of questions to bombard you with though.

Do all four of the sentient races inhabit each of the countries? What is the level of technology among Tah (weapons, transportation, lighting, communication ect)? Do humans or humanoid creatures exist on Tah or are they only from timescape portals?

As for plot suggestions...I have yet to even begin brainstorming about potential characters, since I know so very little about this universe. However, going with Raptors affinity for revolution and war, I would like to insert the idea of perhaps orchestrating an uprising in Zhilmuhl and starting a full-scale war with the country. This would provide avenues for all character types: diplomats, warriors, magicians, thieves, nobles, ect.

[obfuscobble]

PRELIM 2 ON TECH

Thanks to Mustakrakish.
Awesome! I like questions! (I also like Dethklok, by the way. l,,L ) As for plot, a nice little political conflict with the separatists and pirates in the west coast of Zhilmuhl could be fun. There are also troubles going on with long-subjugated tribes in Kapet that the military is trying to ignore. On to answers. Technology in this post, races in the next one.

Different countries have different levels of technology. Althogether though, I'd say they're post-steel age... only through a very different path.

Weapons Weaponry until very recently was still in the dropping-weight / sword stage. Guns are extremely recent, and only common in Kumoto because one of the dictators likes them aesthetically. Most people still use swords, daggers, spears, maces, etc. and the ubiquitous hunting stone dropping-weights. Hunting stones can be smooth or spiked, rock or metal, or even wooden. They are often as ornamented and revered as swords, and more widely used since swords are restricted to the rich. Opposed to these iron are weapons is sophisticated rocketry. The cuttlefish had no use for developing stuff that required fire, and the orlas never really connected fireworks with firing pellets ; their rockets are based around explosions more than projectiles. They have napalm. The most potent weapon is a black builder trained for war. Imagine this tentacled, roiling, thousand-clawed thing as big as a train barreling at you or shooting up an arm to snatch you from the sky. Now imagine that any moment it can implode into a black hole. Only a handful can do the latter, but the very suggestion leads to some good cold war tactics. Zhilmuhl is working on nuclear power.
To answer the inevitable question: Yes, the black holes created to test if they could be created are still around, but due to the paucity of mass involved, are rather tiny and harmless at this point. In addition to minefields, old battlefields have large stone structures surrounding the black holes just far away enough so that they don't feed the singularities. Some of them glow at night. With the advent of deep math magic, some black holes have been stabilised or conveniently moved, but this is an understaking that takes understandaly enormous amounts of power.

Tools and metals Many tools are forged and carved, but power-tools are unknown. Steel exists in use for tools, protection, weapons, utensils, and decoration. In the north, most metallurgy is used for household objects, but not building. In Zhilmuhl, metals are used for housing and technology, and complex alloys are still being discovered.

Transportation There are pretty much two choices: foot or train. Since all races can either fly or swin at a good clip, moving "by foot" is perfectly natural to them. Trains connect the distant settlements, and trolleys, subways, and moving walkways are commonin the cities. All this large scale transportation is inside or on top of black builders, and powered by organic trash and the occasional hapless animal. The trains have membrane windows and comfy warmed seats, and appear for all the world like a rounded and somewhat overgrown version of an Earth train.
Except if you live in Zhilmuhl, which has personal automobiles and a bus sytem. Most people still fly or walk, but the rich do love to show off. Since Zhilmuhl has no black builders, everything runs on gasoline. The look is rather steampunk and inefficient. Zhilmuhl's technology is close to Victorian age, still in an industrial revolution.

Communication Everyone loves the root. The root is a very pernicious internet that was developed before TV or telephone, and serves almost all instant communication needs. The root is also literally a series of roots connected to special redwoods. People access the root on root nodes, with screen and keyboard. Every screen has a matrix of chromatophores to display an image. High end screens also come with luminant cells for working at night. The keyboard is a pressure sensitive area that is often connected directly to the screen on a foldable flap. All "clicking" is done by touch with a finger or stylus on the screen, or action on a separate trackpad. There are also portable root nodes that can do their computing when not attached to the root, but still require an attachment to exchange information. Information on the root moves at the speed of thought, but not the speed of light, so delays between far away points are to be expected.
Portable root nodes and personal nodes are more popular in the middle countries. In Kapet, there is always a root-café nearby in a city or town. Information is stored on one's account, not a hard drive. (Technically it is stored in a redwood's "hard drive" somewhere.)
Radio is common and used. Radiodramas are popular across all continents. Although part of the spectrum is reserved for space bee communication, getting buzzing on a station from a stray message happens every so often. Since it's faster than the root, short wave radio sets are used for most localk communication.
Also, there is mail, used for package delivery and sending heartfelt messages in the way only paper and ink can properly relay.
Zhilmuhl does not have the root, but it has TV and telephone. Zhilmuhl has computers and robotic electronics, but no internet. Information transfer between computers is still in the floppy disk and direct-connect stage. COmputer technology is a quickly growing field.

