SRDCAT Sneak Peek: Collections

 

My first post on WTF.com is up! It's the first glimpse of SRDcat's Collections interface, which helps us organize the vast amount of game objects that Seacat contains! 

More posts like this to come as SRDcat grows closer to its final form!

Joining WTF.com!

 

Novelties of import! I've joined the interstellar hive-mind that is wizardthieffighter.com!

In a fit of recursion, let this be a post referencing a post referencing this event!

Working with Luka has been an incredible experience so far, and I'm looking forward to unveiling some of the projects we've been working on!

I haven't been posting as much recently, mainly because I've been spending my time tinkering on many different things, and soon it will be time to surface and talk about those things! 

You will be able to find these posts here, once they are published.

In the meantime, here are some small contextless premonitions of what is to come:

What could they mean??

SEACAT Collab!

 

I'm joining Luka as a co-designer of SEACAT!

That's already quite exciting, but what is also awesome is I will be building an official digital SRD/companion app for the game, currently titled SRDCAT.

One of the things that drew me to Luka's design was the way it naturally lent itself towards being translated into digital tools. It's the realization that led to the creation of the UVG Digital Referee Screen, and now it's leading to the creation of SRDCAT.

SEACAT, like UVG, is packed to the brim with all sorts of interesting things. At the current moment, there are 100 skills, 100 traits, ~60 mutations, ~100 items, and ~50 spells, and Luka is creating even more as we speak. The design question I hope to help solve is: How can we refine a gameplay process that can support such a vast and interesting breadth of content, while still remaining simple and easy to play? I do believe we move closer and closer to the answer, but that will be for another blogpost!

It's going to be a fascinating and rewarding process to advance both physical and digital design together, because I think both mediums can inform and guide each other's design. A lot of what makes for elegant gameplay also makes for efficient code, and vice versa. I believe this can result in a digital SRD that really fits the game it was made for, and that allows for exploring new horizons of gameplay and content creation further down the line.

I have also found that Luka is just overall an excellent person to collaborate with, and so I'm very excited for this and for future collaborations!

(Look out for future posts on the design process!)

ARC Discord Bot!

I'm making a doomsday device!

And for the gorgeous ARC TTRPG no less!

At the time of writing, we are $877 away from reaching the goal!

THE PLAN

Doomsday Clock

-Players will be able to create their own Doomsday Clock in discord through a command.

-ARC bot can randomly generate the nature of the doom and the omens if players wish.

-Players can set the time interval between each advance.

-When the command is complete, a timer will start. Every interval, ARC bot will post a message, either in DMs or in a channel of the player's choosing, indicating that an interval has passed.

-Players will have the ability to pause, delete, advance, or roll back the timer.

Google Sheets Integration

Momatoes has created a gorgeous google sheet for ARC, and through ARC Bot players will be able to access and update cell values in their character sheet.

-ARC bot can randomly generate a character and populate the player's google sheet with its values.

-ARC bot will be able to automate rolls by pulling values from a player's google sheet and calculating the result.

-ARC bot can modify the values in a player's google sheet based on a roll's result.

SRD Lookup

-Players will be able to look up creatures, items, and spells included in ARC through a command.

-(The ARC SRD is currently under construction)

Rolling Dice

-ARC bot will have commands to automatically roll skill checks drawing on player data from google sheets.

-ARC bot will include also include a basic dice roller.

-ARC bot will include random generators that draw upon SRD data to help Guides create content for their games.

THE DREAM

One of the things that I am most excited about regarding ARC is the way Momatoes has crafted it to be a fun and welcoming experience for folks who are new to the hobby. The Guide Toolkit in the ARC Quickstart is an example of how supportive the game can be to both players and Guides. It's my hope that ARC bot can add to this by making the process of playing the game digitally even more streamlined than it already is. I think this could help, especially in cases where players cannot meet in person.

Inspirations

This began as a response post to DIY & Dragons' excellent post on childhood fantasy inspirations, but somewhere along the way I broke off the rails of the prompt, and now we have this.

Soundtrack is recommended, but not required.

Warning: Contains spoilers.

