Refuge Beneath the Waves

[MysticMoon]

I have decided to fully flesh out Refuge Beneath the Waves (now its own Region) into a complete setting. My pie-in-the-sky dream is for the end result to be released as a book of the Citadel, with professional quality editing, illustrations, and layout. Not sure yet how that might play out, but I am keeping that in mind as my ultimate goal.

I also want this to be something that comes from the Strolenati as a whole, so participation is greatly encouraged here. Feel free to post ideas for the setting, as well as taking sections that need to be written up (but post your intention before starting so there's no confusion).

Some rough areas (to be expanded and shuffled; this section will suffer from regular edits):

• Locations: General regions, major cities, as well as a number of minor settlements and some mines. Include a number of key NPC's as they relate to each location.
• History: Pre-catastrophic (how they got there) and post (how things developed, political events, etc).
• Technology: Steampunk, kalleum, farming, and other underwater goodness.
• Culture: City life vs settlements vs outlaws. Different strata.
• Economy: Food, transport, money, piracy, power...
• Bestiary: Critters under the waves.
• Adventures: One-offs and at least one major campaign.
• Fiction?
• Maps

Once this reaches a certain tipping point (a key region is defined and many of the biggest pieces are in place) it would be fun to test drive it through a forum PbP.

Once enough of the larger details have been sorted out, I'll probably update the main sub to include the most important new details. That way it will always serve as an overview of the entire setting and would be useful enough to any GM just wanting a general idea of things.

I expect to spend a good portion of 2015 working on this.

[axlerowes]

Marrine Ducks: History Part 1  -this is just a straight ramble of the ideas-background for eventual posts


Setting: Even under the ocean the food chain starts with the sun.  The wealth of life that may seem boundless has very real geographical limitations on it abundance.  The deeper you go the rarer, hardier and more inventive are the lifeforms that thrive.  It is no different for humanity.   The deepest of refugee settlements beneath waves is called Marrine Ducks.  As deep and dark as Marrine Ducks may be relative to humaity’s other community, it is itself located a long side a true abyss.  Marrine Ducks was built astride the Longitutal Trench. The Trench is a crevasse in the sea floor that is off unknown depth, 200 kilometers across at it narrowest point and over 3000 long when measured from north to south.

The first dome, Yorda’s dome, of what would be known as Marrine Ducks was built by a small team of engineers and explorers looking to find open thermal vents in order to build an theoretical magma powered electricity plant and study the unique life-forms within around the vents. The engineers, lead by young mathematical phenomenon Hartford Nash and the surface educated Naturalist Tomki Nakazatu, followed thermal currents deeper and deeper via seacrawler caravan until they found their progress was stalled by the trench.  It was clear the vents they were looking for were within that abyss. They built the Yorda's dome as a planned base for further deeper expeditions, but during the excavations they uncovered veins of gold and precious metals. Nakazatu and Nash, turned their focus from exploration to mining.  They stated that their goal was to fund further research, but greed had to be part of it.  Also the gold provided an immediate gratification for them and their crew.  Because, despite a strong hope otherwise Nakazatu and Nash knew they had gone as deep as their technology would let them.   After the first shipment of gold reached the cities, Nakazatu’s and Nash’s agents bought supplies and materials.  But in addition to those necessary items the agents brought back with them scores of fortune seeks. 

Among the expedition party Nakazatu and Nash had brought with them 47 Nyumachikku.  These delicately constructed  artificial men were built before the surface side apocalypse.  Their minds were fantastic machines made of complex system of microscopic leavers and valves through which pressurized air was passed through. The leavers and valves would respond to external stimuli ( light, pressure, movement) and they would approximate thought and memory. If this flow of air was never interrupted then with proper maintenance a Nyumachikku could live seemingly forever and it was believed that their memories would last just as long. This crew of Nyumachikku were taken from Nakazatu’s surface side university during the last days of the war.  These Nyumachikku were also naturalists, horticulturalists, eugenicists, and farmers who came with Nakazatu on her quest to explore the sunless lightless biomes of the deep. 

