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My favorite Brucato bit is the whole "you can't play Nephandi because RPGs are real chaos magic and that will damage your soul"
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Jul 8, 2023 00:49
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That’s always fun because…gently caress the GM’s soul, I guess.
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Jul 8, 2023 00:51
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To be fair, like all GMs, my soul is fundamentally rotten and that's why I enjoy spending hours of prep on plotlines the PCs never notice or engage with.
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Jul 8, 2023 00:53
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Hipster Occultist posted:My favorite Brucato bit is the whole "you can't play Nephandi because RPGs are real chaos magic and that will damage your soul" All the stupider because he then wrote The Big Book of Playing Nephandi anyway…but there's no special Nephandi-logo character sheet in the back because that would be too enticing. Even without all his weird sex stuff, he's a real bad writer and a giant blowhard.
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Jul 8, 2023 01:09
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Powerchords was the book that tipped me over from "Don't let me yuck your yum but could you please not do it in public?" to "This man wants to gently caress a sixteen year old and is pursuing situations where that is possible someone needs to call the cops."
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Jul 8, 2023 01:24
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Kurieg posted:Powerchords was the book that tipped me over from "Don't let me yuck your yum but could you please not do it in public?" to "This man wants to gently caress a sixteen year old and is pursuing situations where that is possible someone needs to call the cops." I didn't realize his teenage girl barefoot fetish showed up in the original Bastet book as Rucksack Mary (who also makes an appearance in, you guessed it, whatever the changing breeds book for NWoD was called).
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Jul 8, 2023 01:43
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This is a niche criticism, but as far as problematic fetishes go its a terribly common and tedious one in occult circles. I don't say that to excuse it, to be clear: its just so intensely on-point for Brucato's problematic fetish to be the most generic one you'll find a hundred guys just like him with, right down to dressing it all up in psuedo-feminist psuedo-matriarchal language (p.s. Jack Parsons called: he says he gets a pass because it was the goddamn 40s when he was at it and he'll kick their asses for not advancing it into actual praxis)
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Jul 8, 2023 01:49
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“Satyros” Phil Brucato is most capital-p Punk thing about White Wolf, in that as early as the Pentex book they were calling him out as an utter lunatic, dangerous to himself and others - and then, an edition later, put him in charge of major books, followed by full creative control of entire lines to remake as he pleased (poorly) And what, I ask you, is more iconically Punk than selling out to become exactly the thing you criticized on your way up?
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Jul 8, 2023 02:54
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Dawgstar posted:I didn't realize his teenage girl barefoot fetish showed up in the original Bastet book as Rucksack Mary (who also makes an appearance in, you guessed it, whatever the changing breeds book for NWoD was called). There's also the naked Garou girl in the NY Valkenburg story he wrote who I think is either late teens or early 20s. Who the players are supposed to meet naked because she's been kicking around in lupus form since her pack got murked. It was a very  moment when I re-read it and remembered who wrote it.
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Jul 8, 2023 03:03
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Loomer posted:This is a niche criticism, but as far as problematic fetishes go its a terribly common and tedious one in occult circles. I don't say that to excuse it, to be clear: its just so intensely on-point for Brucato's problematic fetish to be the most generic one you'll find a hundred guys just like him with, right down to dressing it all up in psuedo-feminist psuedo-matriarchal language Being into feet is hardly exceptional, which I suspect is why so many of these people think they can get away with it. Quentin Tarantino and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
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Jul 8, 2023 03:31
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LatwPIAT posted:Being into feet is hardly exceptional, which I suspect is why so many of these people think they can get away with it. Quentin Tarantino and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. Not feet - teenage girls who are at once naive and older-than-their-years, who embody a version of the divine feminine that - like Parsons' Babalon - is innately and compulsively sexual but which nonetheless require an older, almost exclusively (except periodically for those with a lust for lesbians) male guide to help guide and govern them. Its way creepier than just being a foot guy - its the usual ephebophilic bullshit with an additional layer of mystical justification slapped on top that lets them pretend its actually a radically feminist position to want to gently caress a fifteen year old runaway.