New Phyrexia

Some ideas never truly die. They burrow into the mind and fester, growing and infecting, colonizing. Making part of you an extension of themselves, and in so doing, making themselves an extension of you. They haunt you, and you become, to them, a haunt. Some ideas set you along a path, give you a distant destination, and that is their first gift.

My introduction to MTG was Mirrodin Besieged. I believe my love of science fantasy, and of worldbuilding, began here. I began reading through MTG card lists for the lore snippets (which will likely be a subject of another blog post).

I believe I can sum up the story like this: I was reading through the New Phyrexia card list for the lore, and came upon this somewhat innocent card name. "War Report" is not a particularly evocative introduction to a card compared to something like "Phyrexian Obliterator". Then I read the card text.

The death of a world that, quite frankly, I had fallen in love with, hidden in the card text of an unobtrusive pack-filler common. 

This taught me the power of flavor text. The words may have been on the card, but the actual destruction of Mirrodin played out in my own mind as I put the pieces together.

No MTG set has been able to hurt me like this since, and to this day I remain searching.

Hyper Light Drifter

Some ideas never truly die. Like a flash-imprint, they leave their reflections burned into you. They can never leave your vision, you could never dare tear your gaze away. They are the light that burns in the core of your consciousness, casts dancing shadows on the walls of your hollow brain that you scramble to decipher like some paleolithic sage. Some ideas turn you into a lighthouse. You begin to emit, to burn, and that is their second gift.

I was wholly unprepared for the effect this game would have on me. I had started it as a recommendation from a friend, and was somewhat intrigued by what I had seen on Steam. Then I saw the opening cutscene and everything changed. Part of me has found a home in that vibrant, broken, nameless world.

Hyper Light Drifter showed me the ways in which games can be intensely, luminously, incandescently beautiful, and now I burn with the frustration and knowledge that nothing I create will ever be beautiful in that exact same way. And yet, perhaps that... gross incandescence can set my own works alight with a fire all their own.

Bloodborne

Some ideas never truly die. They are planted in your mind, but you are the flower that blooms. Evolved, perhaps unknowingly, perhaps unwillingly. An evolution of courage, for evolution without courage only leads to ruin. These new sets of eyes are yours, and they peer inward. The world feels different, and yet it has always been the same: you have been transformed. Some ideas grant you new eyes, and that is their third gift.

Bloodborne has taught me how a work can have layers upon layers of meaning. It has taught me how a work can infect and transform everything it touches with new layers, how it will infect the viewers with the eyes to see them.

Bloodborne follows in the tradition of Lovecraft, but in doing so, it infects Lovecraft's message and turns it into a challenge against his beliefs. It is a beautiful coincidence that Bloodborne is regarded to be the best Lovecraftian video game, and yet it contains hints and themes that completely undermine his tradition. That evolve it, and in so doing, evolve us.

Perhaps the ultimate other is not so other after all. With enough eyes, perhaps we will see.

Dark Souls

Some ideas never truly die. If you find them in the process of dying, of fading, then the absences they leave behind will be greater and more beautiful than their living forms ever could have been. Things given power by what they are not, what they couldn't have been, what they never will be. The invisible inertia that sets the cosmos whirl, the dark matter that steadies it on its axis, they are within you, too. Some ideas represent an absence, the vast majesty you can find within yourself, and that is their final gift.

This gift is also from Kyana, who taught me the word Lacuna, possibly the most important word I now know. A cavity. An absence. 

Part of us will always be searching blindly in a dark cave, a lacuna deep within ourselves. For when faced with whatever pockets of the unknown still remain in this world of light and bright screens, we fill them with reflections of that primeval void. Lacunae become imperfect mirrors, and through them the self is broken down, refracted, and reforged. The self-destructive pursuit of information that I have become part of seeks to eliminate the last traces of mystery from the world. It is in these lacunae that mystery still lurks, and it is in this mystery that the search for meaning is given purpose.

"Perhaps you've seen it, maybe in a dream. A murky, forgotten land." It is my belief that if you search for meaning in games long enough, you will eventually stand before its decrepit gate, without really knowing why. That land might be called Lordran. Or Drangleic. Or Lothric. Or perhaps even Lorgan, for if Mystery did not keep many pseudonyms, it would no longer be Mystery.