With the sudden influx of greenhorn fortune seeks, the Nyumachikku went to work on what they new best.  They started farming.  The booming community was difficult to maintain. Kallium had to be brought in by seacrawler caravan or cargo sub at first.  It was worth it because precious metals flowed out.   The members of that initial expedition were able to expand their reactor at Yorda’s dome to power the boom.  The community had to focus on agrodome production to survive, because they were too deep to efficientally exploit the resources of the day light and twilight zones..  The families that ran the reactor and provided services for the influx of prospectors became know as the luminaries and their ancestors are still known as luminaries today.  They financed the building of a huge agrodome, the Nakazatu dome, and from the bounty of this dome they could feed all of Marrine Ducks.

The early gold mining was simple.  Much of the gold be found as nuggets on the sea floor or directly under it.  Searchers would claim a Patch and scour the rocks for gold nuggets.  But as time went on the easy gold was all harvested.  The founding team's Geologist, Kenzu Hiriyo, was certain that the gold veins extended beneath the surface, but shaft mining at this depth and this far from rail lines had never been attempted.  The ability of many prospectors to pay for their food of their air quickly dried up.   The luminaries took a vote and unammously decided that the in Marrine Ducks life sustaining materials should not be sold for profit.  The lumanaries started handing out rations and providing quarters free of charge to any one who asked for them. This practice of handing out free food persists to the time of the scenario. Only in the scenario I am writing the rations will be call Matildas.

[axlerowes]

Plot Point 1: A cover up of the Dark side of Victorian Rationalism


The Nakazatu doom dome was the largest Agrodome built to date and the deepest.  It was of course a testament to hubris and in typical style failed dramaticly.  There was a seaquake, common along the trench, and the dome cracked. It did not collapses all at once and nobody in the Nakazatu doom died during the seaquake.  It was evacuated and the power cut, but it persisted for six months.  Every other day or so it blubbed and bubbled for months, doing nothing but occasionally realizing another globual of air.  People began to wonder if it could be repaired, but eventually the engineers were proven right and it finally imploded, but even that collapse took several hours as the steel beams bent and the great structure flattened. The other, smaller agrodomes and the sea life harvests could not support the population any longer.  The dome collapsed just as the food store ran out.

 
The lumaries are steam punk intellectuals and thus advocated various Victorian Era rationalist theories such as Eugenics.  The luminaries decide that rather than  let everyone starve they would assess the value of the individuals in Marrine Ducks.  They selected based on their ideas of intelligence and physical desirability what portion of the population should survive.  They then killed, suffocated, the undesirables.  They have covered up their actions up. They claimed that everyone died in a seacrawler caravan disaster as they were being evacuated.  The Nyumachikku are the ones that actually carried out the testing, the assessments and the executations.  Nakazatu disagreed with the plan and resigned her position on the council.  This was ironic because in her academic life Nakazatu had been an rivaled proponent of Eugenics. She had encouraged sterilizing and even joked about the need for “a kill an idiot day”.  But her ideas had all been theoretical.  When confronted with the reality of Eugenics she balked.

None of the original luminaries that carried out this plan are still alive, but some their children and grandchildren are still alive..  But there is evidence of the killings.  For one there is no record of the Seacrawlers used in the caravan.  Seacrawlers and expensive steam powered tank-like devices and a caravan is a big deal.  If everyone was lost in caravan what happened to the seacrawlers? There were Seacrawlers in the Marrine Ducks at the time, but records show none of the registered Seacrawlers went missing or were listed as damaged.

The Nyumachikku still remember the killings. Though they won’t share this unless strongly coerced.   

The Nyumachikku’s record of the intelligence testing are still around though.  The Nyumachikku and the lumaniaries have continued this intelligence testing ever sense and rewarded the more intelligent and capable members of Marrine Ducks with better positions.  If the records are examined it will be found that all the people that died were low scoring individuals.

The minutes from the meeting in which the caravan was decided upon and which Nakazatu stepped down have been lost.  In truth there were no minutes taken, a fake set minutes was uncovered at one point and proven to be fake. But the lummaneries dismissed those as simply being misfiled and point to series of misfilings during this time of flux. 

Nakazatu quit the council and also quit academic life.  She was quite old at the time, so it could be called retirement.  But she wrote several article championing a religious point of view and never wrote another pro-Eugenic word. 