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Jul 8, 2023 03:43
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Loomer posted:Not feet - teenage girls who are at once naive and older-than-their-years, who embody a version of the divine feminine that - like Parsons' Babalon - is innately and compulsively sexual but which nonetheless require an older, almost exclusively (except periodically for those with a lust for lesbians) male guide to help guide and govern them. Its way creepier than just being a foot guy - its the usual ephebophilic bullshit with an additional layer of mystical justification slapped on top that lets them pretend its actually a radically feminist position to want to gently caress a fifteen year old runaway. Yep, it's completely this - bare feet is just a shorthand for 'sexually liberated but pliant in a grown man's hand teenage dream girl' for Phil
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Jul 8, 2023 04:49
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Loomer posted:Not feet - teenage girls who are at once naive and older-than-their-years, who embody a version of the divine feminine that - like Parsons' Babalon - is innately and compulsively sexual but which nonetheless require an older, almost exclusively (except periodically for those with a lust for lesbians) male guide to help guide and govern them. Its way creepier than just being a foot guy - its the usual ephebophilic bullshit with an additional layer of mystical justification slapped on top that lets them pretend its actually a radically feminist position to want to gently caress a fifteen year old runaway. God drat wizards and their weird sex poo poo. Crowley made an entire religion so he could be horny on main until he turned himself into a vegetable with heroin or morphine or some such. Horny nerds, the lot of em!
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Jul 8, 2023 05:01
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Loomer posted:This is a niche criticism, but as far as problematic fetishes go its a terribly common and tedious one in occult circles. I don't say that to excuse it, to be clear: its just so intensely on-point for Brucato's problematic fetish to be the most generic one you'll find a hundred guys just like him with, right down to dressing it all up in psuedo-feminist psuedo-matriarchal language (p.s. Jack Parsons called: he says he gets a pass because it was the goddamn 40s when he was at it and he'll kick their asses for not advancing it into actual praxis) It becomes 'common and tedious' when he writes at length and probably one handed about 15 year old girls being raped by their fathers or their parents male friends in like... five different books. and uhh.. quote:Ashley Coyote Ward, my Beloved Feral Sweeteheart; her husband Brian Ward; their son Elijah; and all their Beloved Trybe.
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Jul 8, 2023 06:23
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Kurieg posted:It becomes 'common and tedious' when he writes at length and probably one handed about 15 year old girls being raped by their fathers or their parents male friends in like... five different books. and uhh.. To be clear, I'm not saying the tedious bit is that he wants to bang fifteen year olds. The bit that's common and tedious is just how prevalent it is in occult circles with a certain type of guy - the actual stuff itself is worse. I ran into three or four dudes like him when I was still actively building a craft community where I am and dealing with them and keeping them out sapped so much energy and joy out of the entire affair, which is what I mean by tedious: this type of guy both sucks and is everywhere, and uses spirituality as a cover for hosed up poo poo. Like how there's a lot of a Certain Type of Guy who pose as anarchists and use it as a cover to creep.
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Jul 8, 2023 06:35
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joylessdivision posted:There's also the naked Garou girl in the NY Valkenburg story he wrote who I think is either late teens or early 20s. Who the players are supposed to meet naked because she's been kicking around in lupus form since her pack got murked.
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Jul 8, 2023 11:04
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Loomer posted:Not feet - teenage girls who are at once naive and older-than-their-years, who embody a version of the divine feminine that - like Parsons' Babalon - is innately and compulsively sexual but which nonetheless require an older, almost exclusively (except periodically for those with a lust for lesbians) male guide to help guide and govern them. Its way creepier than just being a foot guy - its the usual ephebophilic bullshit with an additional layer of mystical justification slapped on top that lets them pretend its actually a radically feminist position to want to gently caress a fifteen year old runaway. Ah, right. That reminds me of something I’ve occasionally seen among people into BDSM: the guy who thinks he’s the right person to guide young, inexperienced women into the scene.
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Jul 8, 2023 11:33
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joylessdivision posted:God drat wizards and their weird sex poo poo. Crowley made an entire religion so he could be horny on main until he turned himself into a vegetable with heroin or morphine or some such. Also my favorite bit is he got beat up by William Butler Yeats who cast that most powerful spell of all, Kick, at Crowley and sent him tumbling down stairs. Then he cast the spell Summon Police. A true wizard's duel!