Housing
In the north, huts made of reed, stone, and adobe are the norm in the bush.
Along the river and in the middle countries, cheap homes are constructed with coral, roots, and stone by black builders. The best homes are black builders. Some people in the mountains live in stone houses, and the rich can afford to live in wooden tiered palaces. If a person grew up in a living black builder house or apartment, it's still like family to them.
In Zhilmuhl, concrete and steel apartment houses or tin huts are the norm. In an apartment, people do not have individual rooms, only a matress and chest for belongings, so most of their time is spent outside the home. Out on the tundra, the nomads live in felt yurts.

Lighting The races know about electric power, but the northern countries don't use it for much outside of pure science. That said, they love them some tesla coils. Electricity is used for electroplating and other industry applications, but it is conspicuously absent from everyday lighting. Neon signs are in vogue, though. Most folks either sleep when the sun goes down, or use fire. You can read from or play games on a root node screen after dark. The northern continents supplement home and city lighting with bioluminescent fungus and algae.
Zhilmuhl has fully embraced electric power, and their cities never sleep.
Tah has two moons, which are both closer to the planet than ours is. Their larger moon is in fact our moon. This moon has its own sattelite, a trapped asteroid. The asteroid has a negligible effect on tides since its mass accompanies the larger moon. Since the moons are closer, they appear larger and brighter.

Medicine The best painkiller is heroin, although some old people still distil their own opium. Ibuprofen is better for muscle pains, and available as a powder. Orlas chew willow bark for a headache, and chinchona for malaria. Some people prefer their aspirin as a pure powder. Most diseases are cured by bacteriophage and virophage, but penicillin is still prescribed for skin diseases. Both are easily grown in a black builder. Cancer is a problem, but can be beaten with thalidomide.
Roundworms are used to help transplanted organs be accepted. Leeches are used to take blood, and maggots are used to clean wounds, both raised by the local doctor or nurse.
In the kapetian bush, medicine is harder to come by and largely plant-based, but nurses travel around to give vaccinations.
In Zhilmuhl, healthcare is good for the rich but not the poor. The biological medicines found in the north can only be had over the black market, except for penicillin. Many diseases are fought with metal compounds which can cause poisoning, or simple pharmaceuticals. In zhilmuhl, all blood is taken with needles, and they find the maggots and leeches of the north to be disgusting.
Needles are made of plastic or glass ; vials always of glass. Scalpel surgery, blood donation, and proper wound ligature is equally as advanced in all countries. For ligature, most countries use silk thread, but in the Kapetian bush ant heads are just as likely.

Bathrooms and bathing Who runs the water utility differs by country but what happens is near universal: in the north a black builder will happily eat your waste and provide you with clean water, while in the south the sewer system workers are trying their best to filter, disinfect, or transport everything away.
In the north, communal bathing is par for the course except in Pulu Sule. In Kapet, the river is still used for bathing, but elsewhere lavish bath houses are the norm. Topilets and baths are kept separate. In Zhilmuhl to see another person naked is a terrible scandal, so of course all bathing is done privately. Everyone enjoys hotsprings, although Zhilmuhl people do so in towels.

Money Money exists both on national debit ID cards and in solid form. Kapet uses paper money, and payment can be accepted in rice or cycad pulp. Mii, Pulu Sule, and Kumoto use metal or ceramic money, depending ont the denomination, and all money can and is redeemed for precious metals or rice. Zhilmuhl's national ID card does not work as a debit card, and their paper money is overinflated. Barter is alive and well everywhere.
There are two systems of measurement, one base ten, the other base twelve.
In Kapet and Pulu Sule, city-dwellers pay a third of their income in tax in exchange for many social services. In the bush, a tithe is collected from various tribes out of what they can produce. This tithe is rewarded with military protection and nurse rounds, but utilities and welfare are nto available.
In Mii and Kumoto, taxes fluctuate based on the annual budget, between 15 and 20 percent of income. Taxes pay for the military, public works, and national healthcare, but not social security or welfare. The latter are supposed to be the duty of a family or dan. On top of taxes, the local gangs and corporations, sometims th same thing, further require protection money and payment of service. Gangs are less common in Kumoto, or rather they're simply part of the military itself.
In Zhilmuhl, there are no taxes. Rather, the govrnment takes every product and money made, and then redistributes it. Most gets redistributed to the ruling class, while the lower class makes do on food stamps and an allowance. Needless to say, money and products are constantly being hidden for use in black market barter.

