Good evening and welcome back to Tabletop Tuesday! A day for reflecting, a day for ignoring the months of inaction and chalking them merrily up to ReChArGiNg, and for once more visualizing how good it would feel were I to finally get around to playtesting Star Baker. But actually, for today, I wanted to make incremental progress on the Bulb system - by which I mean Aaron Lim posted the world seeds for Spectres of Brocken (coming soon to Kickstarter!) and I wanted to make some too, and maybe I’ll eventually flesh them out into the format I have in mind for my Bulbs. Anyway, I’ll use Aaron’s format (from here: https://twitter.com/ehronlime/status/1549437755213561856?s=21) to start.
Walking Shrines
The main societies of this world are inventive, industrious, and often ruthless in their striving for technological superiority. Travel and trade are easier and more lucrative than ever; war is both brutal, and just another driver of the economy. But wars now are nothing compared to the conflicts of old, waged by empires long since forgotten by all but the seemingly backwards nomadic groups that live in the rewilded margins of a world that was nearly shattered millennia ago. The traveling Errants keep the legends of the Straying, and know the secrets of the warmachines that slumber still. But in this day and age, the greed of nations is insatiable, and they’ll do anything - even compel the travelers to unearth and operate the mysterious armours they call Shrines. From the scions of the industry baronies, to the conscripts of the poorhouse, to the Errant youths taken as hostage to ensure their peoples’ cooperation, a new generation of Shrine pilots is trained. A new age dawns, but is the world doomed to fall into a new Straying? As Shrines take to the battlefield once more, will we ever again know peae?
Headlamps in the Fog
The City and its bridges shine in the night, reflected by the inky water of the bay. When the wind blows from the North, a thick fog covers the waterfront and rain runs together with motor oil. The city is home to millions, the lofty towers built and occupied by the unthinkably wealthy, the destitute unhomed and out of sight in the cavernous tunnels and sewers beneath the Earth. Law and Order are maintained by the righteous Millennions, a mechanized peacekeeping force piloted by the bravest, most just and true. The three prestigious Academies of Vhong, Mbati, and Cueainn test and refine those who seek to become pilots. But behind this cursory gilding lies a rotten truth: the Millennions do not protect people, they protect the hierarchy. Innocents are persecuted for profit, the public is disenfranchised, and the greatest criminals hold sway over whole squads of mechs. The system works like a well-oiled machine - but for whom? It cannot grind on like this forever, and there is only so far that citizenry can be pushed before they turn to desperate measures. Revolution looms. Conspiracies approach their culmination. Between the coal gas streetlights and the shadows spilling from the allies, everything will be changed forever.
My directive is simple (to make two world seeds that are distinct enough from Aaron’s original three to open up the possibilities) and my inspirations are fairly obvious; the post-apocalyptic rewilded futures of Studio Ghibli (especially as depicted in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, and Howl’s Moving Castle) for Walking Shrines, and noir (including my dim recollections of Big O), a genre I absolutely adore, for Headlamps in the Fog. I think these work, and were I to expand these into Bulbs I’d probably start with nailing down and expanding some geography before filling in with factions and specific events and people. I also have a clear idea of the technology level for each of these world seeds but I was more interested in describing the power dynamics (fuck the state) and the Moment than those specifics.
Anyhow, that was fun. Til next time - stay safe, punch Nazis, be a Gundam.
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