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Jul 8, 2023 13:01
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LatwPIAT posted:Ah, right. Yup. Its a common type of guy that slinks into any vaguely underground place unless you actively keep them the gently caress out. The flipped variant - guy who actually is at least within spitting distance of the right person because they recognize they shouldn't be loving the new people while also establishing themselves as an authority figure - is unfortunately much rarer. Dawgstar posted:Also my favorite bit is he got beat up by William Butler Yeats who cast that most powerful spell of all, Kick, at Crowley and sent him tumbling down stairs. Then he cast the spell Summon Police. A true wizard's duel! This is also the correct response to finding a guy like Brucato sniffing around your circles.
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Jul 8, 2023 13:18
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Infinity RPG: PanOceania Planet Success Acontecimento is the economic backbone of PanOceania, producing vast quantities of food and industrial output. It may not be as bright and politically connected as Neoterra, it is easily the most crucial planet to maintain PanO's economic dominance. It orbits the star Descoberta and, due to an elliptical orbit and odd axial tilt, maintains a northern hemisphere with essentially no seasonal change through the year but a southern hemisphere with more seasonal variation...though not a lot more. The seasons of Acontecimento are more mild than most planets, and even at the poles, it is mild most of the year. Most of the planet is covered in small hills or wide plains, with the only real mountains found on the Vishwa Archipelago and the continent Magalhaes. The planet is tectonically active, but it is covered in small tectonic plates which are largely driven by ocean rift vulcanism that produces two geological 'currents' that drive the plates around. Earthquakes are a common occurrence, but not strong ones, and most Acontecimentas are used to the fact that sometimes things just shake. Visitors are often more alarmed by the mild shaking, fearing larger quakes, but for locals, it's barely even something you notice any more. Due to the constant geological movement, fissures and canyons are common on the continents, and the government has put a lot of money into mapping and tracking these areas of potential danger. Acontecimento is warm all year round, even far into the northern and southern reaches. It sees regular rainfall across most of its surface all year, and snow is uncommon outside of a few remote regions. It is an ideal planet for growing Earth crops, and they have excelled since their introduction. The grasslands are also home to immense livestock herds, to the extent that some scientists actually worry about the longterm effects that the animals will have on greenhouse gases. Much of the planet is dedicated to agriculture due to fertile soil and the mild climate, producing enough food for the entire nation of PanOceania with still enough surplus to sell to outsiders. It was not always thus - a million years ago, the planet was coated in rainforest and jungle, the remnants of which are now designated as nature preserves, primarily in the Great Arboreal Reserve of the continent Aryavarta. The Reserve is almost constantly being rained on and is a major factor in the climate of the rest of the planet due to the gases it emits and the huge carbon sink that it represents. Without the rainforest regions, Acontecimento would have much less flexibility and robust resistance to climate change, and this is part of why PanO funnels tons of money into protecting them - it saves even more in environmental management in the long term. The polar regions are fairly small due to the mild climate. The southern pole is Terra de Gelo, an archipelago covered in ice sheets that melt heavily each summer, while the nothern Terra de Neve is a giant expanse of pack ice that is continuously being broken up and moved by the warm ocean currents. The plant life of Acontecimento at this point is a rather odd mix of Earth crops on the farms and extremely hardy native plants. When settlement began, the planet was already wide grasslands with patches of old growth forest. The local grasses were aggressive and more than capable of breaking down wood extensively, and had slowly been eating away at the rainforest regions for centuries. The discoveries of PanO science about the grasses led to the protections now placed on the forest regions to preserve them, while the grasslands became the focus of the extensive farm efforts. The grasses are now largely under control, but many of them produce a fine pollen which is absolutely hellish on anyone with pollen allergies, hay fever or asthma. When storms strike areas of these grasses, the pollen becomes actively dangerous to most humans, as it is pulled into the atmosphere and absorbs moisture, bursting into smaller particles that can cause sudden and severe asthmatic attacks even in people without asthma. Deaths to pollen inhalation are not especially rare, and the weather service maintains pollen counts to provide early warning of pollen storm events. The Great Arboreal Reserve and similar rainforest regions resemble Acontecimento's ancient past. As the planet has slightly lower gravity than Earth, the trees have been able to grow to immense size, creating a dense and extremely tall canopy that makes competition for sunlight a constant. Trees must