In Dark Souls, words confound. Time is fluid. Space is stable, dependable, but uncooperative, for it remains staunchly silent. You must seek truth in the spaces between words; in TTRPGs, we must seek truth in the spaces between worlds.

***

Some ideas never truly die, while they live on through us.

The Ashen West Setting Building

The name "Ashen West" is just a placeholder. This is the result of a bout of impromptu setting-building between me and Kyana over on Luka's discord.

Music fuel 

Kyana: There is a lot of instrumental variations of those five but I love the songs

(selected lyrics from the songs, tied in together)

Sky is red, clouds roll in I say my prayers and close my eyes Devils are among us Black trains are coming - Let the gunshots ring.

Saker: The Church of Fire and Smoke, whose prayers turn the wheels of great machines, worshippers of terrible Angels, suppliers and consumers of the Black Powder.

The Black Powder: Found deep under the mountains, a wondrous fuel and the source of alchemical magicks. Holy medium of the church, who dig greedily and deep into old places that should be left alone.

The Flame: At the deepest point beneath the mountain, the prospectors of the Church found flame, which settled deep into their hearts till their eyes kindled like embers and their footsteps scorched the earth. And so, as foretold, Devils came to walk the mortal realms.

The Devils: They walk the soot-scorched lands, causing death and misery wherever they tread, or so saith the Church. Some say they are extraplanar demons or lost souls, others say they are the result of overuse of Black Powder. Hunted by the Gunslingers.

The Gunslingers: Hunters of Devils. Their traditional weapon of choice is the six-shooter, but other guns have been adopted by more eccentric slingers. Those who know alchemy can transmute their blood with black powder to create magic bullets. Some are affiliated with the church, others worship the Six Gun Saints (also known as the Six-Gun Saints) Some select few ride the Black Train.

The Black Train whose name is Death: Most get crushed under its wheels, but some, chosen by fate, can hitch a ride (those who are "Off the Tracks"). They can return from death and move between Stations. There is a Conductor, bound and gagged by silver chains. Do not speak to them.

Kyana: Small towns and cities, connected by thin roads; the space between them malleable and shifting like sands in the desert - what was a canyon a year ago might become a ravine or a valley in the eyes of new traveller, as old ruins grow up from the new land. People cling to each other for the sense of stability and order that the presence of other people brings, just as their paranoia grows;

Somewhere out there are horses, marked by Angels in times past, beings of dust, fire, bone and smoke, feeding on open graveyards as on pastures. It is ruin for a weak of heart to face one, but tame it and feed it your flesh and it will never leave your side even in death;

There are gold-eyed people walking through the Thin Roads of the wilderness; their nails are sharp as steel and smiles are benign but they bear no Angel's blessed scent, no stench of devils. Kin to nobody, where they come, the hungry ghosts soon follow until the town are nothing but a skeleton of living;

Open graveyards appear and fester like wounds, never acknowledged, never treated with due respect, never put to rest

Golden Fever sweeps the land, turning men into possessed beasts; their delirium grows so strong they sip the marrow of bones, trying to get the smallest modula of gold out of human blood;

Flame embraces the true believers, scorching their flesh with cures just as fire tempers the brittle steel. One who is strong in such faith, manifests miraculous brands and hears the singing of Angels

Toss a pinch of black powder into a whiskey and it will heal you better than mother's milk and taste sweeter than the lover's kiss

Walk in dead man's boots to have your steps to be as quiet as death itself;

Bleed the blood of the innocents, and roses spring from each drop;

Great machines turn and sing, raising great cities from the hard stone, build up hard border walls from soft, shifting lands, brings sacred firepits out of depths, sanctify the land with their street lines; all are to welcome Church, the bringers of prosperity and order. For the dissidents there is an exile, a silencing or a gallow tree.

When carnival comes they play melodies of the old abandoned world, which everybody remembers but only in dreams; pursued by the Church and hounded by gunslingers, those shows never stay put for any long time

Saker: The Angels of the Church: Depicted in chapels and murals as watching over the world, belching smoke and weeping molten gold. Some say that when the light is at its brightest and the smoke is at its thinnest, can see great silhouettes towering, eyes slimmering like beacons through the haze.

