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Ultraviolet Grasslands
Mar. 19th, 2020 05:39 pmThe dreams won't stop.
Visions of endless steppes stretching from horizon to horizon, dotted with strange beasts, semi-savage tribes, ancient and malevolent machines of the Long Long Ago, ruins of forgotten technology or magic or both. Endless weeks and months of crawling beneath the unforgiving sky, towards the sunset. Sometimes you'll see it on the horizon: the Black City, slumping blocks piled atop each other, in endless almost-repeating patterns, crouching on the shore of an oily, sullen ocean. It wants you. You want it.
You've been having these dreams every time you try to rest for months now. Lately you've been seeing the visions while you're awake too.
Maybe you're a Rainbowlander, one of the inheritors of the dying earth. Maybe you hail from one of the hermetic societies of the Fast Stars, sent to the surface as an opportunity or a punishment. Maybe you're from one of the Old Colonies on other of the tired sun's planets or their moons. Might be you're a cacogen from beyond the Slow Stars, brought here by chance, accident, or plan--aboard a Golden Barge sailing the humpbacked sky, or frozen in a sleeper-ship. You might even be from another time, or another celestial sphere. Maybe you're human, maybe you're not. Possibly the question of whether or not you are isn't meaningful anymore.
It doesn't matter.
What matters is that you heard the Call, or it might have been that the Call found you. It wasn't difficult to find out where to go: you're not the only person to have received this summons. Far from it.
And so, however you got here, you've arrived at the Violet City, at the Left End of the Right Road. Beyond here, there are no roads, but it's not as if the steppes are entirely unknown. There are caravans. The Ultraviolet Grasslands have things the Rainbowlanders want, and the Rainbow Lands produce things that the peoples of the Grasslands desire. The caravans are always going and coming. They're always looking for people. A lot of people who go to the Grasslands don't come back. Violent mechanicals take some of them. Others just drift off in search of their visions. Maybe they find enlightenment. Hard to say.
So, if you need a frame story: you all meet in a tavern in the Foreigners' Quarter of the Violet City. You have learned to recognize your fellow pilgrims by the haunted light in their eyes. Caravan masters recognize that look too. All that remains is to introduce yourself to your tablemates, choose a caravan, and start the journey.
==========================
What this means in practice:
I'm running an _Ultraviolet Grasslands_ game, using _Troika!_ rules (mostly) (see below for links). It will occur on Thursday evenings at something like 6PM MST and go for 3 or 4 hours a session. It will initially be online, probably over Google Hangouts. Once COVID-19 has passed or become an unremarkable feature of society, we will start having a local table in Tucson videoconferenced in to remote participants.
This game will be an episodic, location-based, pointcrawl. There is no particular need for session-by-session continutity. If you're not there for a while, the assumption will be that you went off with another caravan, and those caravans have met again somewhere in the wastes. Typically each episode will be travel, trade, and/or exploring a location or structure looking for valuable trade items.
However, the campaign as a whole is going to work by Rientsian rules, such that if you're still in the middle of an adventure (as opposed to safely(ish) back at camp) when session time runs out, there's going to be some terrifying table you roll on to determine your fate, which might range from escaping-with-only-a-minor-loss-of-wealth-or-health to wide-distribution-of-your-soul-across-time-and-space.
It's a FLAILSNAILS game. Bring in a character you like and I'll work with you to write it into a Troika!-looking format, or create a new character just for this game. I don't think we're going to care much about jejune matters like game balance. Most things out in the UVG are pretty squishy. Many are not. Some might as well be gods. Maybe some are, or once were, or aspire to someday be, gods. There will always be things you can defeat easily, and things that can crush you without blinking. These things will not always be easily categorized without engagement, so combat should rarely be your first resort.
The flotsam and jetsam of a trillion crystal spheres have washed up on the edge of the Circle Sea. Your character can be anyone or anything. Don't feel like they have to fit any particular genre.
If you lose a character--and you very well may--well, a new one can always jump on board the caravan at the next oasis.
The goal, if there is one, is for your character to make their way to the Black City and meet/confront/embrace whatever it is that's been drawing them. It's a very long way through the Ultraviolet Grasslands from the Violet City to the Black City. There might be some sort of emergent arc. There might not. Maybe you can create one. Isn't it pretty to think so?
====================
How to join: just let me know. You probably saw this on Discord, and direct messaging me there will work. I'm not on Facebook or Twitter. I read my email, but only occasionally--you can try emailing me but no promises it's going to work very well.
Be persistent. I'm disorganized. If I don't reply I probably just didn't see your request.
====================
Resources:
The Ultraviolet Grasslands are a psychedelic-metal inspired setting. You can get a free version at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/241606/The-Ultraviolet-Grasslands--Free-Introduction
. Troika is a system that simulates...I dunno, British New Wave SF if
you poured a whole bunch of Gene Wolfe all over it? https://www.scribd.com/document/346627037/Troika-Free-Artless-Edition-10539920-pdf
Things to listen to: Blue Öyster Cult, Sleep (especially Dopesmoker), Godspeed You! Black Emperor, early Black Sabbath. Watch _Heavy Metal_. Smoke too much indica and wander around Ico or Shadow Of The Colossus. Or even maybe Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Visions of endless steppes stretching from horizon to horizon, dotted with strange beasts, semi-savage tribes, ancient and malevolent machines of the Long Long Ago, ruins of forgotten technology or magic or both. Endless weeks and months of crawling beneath the unforgiving sky, towards the sunset. Sometimes you'll see it on the horizon: the Black City, slumping blocks piled atop each other, in endless almost-repeating patterns, crouching on the shore of an oily, sullen ocean. It wants you. You want it.