grow very quickly to keep up, so it can be hard to estimate their age at a glance. The second largest forest preserve is the Camoes Reserve, which is a bit less jungle-y and is notable for its white-trunked trees with dense fern cover at the base. The diversity of fungi, fruit and berries in the forest preserves is immense, with some suitable for human consumption and some extremely deadly. Medical research is ongoing on the potential uses of the fungal species. For animal life, Earth livestock is now by far the most common - a mix of sheep, cows and goats primarily, with other farm animals mixed in, such as chicken and geese. Acontecimento produces absurd quantities of meat, leather, cheese and milk powder from this population, and it takes up a huge amount of space. The main governmental balancing act in terms of maintaining the planet is allocation of space between the four things that keep the planet going - crop production, grazing land, human living space and forest preserves. A recent rise in tourism has made keeping these four land uses balanced even harder. Of course, introduced livestock are far from the only animals on Acontecimento, which was a thriving planet before humans ever got there. Most of the native biosphere actually still exists, thanks to the speed with which PanO acted in setting up its natural preserves. Most of the successful native life is arthropods, filling many of the niches of both herbivorous grazers and apex predators. The insects and other arthropods range in size from tiny to absolutely gigantic, thanks to the lower gravity, warmth of the planet, and the fact that a number have evolved rudimentary lungs to support larger bodies. The most infamous native animal is the caskuda, a collection of related species now common on the plains and in the cities. They range in size from about that of a cockroach to up to 45 centimeters long. They are not dangerous to humans directly but they eat anything. In nature they primarily survive on grass seeds and nuts, serving as pollinators for the grasses, but in cities they have to turn to other food sources, getting into human food supplies and generally serving as very gross pests with a reputation for spreading bacteria, though in truth the grossest part is the trails of bug poop they leave behind. Their natural predator on the plains is the gato chitina, a cat-sized grasshopper-esque arthropod that attacks by leaping and biting with knifelike mandibles. While the gato chitina can injure a human, they don't tend to attack people unless cornered or protecting their nests. Even more hated than the caskudas is the spear fly, a blood-drinking insect that originally fed on grazing animals before human arrival and now attack...well, everything with blood. Each fly is about marble-sized, and they tend to travel in swarms. Unlike a mosquito, their proboscis is hooked, making it difficult and painful to remove them from your flesh, as they evolved to deal with the thick hides of Acontecimentan animals. They are able to cause minor injuries in humans and often carry bloodborne pathogens, and in sufficient quantities, a swarm is able to kill a person directly through causing shock from blood loss. Besides the gross or dangerous bugs, there are a number of large herd mammals on the planet, though they have mostly been driven into the forests, where they are less adapted to thrive and often have begun to struggle. The most common is the vaca peluda, which resembles a long-haired cow, but smaller and with better camouflage. They live in large herds, and are doing better than most of the native grazers because humans have taken some interest in farming them for skins and meat. The meat has become fairly common in Acontecimentan markets, a light and somewhat grainy sort of meat that must be carefully prepared and slow cooked. It smells horrible while cooking but the end result produces a sweet and delicate flavor that is growing very popular. The forests are full of smaller herbivorous arthropods and mammals, with only a few dangerous predators. One of these is the Passaro Cruel, a flying insect about the size of a golden retriever that serves the same ecological niche as birds of prey did on Earth. They are ambush predators, diving out of the branches silently to attack the forests' gliding mammals in the air. The actual most dangerous predator of the forests, though, is the Onca-Preta, a dark-furred, mottled mammal rougly the same size as a puma, and no less aggressive. They are also ambush predators, hanging out in trees and dropping onto prey. Perhaps the largest predator of the planet is restricted mainly to the island Bharatavarsha - the sabre-toothed bear, a remnant of ancient times which once served as the top of the food chain for much of the planet. It is slightly smaller than an Earth bear, but very fast and dangerous. Smaller bear species can also be found in the forest reserves, having developed into pack hunters due to their weaker bodies and less vicious temperaments than their sabre-toothed ancestors. One of the more unique environments is the wetlands of the Vanga area. They are home to plants called Lily Traps, which are visually indistinguishable from landbound grasses but grow in the swamps in deep patches. Their edges are sharp and abrasive, and they are laced with nerve agent which is particularly deadly to mammals, causing victims to go into convulsions. The stems are attracted by the thrashing movements and quickly flex to cover their victims, causing further wounds due to their