Food Production Farming is still a way of life for many people, although not always for food. There is absolutely no herding, and animal husbandry as we know it is a rather foreign concept. Troödons and salawas have been domesticated, mostly through cohabitation. Fowl are kept for their eggs, and cockroaches for their meat, but only partially domesticated.
The races are all primarily or largely carnivorous : everyone hunts their own meat daily. One can buy sauropod, ankylosaur, hadrosaur, and plesiosaur meat at the market. These animals are too large to be taken down by the average dan, so skilled hunters with packs of troödons and salawas hunt them to sell. Markets also hold trilobites. People hunt for anything else, and gather their own eggs. Not to hunt for one's own meat is disgraceful. The farther one is from water, the less disgraceful it is not to hunt for trilobites.

Who eats what This doesn't fall under technology, but it might be good to know.
Just about any large bird or reptile is good to eat, including dinosaurs. COlourful songbirds may be too cute to eat, depending on who's hungry. Dromaeosaurs, carnosaurs, and therapsids are off the menu due to respect or fear. In Kapet, home of Sarcosuchus (relative of the more famous deinosuchus), crocodiles are not eaten out of respect for the "king spirits of the river." In Mii, the opposite is the case: home of the pygmy crocodile, crocodiles are considered too cute to eat and even kept as pets. Same with turtles. In the north, fish and mammals, which exist but are rare, are considred unclean animals unfit for consumption.
In Zhilmuhl, if you can catch it, you can eat it.
Everyone eats arthropods, be it trilobite, crustacean, spider, or insect. The insect of choice in Kapet is the termite ; in Mii cockroaches and waterbugs ; in Zhilmuhl various tree grubs and trapdoor spiders. The trilobite remains the favourite of all insect-like meats. Taste varies by species.

[Guest]

Cool, so when will the OOC be going up?

[obfuscobble]

I think I should work on the OOC over the next day or so. Any further worldbuilding questions can get amswered there. I'll put up all this info so far, plus more, as well as character sheets (aka age, race, history, the genral slots to fill), and the plot-impetus. It'll take me a while, of course, but we should get this party started. I just hope I'm not heaping on an overload of info already! I'd hate to come off as being "this is the way it is or selse." In my mind, it's more like "Oh, so many things to share!"

[Guest]

It is fine.

Sounds good.

[Digital Muse]

First: Awesome idea!

Second: WOW on the art work!

Third: Tell me all about the Black Builders. I'm curious.

[obfuscobble]

Digital muse is here!
Thank you for admiring my artwork. *blush*
I'm working on the rather lengthy Races post for the OOC now, but I'm more than happy to give a cliff's notes version here to whet your interest. Mostly because I love them.