Final piece of evidence is a journal that alludes to crimes against humanity, and kind of gives things away. Perhaps this could Nakazatu’s journal or journal belonging to one of the PC ancestors.


Then there are rumors
There are rumors that the evacuation to the established cities never happened.  They assert that the people actually migrated to a deep location in the trench. Depending on the story they either died down there or are still down there.  This is support by lights spotted in the trench, and sightings of “People” moving around in the trench.  These are actually bioluminescent fish that have migrated to the border of Marrine Ducks in large number that they were at the time of settlements founding.  The waste produced by Marrine Ducks supports more lower food chain animals in the area.

There is another rumor that the caravan was destroyed by a giant octopus or squid.  There are such creatures in the area and they have attacked crawler before.  But they believe there is even bigger one that destroyed the whole caravan and people are hiding its existence. 

There is another rumor that the caravan made it, but that the people in the caravan stole the crawlers and they established a pirate settlement. 

[Aramax]

 I'm kinda busy and will be for the next couple of months on my Stolen World, HOWEVER  I would be happy to help later in the year, but knowing how my creative jusices flow, it's likely for an idea to rear its muse filled head.What kind of help are you looking for?

[MysticMoon]

I've been busy as well, fighting for my life in Muro's RP as well as resuming a couple of other games that were on hiatus, within a week of each other.

Once I get organized, my first step will be to post in this thread some rough outlines of what's needed, but I'm also open to general outpourings of creativity, which can be discussed here also. I love what axle is coming up with.

[Aramax]

Claustrophobic Rage syndrome , Most often found in divers,this condition can be found anywhere. The victum enters into an adrenalin filled psychosis and becomes an unstoppable killing machine(spree killer not serial). They will shun weapons other than what is around them, excluding missile weapons. They will be able to take superhuman amounts of damage and have double to triple strength. They might as well be killed, as once they calm down, they will enter into the rage again.Called "going native"

Cannibalistic Nutrition Deficiency  The victim will desire to eat human flesh. They will feed on the same body part(liver, brain heart etc) Subject will develop cunning serial killer instincts . Once caught, if society needs the skills of the individual, they can be taught to just drink small amounts of human blood and raw animal organs but must be monitored carefully Called "The Chews"

Kalium induced Hoarding Complex   Found most often among engineers and low level techs who handle Kalium. At first subject will steal small amounts of Kalium. The individual will have feelings of needing to keep themselves alive by stealing spare parts from either power production or oxygen making  equipment. It will eventually lead to them shutting down a major component, causing a catastrophic shutdown of the involved system. Called The Takes

Agoraphobic Related Diving Complex  Individual will refuse to take diving suit off. True danger to self in keeping suit shut and running out of oxygen, will be provoked to violence if you try to get him out of diving gears.  Very hard to catch early, as it is common for divers to remain in their gear for a while in there off hours, early ssigns are not taking off gloves and the key here is to catch them sleeping in their gear Called "Suiting".

Kalium Induced Lycanthropy often indistinguishable from The Chews. Subject will be triggered into cunning feral behavior by an external stimulus,(lights strobing, wife yelling, kids crying. Subject will then hunt,werewolf like, in the more abandoned sections of the habitat. Subject will have no memory of behavior. Called Shark Heads

[Aramax]

any thoughts on the supernatural?
How about space? I love world building and would be down for interior moon, desert Mars or swamp Venus?

[MysticMoon]

While the supernatural and pulp space are really cool, for this setting I would prefer to avoid both of those topics. The focus is on the alternate history, the underwater environment, and the technology.

[Aramax]

While the supernatural and pulp space are really cool, for this setting I would prefer to avoid both of those topics. The focus is on the alternate history, the underwater environment, and the technology.

No prob, looking for limits. do you like the psychosis'' above?

Toxic Kalium waste dumps, with mutated humans and creatures? Are you doing mutated?
"Death World" Greenland or Madagasgar" that Kalium ingrediants are found in?
On a scale of 1-5 =How pulpy/real are you going For?
are you doing system nuetral?

[MysticMoon]

Overall, I like the flavor that psychoses add; this is an aspect I hadn't considered but one I'm glad you brought up.