razor edging and barbs, slowly cutting their victims to death. The flesh and blood then nourishes the soil and feeds the plant. It is often very difficult and dangerous to even remove someone from a lily trap, as doing so without care will only cause potentially lethal injury still. Vanga and the rivers around it are also notable for their large number of gigantic water striders, which reach up to three meters tall due to their long legs, with a main body about the size of two connected footballs and a head facing downward, with massive insectile eyes. These creatures wade through the water on four long legs, watching for movement and heat. Once they spot it, they use their two giant, spear-like forelimbs to impale the prey and drag it into the air to be eaten. The planetary economy is very strong, derived from many industries. Within PanO it has a reputation of being a working-class planet as it isn't as ostentatiously wealthy as Neoterra, but the average citizen on Acontecimento is generally wealthier than those in most other nations, with those on the demogrant generally living at what other places would consider a comfortable, middle class level of wealth. The high wages are fueled by the planet's self sufficiency and large surplus in manufactured goods and food, and they're proud of it. Farming is widespread, generally using optimized methods designed for the specific biome and ecosystem of the region being farmed. In the tropics, production focuses on rice and sugarcane, while in the temperate areas, it's largely wheat, rye and maize. ALEPH also recently began manging farming efforts in Adarsan and introduced alfalfa as a drought-resistant animal feed suitable for one of the planet's more arid regions. The livestock farms, meanwhile, often have thousands of heads of beast per farm. Besides farms, the mines of Magalhaes produce many ores, precious stones and rare metals, mostly using drones and remote labor. Only illegal wildcat mines rely on non-remote miners due to the dangers of the constant tectonic activity. Materials from the mines are shipped to factories across the planet or shipped into orbit via orbital elevator or Vangan cargo railgun, where they are often paired with the materials mined in the asteroids of the system, which get used in the orbital naval production yards or exported for trade. The ancient forests left a wide array of oil and petrochemicals under the surface, and while oil and gasoline are not common fuel sources any more, they are used extensively in industry and the manufacture of plastics. The planet even has a few functional Teseum mines in the deep fault shafts, which is pretty much exclusively earmarked for military usage. Tourism has not historically been a major industry but is on the rise since the government instituted the Canto Directive, a largescale marketing program to get people to see the planet as a thriving world rather than a backwater hick planet. It's been wildly successful, and many people are hoping to capitalize on the rise in tourists. Next time: The people of Acontecimento
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Jul 8, 2023 15:08
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Mors Rattus posted:Infinity RPG: PanOceania This world sounds so cool to run a campaign on.
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Jul 8, 2023 15:24
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Dawgstar posted:Also my favorite bit is he got beat up by William Butler Yeats who cast that most powerful spell of all, Kick, at Crowley and sent him tumbling down stairs. Then he cast the spell Summon Police. A true wizard's duel!  "The center cannot hold. You tubby bitch" *boot*
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Jul 8, 2023 15:27
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Infinity RPG: PanOceania It's Happening Acontecimento roughly translates as 'the Great Happening,' and it is the second planet PanOceania colonized, just after Neoterra. Its original settlers were primarily middle class volunteers looking to take advantage of the recruitment opportunities, drawn mostly from Brazil, India and Chile. Despite their different national origins, the result was a cooperative melding of cultures who took the planet as their new homeland, leaving behind the history of Earth in favor of building a new one. The early colonists found it a wonderful place to set up, and it didn't even take a full generation for them to prove that the colony project was going to be a wild success. The culture grown from those early towns has been one of hope, optimism and a resilient belief in hard work and tenacity overcoming all obstacles. The original settlers had to fight the grasses themselves to establish their farms, but were able to turn them into a useful tool for refreshing the soil between harvests. They developed new techniques of nano-scale manufacturing and industry to handle the lower gravity, the stresses of the unending growing season and the threat posed by the pollen storms. Their hard work was rewarded by unimagined wealth, and the idea that hard work will be rewarded is a firm part of the planet's identity. Religion was a bit more complicated, given the split of origins for the early colonists. The initial settlements were largely culturally homogenous towns all settled by people from the same national origins, but the blending between the South American and Indian contingents has been ongoing since the early days. Initially, the Sikh and Hindu populations maintained a religious