Kyana: One can see them fly through the night, the beautiful tailed stars, so far above that they are as small as sparkles

Saker: The Three Substances of Alchemy: The black powder from beneath the mountain, the fool's gold from the shifting riverbanks of the endless frontier, and finally, the lifeblood of man. Together, they form the Triangular Concordance of Alchemy that some call the Philosopher's Stone. And from that Concordance is birthed a wellspring of wonders and horrors, for anything is possible if you're willing to pay any price. Whether that price be in body (blood), mind (gold), or spirit (powder).

As the saying goes: "The modern world is built on powder, gold, and blood".

The Haze: Perhaps there was a time before the Haze, before the great towers of the Church that vomit flame, the machines that burn powder to transmute blood into gold. But now it is everywhere, making heads swim, making lungs clench, making everything distant as if in a dream. They say if you wander too deep into the Haze, you will end up... somewhere else. They say that the souls of those lost in the Haze become part of it. Those Gunslingers who are Off the Tracks can see the Stations hidden in the Haze, and can hail the Black Train whose name is Death.

Kyana: Moon is a false fire of devils, for they abhor the true and only flame; fear the full moonlight, as it will steal your soul and extinguish your life's fire, and Church will hunt you down for the silver in your eyes as your skin turns to shadow and soot

Under the eye of the high noon sun there can be no lies, no illusions, no deceptions - only the judgement of the Angels

Saker: Secret Orders of the Church:

The Architects: They seek the Tower, their representation of the pinnacle of evolution and the inevitable product of mechanical innovation. When mortals scale the Tower, the gates of heaven shall open, all struggles will cease, all miseries shall be wiped from the face of the earth, and humankind shall face their final destiny.

The Tower Inverted: Heretic cell of the Architects. They know the truth: the Tower floats not in the sky but lies deep below the surface of the earth. And the result of finding it is not evolution, but infinite mutation and madness. Yet they seek it anyway. Some say that they were the ones to awaken the Devils from their slumber. The boldest and most heretical say they even follow the teachings of the Worm.

The Stargazers: Those who build great observatories atop vast peaks and pinnacles to try and pierce the haze and see the stars beyond. Their attempts are fruitless. For the stars have not been seen in generations. They, like much else, have been devoured in the haze.

Kyana: Black-clad ministers are the lowest priests of the Church, bearing sacred blackpowder and a rosary of spend shells, they attend to the everyday rites and guide the faithful flock; one knows them by the symbol of five-pointed star

Saker: One day, one of the villagers ventured out into the haze and didn't come back. The other villagers counted the days until at last there was no way he could have survived. Two weeks later he emerged from the smoke, but his movements were wrong and his voice was different.

He said he had come upon a revelation: that the machinations of humankind would lead to their demise, that the angels must be slain and overthrown, and the arts of powder, gold, and blood must be forgotten, else Doom return to reclaim the world. Humanity must return to the mud and caves if they are to be saved.

For his heresy, the Evangelists of the Church sent him to the block to be beheaded, as was tradition in those parts. When they took off his head, instead of blood what spilled out of the stump were hundreds of small, white worms.

The head continued to speak of vast, blind entities writhing and devouring themselves out of sight, and laughed as it burned on the pyre. Though the Church tried to cover up the story, rumor got around. And so the Teachings of the Worm began to spread.

By six shots, six saints, and six paths, we know it to be true." -Gunslinger's saying

Kyana: Old abandoned world is all but a dream for people of last generations, but some fall into this dream and wander forgotten streets of nameless cities, grand, and twisted, and broken, and so vast that the building are closing in above and from all the sides, as if a giant shell, as if a pair of godly hands. Those people wake up, shaken and crying for the songs they no longer can remember. They often wander off into the Haze, weeping, pursuing the mirages that taunt and sing for them as they go.