I wasn't planning on doing mutated or making it very pulpy. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love pulp, and I go full steam (haha!) on mutant/pulpy goodness in other things, but not as much for this. This is a good question, though, and I need to write up some overarching themes for guidance.

I would like the core material to be completely system neutral, without even a whiff of stats. Afterwards, though, I have some vague thoughts about conversion guides for things like Fate (this will be first, for the PbP game), Savage Worlds, d20 and/or OSR (but someone else would need to do the work on those), Mini Six, etc. I have some vague notions on how to set this up so it's all about using templates, but that part will come after the majority of the creative work is done.

[Aramax]

How about religions,cultists,sub-cultures?
Fu Manchu or a Dr No type villian?

[axlerowes]

Is English still English, what about Japanese?

[Murometz]

Love the nomenclature, Aramax! "the chews" "shark heads" "the takes" "suiting"

Nifty! 

[Aramax]

Thanx!

[axlerowes]

First post,

it is a lot more axlerowes-ish than I wanted

[MysticMoon]

How about religions,cultists,sub-cultures?
Fu Manchu or a Dr No type villian?

Oh, yes, lots of those

As SE pointed out earlier, some of the more remote settlements would likely have developed some odd religious ideals.

[MysticMoon]

First post,

it is a lot more axlerowes-ish than I wanted

Awesome! Looking forward to checking it out

[MysticMoon]

Is English still English, what about Japanese?

Close enough, I think. It's probably important to decide how much the various cultures mix within any given settlement. You might have one predominantly English-speaking one with a Chinatown equivalent, for example, or a Japanese settlement with very few English speakers. I suppose it depends on how many settlements there are, where the survivors came from, etc.

[Aramax]

APPROX WHAT YEAR WOULD THE UNDER DWELLING COMENCE, IT WOULD MAKE A HUGE DIFF AS TO WHICH COUNTRIES WERE ABLE TO GO UNDER?

[MysticMoon]

My next 2 steps are 1) combing through the original sub to pull a list of already defined concrete details that I will then post here as the beginning of an outline and 2) fill in other details on that outline to give a clearer, overall picture. I hope to have that done by early next week.

[Aramax]

How does a Zulu Fu Manchu cult leader(and cult) sound?
Very strong regionally, basically  revolving around a cult of personality, Drug based on "Outland"(Steroid)work enhancing that companies like with a battle drug version reserved for his minions
Would do stub and then if you like it take it further
wouls like to add companies and habitats that use it heavily
Mercenary and pharmaceutical covers
south atlantic/Iddian Ocean

[axlerowes]

Max add your phrases to the list of Jargon,

Okekai-Go

Reginald Professor Huntington, his sister Professor Eliza Huntington, their servant and body guard commander Jackson Che, and his ward David Orenstein step off the train into the brightly lit and steaming trains station of Marrine Ducks.  A large gold embossed signed with curling but distingusshed font read "Weclome to the Big Under" and the subtley direct first class passengers to the right and all others to the left. 

"By Neptune, those lights burn the under side of my skin," Eliza commented.  "David would be some kind as to fetch my hat box from porter just of there" she gestured and directed the teenage lad down the platform.  "Yes the powder blue pill shaped box there."

Reginald smiled and exchanged a look with Commander Che.  His sister for all her education and physical disipline had been most excited about being able to wear hat, and she had several made just for the occasion.  Looking away from his tall, lithe and python strong sister he examined the first class waiting area.  The region was no different than the public waiting area except this one had benches around the trees and small tables with gloved men in blue billed caps standing before pitchers of water.  Reginald walked over to the nearest man and nodded, breathing deeply to take in the sent of orange blossoms. The porter was in waste coat and slacks and his face was slick with sweat in the greenhouse of the train station. 

"Bit stiff in here isn't it?"

"Yes sir"  the man said dropping the r in sir into a 'ah' as the residents of Marrine Ducks were known for.

"May have a bit of the fresh," Reginald gestured at the metalic sweating pitcher balanced on to the tiny metal table.

"Yes sir, your cup please"

"I am sorry?" Reginald looked at the table and saw only the pitcher. "Don't you have mugs in Marrine Ducks"

A voice from behind him said, "We typically carry our own down here," and jacket arm passed a gold cup to the man with two Ns engraved on the side.   Reginald turned to see man of middle height and thin tight build standing behind in a tight tweed suit and bow tie.