separation from each other, but since the eco-disaster of Adarsana, Hindiusm and Sikhism have been blending together more and more. The Aconteccans are, by and large, a deeply religious people, with Catholicism, Hinduism and Sikhism being the most prevalent faiths, though the Catholics outnumber the other two. They have developed as generally friendly religious communities, and while they disagree on specifics of faith, the three religions are all very cooperative due to shared ideals for a future that benefits all. The continent Aryavarta is one of the most diverse ones on the planet, with a mix of farmland, jungle reserves, the Adarsanan wastes, and the marshes of Vanga. It was originally settled by Indian colonists, but its growth has led to a population as diverse as the environments. The names of locations are still largely Indian in origin, of course, and Indian culture remains a strong influence, but it has become distinctly Aconteccan, not Indian, in dominant outlook. Adarsana is...well, it's a problem, and a symbol of failure. It is the rallying cry of ecoterrorist groups across the planet, and ecoterrorism has been rising as a threat in the past few decades, fueled by the arguments about whether or not Acontecimento's ecosystem should be harnessed to the needs of human industry or allowed to exist as a unique alien world to prevent an ecological death spiral. The argument has been raging since the settlement of the planet and has yet to be resolved entirely...and Adarsana's existence has pushed it to new heights, as environmental groups (terrorist or otherwise) use it to argue for the need to respect the native ecosystems. See, the problem of Adarsana is simple - the species of grass which was dominant in the region contained a chemical which had a violent reaction to Earth crops, releasing poisons into the soil. The poison release hit its peak at the same time as a series of earthquakes ravaged the region, destroying the city Punta Al Sur and causing the water table to rise dramatically, which brought a significant amount of salt in the soil to the surface. Between the salt and the chemical poisons released by the native grasses, both the native flora and Earth crops in the region were wiped out entirely. The soil is now salty and bare, unable to support any kind of plant life, and the region has quickly desertified. Fortunately for the Aconteccans, the grass of Adarsana was regionally unique and similar reactions have not happened elsewhere on the planet, though many ecological activists and groups argue that it inevitably will. The barren lands are bordered on the south by a small mountain range, whose rivers flow south to the sea. The southern region past the mountains remains a fertile, marshy basin full of native plantlife, but most of the settlements there have been abandoned with the rest of Adarsana. The ruins of Punta Al Sur lie at the center of the Adarsanan salt desert now, half buried by the shifting sands. Urban legend says it is haunted, and that the skeletons of those lost to the earthquakes remain, worn clean by sand. The jagged remnant of its orbital elevator dominates the skyline of the desert, only partially completed before the disaster left it forever abandoned. Rumors claim that the actual cause of the disaster was a deforestation virus that had originally been intended to clear the native grasses, and that the virus remains buried in labs within the ruins, but that's surely just a conspiracy theory. (The game neither confirms nor denies it.) There is work going on in the desert still, however, as a result of the Demeter Empresa. Automated drones are placing beacons and comms relays on the desert border, far from any settlement, as part of an experiment in salt farming and the growth of drought resistant crops like alfalfa. It is an entirely automated development overseen by ALEPH through a complex robotic network managed by an Aspect. It's still very young and it is unclear if the project will succeed, but the hope is that it will produce revolutionary new farming techniques not just for Acontecimento but all of PanOceania. Khalsa, by contrast, is a thriving area of farms and cultural exchange. While its population is largely a mix of Sikh and Hindu ethnicities from India, it is a melting pot culturally, embracing the Aconteccan ideal. It was the area used as a test site for the first of the Continental Farming Zones, or CFZs, which are massive farms overseen by scientists and farmers living in cities and operating remotes to work the fields. Khalsa primarily grows rice, maize and wheat and lots of them all, plus fruit orchards. Its biggest city is Bhai Gurdas, in large part because the city was a major resettlement destination after the Adarsana disaster, causing it to expand exponentially. It sits in the center of the Khalsa CFZ, and it is a giant mess after the expansion. The city planners largely focused on making sure new housing was built on top of stable ground, but they had no real time to ensure the new housing areas had access to commercial districts, good schools or similar. They've been trying to handle the infrastructural issues on the fly ever since, repurposing old housing into businesses, schools and similar and struggling to keep power, water and waste piping flowing above ground, as building it underground isn't really a great idea with the fault lines. While the city is quite rich, the city council still struggles to handle the many interconnected issues it faces for the past century. The older areas of