Black builders are found all over the northern continent and seas, but there aren't any on the southern continent. Black builders are polymorphous, semi-intelligent, genetically engineered slime moulds that can mimic or reproduce structures in other animals. They were engineered by the cuttlefish people to build things underwater, a notoriously difficult place to build. They can take any form that they have learned, and combine it with any other.
Black builders are programmed and controlled by music. A black builder technician writes and performs programs for the black builder, as well as tending to its health and well being. Interestingly, the cuttlkefish don't appreciate music beyond being a mathematically pleasing series of wave forms. Music appreciation at a human level is rare in nature.
Very few black builders are sentient, and those that are like to shape shift into forms that will let them pass as not being what they are. Examples include one that actually pretended to be a black builder technician (where it was the technician for itself), and one that became a "weather girl" on a local weather channel.
The advantage to being a sentient black builder is the ability to mimic and learn new forms independently of a programmer. As well as that whole "sentience" thing. All black builders are protected from abuse by law, and sentient black builders are recognised as citizens. A way to tell the difference is to play some of the very basic program-test songs (roll into a ball, enter this container, don't rip my head off, etc) : a sentient black builder will be able to resist the programming to some extent.
Many black builders can talk, sentient or not. The extent of communication in most black builders is like asking a computer how it's running, or how much memory / milk / eggs it has left. In between sentience and automated response are the black builders that have the ability to feel and report pain, discomfort, confusion, and happiness. As opposed to : the west wing of the apartment is on fire ; there is not enough water in my system ; I don't know what you're asking me, plase rephrase ; and no happiness response whatsoever.
Mentally and emotionally, black builders are far from human. They were created to serve, and will always have that in the back of their "mind." Black builders have absolutely no fear or drive for survival. This isn't to say they're all suicidal, but rather that when assessing their response to a situation, "will I die" isn't an important factor. Partially this is because they were initially created as tools that could well die by accident or be ordered into a fatal situation, and partially this is because they are shape shifting slime moulds who can survive quite a lot. Their bodily integrity is of no importance to them, although they'll regret losing the resources if their body gets damaged.
Black builders don't experience the same emotions as other animals, and have the uncanny ability to evaluate and analyse their own feelings. Sentience has given some of them the ability to experience loss, regret, schadenfreude, shame, even a sort of love. While part of their mind experiences these feelings very strongly, another part is able to simultaneously step back and decide if these feelings are rational or even a good response to a situation. The rational mind is left over from the black builder's self-diagnostic programming. However, the decision of the rational mind has little bearing on the black builder's feelings or continued emotional response. This actually confuses them, and many don't really like feeling emotions. Imagine knowing what it's like to have no shame or regret for your automated actions, and then one day you develop the ability to control your own life as you see fit but it comes with this annoying conscience thing. Then, no matter how much the old days start to seem like a golden age, you can't ever go back. Black builders are fully capable of feeling and saying out loud : "I like you ; you are beneficial to my interests, and I enjoy your choice in clothing." But "I like you but I don't really know why?" Not so much.
Of course, with sentience came the ability to lie, and they just adore that ability. (Non sentient black builders are incapable of lying.) In fact, the ability to lie or decieve is what kept most of them alive in the days when they had to hide the fact they were black builders in order to interact with society as anything but a slave. Lying doesn't come naturally to them, however. If a human breaks a vase when no one is looking, their first instinct when confronted about it is to say "I didn't do it." The first instinct of a black builder is to admit "I did it." The instinct for truth is so strong in them, that often instead of fabricating a falsehood, they'll take the path of saying things that are technically true but add up to a lie. Ala "I wasn't over near the vase a minute ago. (He was over there TWO minutes ago) It just fell. It was a pretty top heavy vase, anyway, and I've seen the pet salawas playing near it a lot recently." Admittably, this is where a lot of human lies go, but keep in mind that black builders are just about incapable of doing the flat-denial lies, and will always lose to the lawyer's "yes or no" trick. (You'd think it would just be easy to ask "Are you or are you not a black builder." to someone you suspect is a black builder in disguise, but most do have the ability to say "No : I'm an orla / cuttlefish / whatever." because they are currently in that form.)
When not sentient, black builders can be foudn just about anywhere in the north and in the seas, acting as living buildings, utilities, and trains.

AAAALSO I should note that having a black builder character is not a free pass to power mode. Sentient black builders tend to stay in small forms. Every shapeshift requires metabolic energy, so if you're going to shape shift a lot, be ready to be hungry fast. A black builder can only move around the mass it already has. Eating adds to that mass, but only the actual cells of a black builder can be shape shifted, and the food item must be fully digested and metabolised into useful cells before its mass can be used. Being slime moulds, they don't take well to acids, including vinegar, but bleach has little effect. Also, black builders absolutely hate milk and other animal-based runny fatty substances. Until the timescape opened to universes with cow-milking humans, they were blissfully unaware of milk's existence.

[Digital Muse]

That's so freaking cool!!!

[obfuscobble]

Heee, thanks! I edited the post with some other stuff (like "death to milk"), and you'll probably see a lot of that repeated when I get the OOC up.

[obfuscobble]

I'm not dead, I'm not dead. Work's been crazy and forcing me to take it home. OOC thread in a few days.

[wakeangel]

Color me interested as well.

[obfuscobble]

@wakeangel

Great to hear it! the OOC thread is under construction, and a good bit of it is copied from this thread there. I hope to see you there soon once it all gets finished!

[obfuscobble]

The OOC Thread is up and FINALLY complete.

I would like to apologise ahead of time for:
1. The tardiness with which it has appeared. I recently got involed in a big hullabaloo involving an art scam, so my life's been a bit on hold. Luckily, it's getting better now.
Speaking of which: if any of you get approached by "Sons of Thunder" , a start-up animation company offering you a job, please know that it is a scam. I doubt this will happen to anyone else, but I figured I'd put that warning out there.

2. The Wall-o-Text that is the OOC. Those first posts are pretty -y, but they're just establishing the ground rules of the RP setting.

orz Thank you all for your patience.

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