Reginald replied "I had not read of that in the books. My name is Professor Reginald Huntington."

"Yes, I know who you are," replied the man his features were tan and tight suggesting an Asiatic ancestory but his eyes were a fierce blue and his hair and thin slices of red among the black locks that were held in tight bun behind his head just under his short brimmed brown top hat. "I am Arnold Nakatazu, I am here on behalf of University  to take you to the campus. "

"Yes, well thank you," Reginald took the cup and drank the water provided. "My party is just over there, I tell you this train station you have here is quite extradorinay, the orange grove on the platform is refreshing after a long train ride."

"And efficient," replied Nakatazu, "We don't have access to the kelp farms and such like you gentlemen from the shallows, every space must work to provide food. Thus, the bright lights." He gesture up wards at the ceiling of the dome. 

The two men approached the Eliza, Che, and David.   Reginald spoke first, "Professor Nakatazu..."

Nakatazu intrupted him with kurt bow and cough, "Sorry Pfofessor but I am no Academic..."

Reginald look at him surprised, "I thought since you were named Nakatazu, and came from the University that you were..." he trailed his voice to allow Nakatazu to fill the details. "Yes my great grand mother was Professor Nakatazu, and I am the personal assistant to Lord Nash, who chair of the Mathmatics department."

Eliza smiled flirtishly from underneath her wide brimmed crimson hat that matched the broad skirt and pettie coat she had one over her white blouse.  Commander Che gritted his teeth at Eliza's obvious attraction this man. "I get so board with academics at Rawlwick, I am might be called Professor Huntington by some, but please call me Eliza."

Nakatazu bowed slightly "Eliza" he smiled tighly but his eye lingered in hers.

Commander Che stepped forward offered a hard hand to Nakatazu.  "I am not academic either," he said through a nearly closed mouth.  The two men exchange the long glace, and seemed to understand that the type of  conversation these men were use too could not be exchanged in this company. 

"Please, I have a seacrawler waiting, the trip will take good a hour."

"An hour, but according to the books were are only five kilometers from the university dome" David said impishly and ignoring Che's visual rebuke.

"No submarine down here then afterall" Reginald remarked.

"We have them, but the current along the Billabong...I mean the trench are too strong fro must subs, my seacrawler is quite comfortable and My driver excellent. We might have a game bridge in the state room."         



AND TIMES UP

[axlerowes]

Okeki part two, only 20 minutes this time though, perpare for typos in three two one


Reginald and company climb through the port hole in the floor of the station and into the polished brass and alibaster of Nakazatu's sea crawler.  The noisey rumble of the steam engine was deafinig.  Nakatazu came down last and cranked both the door the the station shut and then hat to the crawler, then there was a hissing sound as he cranked down the telescoping umbilical.

"Please, he shouted if you will head down that short stair case, we can sit the drawing room. I will join you shortly.

Che lead the group through a bulk head into charming green carpet room that aside from a slight tremor was completey silents.  A polished brass card table with a green leather surface sat center in the room and metal chairs coated in polish ray leather surrounded it.  Against the back wall across from the door was a steel counter top with  eletric lights embedded behind and below the counter such that it seemed glow.  As if basking in this holy aura was a heavy crystal decanter with a deliciously brown liquor swishing from side to side in it in time with the crawlers clunky movement. Along both other walls were larger spider web frame windows that allowed a few of Marrine Ducks.   To the left and right the pylons of the train station could be seen as light spilled down through deep cold from t he station above them.  Silt and dust spurred up by the crawler gave the water a foggy appearance.   

"Not much sand here is there, I would have expected a machine like this one to be completley consumed by a cloud silt if it was tearing across the sea floor near Jasper." Eliza remarked. 

"The sea floor is almost all rock here" Che remarked dryly as he walked towards the liquor. 

Then David screamed "Octopus!"