the city are referred to as 'Uchch Bhoomi,' the High Ground, where the wealthy and middle class live, while the "newly" expanded, now rather poorly maintained areas are largely home to the poor and are called the Chhaaya Jhuggiyon, or Shadow Slums. The city of Bhai Murdana sits on the coast of the Descobridores Ocean, and it is famous for the lovely scent of the saptasarni trees around it. It serves as both a vital port city and a major cultural center with extensive funding for the arts. Its docks and warehouses are extensive, handling a majority of the produce from the Khalsa CFZ and shipping it on to the new orbital elevator at Bhai Khalla. It is otherwise mostly known for the Poets' Quarter, an extensive neighborhood that mixes open plan homes, bars, temples and theatres. It takes its name from the popular trend of performance poetry, and many of the bars and theatres hold weekly poetry slams, recitals and public readings. Heading to the hot springs of Prasravana, we find the resort town Plaska Prasravana. It's not a big town, with only a very small permanent population, and at any time the majority of its population is visitors seeking health and relaxation at the springs and mud baths, which are famous on the planet for healing. However, the town is at risk of terrorist attack, having recently received several threats due to its plans to build a large skywalk and resort over the geyser fields. It is incidentally home to the Officers Special Academy, though the military school is cut off from the rest of the town by security checkpoints and extends from the town borders into the local jungle. It is primarily a training center for command skills and jungle operations for officers in the Aconteccan army. Far from the rest of Khalsa and stubbornly refusing to take part in the CFZ is San Fernando de Dagopan. Its farmlands are still managed as clan farms by large farming families, and rumor has it that many of these families are working to financially and politically support ecoterrorist groups or help conceal them from the authorities. Certainly they also oppose the expansion of the CFZ, though most of their money is not from farming but from the mining of petroleum. It sits close to the forest reserve that serves as the main military base for the Tikbalangs, a regiment of Aconteccan Chausseurs in the Mechanized Cavalry and a TAG unit that specializes in jungle combat. They use the forest preserve for training to prep them for Paradiso. The Great Arboreal Reserve is the largest nature preserve on Acontecimento - or anywhere in the Human Sphere. It is very valuable for PanO, both symbolically as a refuge for the alien plants and animals of the planet and a place of great beauty, but also as a training center for the Military Complex, as it closely resembles the environmental conditions of Paradiso. The Reserve is surrounded by the Shield Wall, one of the longest defensive emplacements ever made by humans. It is not intended to fight against invaders, however, but against the grasses of the planet itself, which as noted before are really, really good at destroying wood. They produce a chemical byproduct which rapidly breaks down lignin, the substance that makes wood rigid. If allowed to interact with the forest, the grasses will cause it to waste away over time, making more room for grass. The Shield Wall prevents the grasses from reaching the Arboreal Reserve using a 'moat' of land surrounding it that is chemically poisoned to prevent grass growth, a series of large fans integrated into the wall which push most grass seed into the high atmosphere (which then brings them back into the grassland due to the dominant weather patterns), and special ionised antennae that attract pollen to themselves. Everyone going in or out of the Reserve undergoes extensive decontamination protocols inside the Shield Wall as well. It's not all positive for the ecology, however. The Shield Wall prevents the herding species that were displaced into the Reserve from engaging in their natural migration patterns, and between this disruption of their life rhythms and their poor adaptation to the jungles, most of these species are now near extinction. The Reserve itself is a near-untouched wilderness, lacking any roads, pathways or other easy access trails except for a few walled off military bases and the single, very controversial new town of Peshawit. Most animals that live in the Reserve go their entire lives without seeing a human being at all, and the humans most commonly found there are the Forest Rangers Service, who tend to be eccentric if skilled scientists and hunters whose job is to track and monitor the forest and its lifeforms. The military bases are only sparsely populated, intended for use as training facilities for elite soldiers. They rely on high technology to supplement the wilderness training, with the most famous base being the Escape and Survival Tactics Training Camp, or ESTTC, which trains the Bagh Mari special forces operators and even members of ALEPH's Special Situations Section. Training in the Reserve is very high stakes, using live fire for most exercises to psychologically prepare trainees for Paradiso as well. Peshawit is a new addition and is not technically inside the Reserve. Technically. It is on the coastline and legally the land it sits on is not part of the Reserve. Its mere existence is controversial, with the local government, environmental activists and the land's owners and developers butting heads constantly. The town is sold as a retirement