Some tumbleweeds from the heart of a murdered strangers, out in the wilderness. As they grow, the cluster of roots and branches grows tight in the centre of them, becoming the effigy of a slain person, the last remainder of their humanity; catch it, powder it and smoke it to imbibe the last memories and the most dear wish of the one who is gone

Saker: Six: A holy number to the Gunslingers, who built their guns with six chambers in reverence of the six great Saints of their tradition. Five of the paths are in life, and the final, sixth path, is in death. It is said that when a Gunslinger successfully walks the five sacred paths in life, they will be chosen by the Black Train to walk the sixth on the other side. It is a practice among the truly devout Gunslingers to only load five of their six chambers, "leaving the last one for death". Old devouts play games of russian roulette, believing the dead member of the six to have been chosen by the Black Train.

Kyana: (Black-garbed ministers wear five-pointed star and empty shells as they serve the living, not the dead)

Saker: (Some of the learned and bold among heretic scholars have noted some symbolic similarities between the Black Train whose name is Death, and the Worm who devours its own tail in the dark, though they do not dare mention them out loud.)

(Some of those aforementioned learned and bold heretic scholars also theorize that an ancient civilization tried to ascend the Tower long ago, but failed and were incinerated to a one. And their ashes became the powder below the mountain. And the Devils are their souls reigniting once more. But alas, such theories never make it far without being silenced.)

Kyana: Crescentgrove is a city home of the learnt and wise, and the lake near its never dries out, even at the highest heat. The Church watches closely for the sign of dissent thought that enters or leaves the city but at the same time, shows a strange reverence and reluctance to enter the city in force

Saker: (Others posit that the Angels of the Church are the ascended former humans, who want to uplift the rest of their former kind.)

Kyana: Church presents the monolith front for the lay believers, but even with this facade ordinary people learnt to be fearful of white-clad ministers, who walk through the wilderness haze leaving burning footprints, undeterred, unfettered, unstoppable by anything as they pursue their goals; those are said to be holy executioners, given a free mandate to show cruelty and mercy as they feel fit

The folk wisdom says that spitting on a bullet before loading it to the gun brings the favour of the Saints for the shot

It is said that snakes in the wilderness knows the secret of worm tunnels, once escaping them to live in the light of the day, but only share it with those who shares their poisons and survives

As the Golden Fever grows, some affected grows with it; soon the blood is not enough and they run after meandering rivers, trying to suck them dry in a pursuit of ever-desired gold; eventually their body grow giant and malleable as if of titanic slugs; and river might dry completely if there is no one to clean the diseased thirsty filth from its shores

Say quick prayer to Fifth Saint and smear the drop of your blood onto a grave to ask the dead for a sanctuary for a night; if you heart is pure and manners are respectful, they will share their grave with you but your sleep will be undisturbed by the dangers of the wild - but if your sins are heavy or manners are deceitful, you'd never rise from your bed again

Saker: They say that at the top of the highest steeple in the greatest cathedral of the Church, there is an iron door with a lock of silver. The key to that lock is tiny, yet the burden of carrying it is so great that it bows the bearer's back so their fingers sweep the ground. Is is said that only the pure of heart can bear the key, and so keepers are born, live, and die in the steeple without any contact with the outside world. What lies behind the door is the Church's second-best kept secret.

Acolytes of the Tower Inverted posit that below that cathedral built from stone, there is an anti-cathedral carved from the stone. At the lowest point of the mirror-image anti-cathedral there is an anti-steeple, and in the anti-steeple there is another iron door with a lock of silver, an exact mirror image of the other. Only the key to this door lies forgotten, and the door is open.

Kyana: There is a night in a late autumn, when the western wind brings the cold and heavy breath of the unattainable sea, the faintest scent of salt and longing of invisible waves; there is no moon in the skies that night, false or otherwise, and the darkness is absolute. Rumoured this night is the only night in the year where a daring stranger might ride the Train Whose Name is Death and escape with their live, if only barely.

(We try to figure out a name for this thing and nerd out about Dark Souls/Bloodborne)

Kyana: Guns, like a body, is just an outer envelope for the fiery spirit

Saker: A bullet forged from molten devil chains and quenched in righteous blood binds the target

Kyana: Called "Devil's Due"

Saker: A semi-card-based combat system where at the beginning of the round you draw six cards (five if you are a truly devout Gunslinger, leaving one for death). Those are your actions, and your bullets. You spend those actions, and when you're out of bullets the enemy better be dead otherwise it automatically kills you.