You've been having these dreams every time you try to rest for months now. Lately you've been seeing the visions while you're awake too.
Maybe you're a Rainbowlander, one of the inheritors of the dying earth. Maybe you hail from one of the hermetic societies of the Fast Stars, sent to the surface as an opportunity or a punishment. Maybe you're from one of the Old Colonies on other of the tired sun's planets or their moons. Might be you're a cacogen from beyond the Slow Stars, brought here by chance, accident, or plan--aboard a Golden Barge sailing the humpbacked sky, or frozen in a sleeper-ship. You might even be from another time, or another celestial sphere. Maybe you're human, maybe you're not. Possibly the question of whether or not you are isn't meaningful anymore.
It doesn't matter.
What matters is that you heard the Call, or it might have been that the Call found you. It wasn't difficult to find out where to go: you're not the only person to have received this summons. Far from it.
And so, however you got here, you've arrived at the Violet City, at the Left End of the Right Road. Beyond here, there are no roads, but it's not as if the steppes are entirely unknown. There are caravans. The Ultraviolet Grasslands have things the Rainbowlanders want, and the Rainbow Lands produce things that the peoples of the Grasslands desire. The caravans are always going and coming. They're always looking for people. A lot of people who go to the Grasslands don't come back. Violent mechanicals take some of them. Others just drift off in search of their visions. Maybe they find enlightenment. Hard to say.
So, if you need a frame story: you all meet in a tavern in the Foreigners' Quarter of the Violet City. You have learned to recognize your fellow pilgrims by the haunted light in their eyes. Caravan masters recognize that look too. All that remains is to introduce yourself to your tablemates, choose a caravan, and start the journey.
==========================
What this means in practice:
I'm running an _Ultraviolet Grasslands_ game, using _Troika!_ rules (mostly) (see below for links). It will occur on Thursday evenings at something like 6PM MST and go for 3 or 4 hours a session. It will initially be online, probably over Google Hangouts. Once COVID-19 has passed or become an unremarkable feature of society, we will start having a local table in Tucson videoconferenced in to remote participants.
This game will be an episodic, location-based, pointcrawl. There is no particular need for session-by-session continutity. If you're not there for a while, the assumption will be that you went off with another caravan, and those caravans have met again somewhere in the wastes. Typically each episode will be travel, trade, and/or exploring a location or structure looking for valuable trade items.
However, the campaign as a whole is going to work by Rientsian rules, such that if you're still in the middle of an adventure (as opposed to safely(ish) back at camp) when session time runs out, there's going to be some terrifying table you roll on to determine your fate, which might range from escaping-with-only-a-minor-loss-of-wealth-or-health to wide-distribution-of-your-soul-across-time-and-space.
It's a FLAILSNAILS game. Bring in a character you like and I'll work with you to write it into a Troika!-looking format, or create a new character just for this game. I don't think we're going to care much about jejune matters like game balance. Most things out in the UVG are pretty squishy. Many are not. Some might as well be gods. Maybe some are, or once were, or aspire to someday be, gods. There will always be things you can defeat easily, and things that can crush you without blinking. These things will not always be easily categorized without engagement, so combat should rarely be your first resort.
The flotsam and jetsam of a trillion crystal spheres have washed up on the edge of the Circle Sea. Your character can be anyone or anything. Don't feel like they have to fit any particular genre.
If you lose a character--and you very well may--well, a new one can always jump on board the caravan at the next oasis.
The goal, if there is one, is for your character to make their way to the Black City and meet/confront/embrace whatever it is that's been drawing them. It's a very long way through the Ultraviolet Grasslands from the Violet City to the Black City. There might be some sort of emergent arc. There might not. Maybe you can create one. Isn't it pretty to think so?
====================
How to join: just let me know. You probably saw this on Discord, and direct messaging me there will work. I'm not on Facebook or Twitter. I read my email, but only occasionally--you can try emailing me but no promises it's going to work very well.
Be persistent. I'm disorganized. If I don't reply I probably just didn't see your request.
====================
Resources:
The Ultraviolet Grasslands are a psychedelic-metal inspired setting. You can get a free version at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/241606/The-Ultraviolet-Grasslands--Free-Introduction
. Troika is a system that simulates...I dunno, British New Wave SF if
you poured a whole bunch of Gene Wolfe all over it? https://www.scribd.com/document/346627037/Troika-Free-Artless-Edition-10539920-pdf
Things to listen to: Blue Öyster Cult, Sleep (especially Dopesmoker), Godspeed You! Black Emperor, early Black Sabbath. Watch _Heavy Metal_. Smoke too much indica and wander around Ico or Shadow Of The Colossus. Or even maybe Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