They had all heard the stories of giant creature in Marrine Ducks, and how entire caravan had once been lost to these animals.  David point to the window, and Che turned instinctively drawing his white phosphorus staff from his jacket, and tucking it under the stump of his right arm. Then drawing the inginator with his good left hand.  Eliza and Reginald gapped out the window as well, and David continued to shout.  "There are dozens and dozens of them and they are eating people"

Sure enough there were dozen of bulb like forms floating just above the sea floor and extending from them was tentacle like appendages. At the end of those appendages were man like forms, but with giant heads and barrel chests.  But it the clearness with which these beings was seen was shocking because there were few external sources of light.  Then it was clear that each of these floating bulbs had a flood of light beneath it light a skirt and the men beneath them were wearing pressure suits with large metal helmets that were connected to the bulbs by hoses. 

Eliza remarked, "They just men"

The sound the crawlers filled the room again as Nakatazu opened the door and stepped in. He started at Che's weapon with a bemused smile. 

Che just tucked it away and turned back to the decanter.  "They are not octopuses." David asked sounding a little dissappointed and then a little embaressed.

"What the work crews?"  Nakatazu asked. 

"It very dark down here, and you do have reputation for giant squid and such."  Eliza said.

"We don't have, quite the ..." Reginald started then asked "Why so many of them out there."

Nakatazu answered, "Marrine Ducks is decentralized, a lot of them our line men, looking for breaks in the utilitiy pipes, others are farming crabs or looking for gold...

AND TIME   

[Aramax]

I present Machinama a cult http://strolen.com/viewing/8118  Im not so sure Im happy with it but would like you guys opinion before I delete it. dont worry its short

[axlerowes]

If we are sticking with the traditional (has it been around long enough to have tradition) steampunk themes of victorain era rationalism then I think this cult is a great idea.  The idea that inquiry and cataloging could eventually lead man conquering the whole universe Darwin, Lyell, Faraday and Hertz had made great strides on these fronts.  The Victorian model was a time still living in the shadow of Newtown and great scientist such as Mendell working in the wings.   There was reason to be very impressed with humanity and excited about the technological transcendence.  When I was in grad school, to procrastinate or hide from work, I went down into the stacks of the library a couple of times and read through some of the old journals of hereditary (it was a medical library).  When browsing the issues from 1910s through the 1920s, I would skip over the very scientific articles about pig breeding or their ilk, and read the enthusiastically unscientific articles on eugenics, which by my informal count, made up about half the of the articles in this era.  To cut to the chase the thought of process of the people writing in the 1910s and 1920s but trained by Victorian era mind was that by looking at something and using one’s own logic it could all be figured out.  The challenge taken up by these writers and thinkers was not to prove their theories but to find a way to implement their ideas for the good of society. It should be the same with your cult.

Thus I think the idea of a philosophy that believes perfection can be achieved by a machine to be great addition to the setting. I would expand these idea to give them a mainstream following in the world and various fringe groups.  A main stream follower might be an industrialist who genuinely believes that mathmatics and engineering can achieve a god like infallibility.   This may lead him to build or fund a project of Titanic proportion hubris, like when Henry Flager (American Oil tycoon and industrialist) thought it would be a good idea to build bridge to Cuba.  Flager was a child of Victorian Era rationalism, and super rich to boot.  I would keep what you have here but expand this philosophy of machine perfection to include some mainstream elements. Hell if you won’t I will.  But perhaps include a subtext that underneath this praise of machine perfection is message that raises the designer or the engineer to a level above god.

The other point that is strong in this that focus on Unitarianism, which is what the English intellectuals of the 1800s actually called their philosophy.  Emotion and human concerns we treated as something to overcome and ignored.  I think idea sometime achieved a mind over matter philosophy or a triumph of the will type philosophy.  Look at Scott’s expedition to the South Pole or the british General Haig during WWII (although Haig was very religious I have heard through indirect sources). They acted as if  they could just dominate and over come danger through force of character.   Why should man have the limits of man? Well in your cult they seek to become machines, but they have pseudo-religious oil drinking ritual. What if they really got into the Pneumatic Prothsetics?  The members of the cult  would willing sacrifice their own limbs or other parts of their bodies to become steam punk cyborgs. They would be cooler to fight then.
 
Notes:
Great idea
Fits perfectly
Expand the philosophy into something that writers and roleplayers can sink their teeth into.  Make the philosophy something that a least in some form is attractive and on some level rationale

What does this cult think of the Nyumachikku?