Such is the way of the bloody, ashen west.

My proposed system doesn't really work against enemies that are With Gun, does it?

If enemy With Gun: Quickdraw initiative battle, one bullet at a time, first to score a hit kills the other.

(That's about where we left off!)

Starfolk

Tiny, star-headed beings with wispy bodies of darkness, possessed of a mischievous nature and indefatigable curiosity. Their forms are small but their shadows stride the world like colossi. They speak in theremin-wobbles like tiny birds, and laugh like children, yet the youngest of them has far outlived this world. It goes without saying that you should not look them directly in the eye. In fact, any contact with them comes with a heavy price, as their poisonous light corrupts your cells and sears your mind.

Rumors of the Starfolk

1. In an ancient age, the first giant bent his great bow towards the heavens and began to strike down the stars one by one. Those that fell to earth could never return to the heavens, and so spent the long ages tormenting the first giant for his crimes.

2. The live as long as stars, and instead of dying, their heads collapse into black holes.

3. Ancient civilizations would trap them in cold-iron sarcophagi and harness their strange energies to power nightmarish machines.

4. They want only to help, but human forms and ways are so alien to them that their attempts always end in tragedy and ruin. (This does not seem to deter them.)

5. They will always answer when asked upon, if you know how. The question, however, is when.

6. When Starfolk fall in love, they enter orbit with each other, forming binary, or perhaps even trinary, Starfolk.

7. When a civilization reaches a certain level of technology, the Starfolk descend to greet them.

8. They fear and abhor the moon, an ancient emnity caused by a long-lost cosmic conflict during the formation of the world.

9. The size of their shadow determines their emotional state. If a Starfolk's shadow begins to swallow up the horizon, run. (It's probably too late anyways.)

Signs of the Starfolk

1. Scorchmarks tracing human outlines, emitted from below.

2. A new constellation appears in the sky for a prime number of days, then disappears.

3. A normally star-filled part of the sky empties into a starless void for a prime number of days.

4. The inhabitants of a village suffer from severe sunburns, all at once.

5. Massive designs of incredible complexity are found scorched into the landscape.

6. A civilization or population notices an increase in cases of a mutating, wasting illness.

7. Reports of strange lights leading travelers off well-worn roads.

8. Radios and other devices operating on electromagnetic wavelengths periodically fade to static and emit only high-pitched voices chanting in unknown tongues.

What do the star-headed want?

1. To free one of their kin who is imprisoned in a sarcophagus deep underground, powering a nightmare-factory of the ancient times.

2. A folk song from the region translated into high-frequency electromagnetic waves.

3. To repair an ancient observatory in order to intently study a far-off galaxy. (Are they surveying for threats, or just checking up on family?)

4. The person who called them died of star-sickness. Now they want to "help" the next person they saw... you.

What will they give in return? 

Gifts from the far heavens always come with a price.

1. An epic tale of their stellar culture, seared into your brain... (20,000 cash to storytellers/naturalists if translated successfully, -1 Thought/Int permanently)

2. Spell: Solar Crown - You will bear on your brow the echoes of interstellar royalty. Your words will crackle with fusion energy and your glare will carry the silent weight of light-years. They cannot bear to look at you, they will follow your every word as the commandments of the stars... for a time. Once it ends, you will be ever-eclipsed, for the astral priests spoke true: Heaven's knowledge burns. Your skull will be forever scarred, and a part of your brain will have boiled: a bright white star sitting amidst your thoughts, ever hungry. You become monarch of the universe until your brain fries. Everything you try to do will go as well as it can possibly go, but every time this happens, test your Aura (or Wis). If you fail, your Aura (or Wis) permanently decreases by 1. The mantle of monarch is a final, grave responsibility: there is no way to cast off this mantle before the thermokinetic death of your soul.

3. You become star-crossed. You will meet your destined love on the crossroads of fate. (Player in question can design a follower of their devising of equal level to their character. Both their character and the follower have advantage to tests made to aid or protect the other.) They are fated to meet a tragic end worthy of song.

4. You receive knowledge of an advanced technology or invention that the ruling government or inquisition will find absolutely heretical and will stop at nothing to eliminate at all costs.