community and is largely populated by rich people seeking somewhere quiet and beautiful. Environmental scientists are deeply concerned about its potential impact on the Reserve - and by extension the entire planet - but the developers are currently permitted to continue because they have not, strictly speaking, violated any laws. Activists are now attempting to change said laws so they can actually kick the town out. The region of Vanga is an unstable one, full of marshes and fault lines. It's probably the most dangerous populated region in Aryavarta, with people and even roads tending to go missing in the marshes during tectonic events, plus the dangerous lifeforms like the lily traps. It is a newly important region after the formerly small town Bhai Khalla was selected to be the site of a new orbital elevator. This has turned the town into a growing city and a regional trade center for the Khalsa CFZ. Wealth flows in and most of the locals are quite optimistic for the future, with new industries coming in and the dockyards expanding rapidly. Transport is a bit of an issue, though, with the city's automated buses and taxis having great trouble keeping up with the new demand. The other major Vangan settlement is Galvao, a city in two parts. It is both a hugely industrial city and a military one. For industry, it processes most of the ores extracted from the mines of Magalhaes, bringing them in on huge barges that are handled at kilometer-long piers out into the ocean. The ore is then separated at industrial processing centers, with some of it sent for refining and others merely packed into shipping crates and loaded into the city's cargo railgun, a 50-kilometer cannon that fires the crates into orbit. The gun provides just enough momentum to get them into high orbit, and each cargo pod is equipped with small maneuvering thrusters to help it get into the cargo ring around the planet, where it is picked up by automated space tugs that gather about a dozen pods at a time and fly them to orbital processing facilities. Because of how much could go wrong in this, the process has many failsafes and has proven itself time and again as a cheaper alternative to an orbital elevator for moving minerals. Rumor has it that the cannon is also used for smuggling, but investigators have found little evidence of this. The military part of the city is dedicated to maintaining a massive training complex which is tied to the training centers in the Arboreal Reserve. It is one of the few public bases of operation for ALEPH's SSS agents outside Concilium, which is a major point of pride for the people of Galvao. Next time: they named a continent BomJesus, I can't make this up, it's really called BomJesus
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Jul 8, 2023 19:37
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:This world sounds so cool to run a campaign on. There's so fuckin' much going on, the space bugs and pollen storms make for great background weirdness as you run around dealing with a mix of ecoterrorist threats, neoliberal capitalist threats, and secret jungle military bases.
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Jul 8, 2023 19:39
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Dawgstar posted:Also my favorite bit is he got beat up by William Butler Yeats who cast that most powerful spell of all, Kick, at Crowley and sent him tumbling down stairs. Then he cast the spell Summon Police. A true wizard's duel!
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Jul 9, 2023 02:28
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Nessus posted:By Crowley's own theories, this is also Magick, and so he was rightly defeated. "Ai! They have laid the binding ritual Restraining Order upon me! Within 60 meters I may venture not! As the Great Beast wills!"
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Jul 9, 2023 02:40
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Dawgstar posted:"Ai! They have laid the binding ritual Restraining Order upon me! Within 60 meters I may venture not! As the Great Beast wills!" "This is Magick made manifest! I see you know your judo well sir!"
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Jul 9, 2023 04:51
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Joylessdivisions World of Dorkness presents: The 1 year anniversary post Just a bit of rambling and reflection to say Thank You to everyone who reads the reviews.
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Jul 9, 2023 15:35
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I'd like to thank you on behest of every internet nerd who hasn't the courage to register on these forums, they deserve to be informed too.
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Jul 9, 2023 16:02
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Mister Crowley You gave Yates all your sass Oh…, Mister Crowley! You got knocked on your rear end! Gatto Grigio fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Jul 10, 2023 |
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Jul 9, 2023 16:02
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Gatto Grigio posted:Mister Crowley 
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Jul 9, 2023 16:34
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By popular demand posted:I'd like to thank you on behest of every internet nerd who hasn't the courage to register on these forums, they deserve to be informed too. I'll add another voice to that, I've certainly been enjoying the world of darkness stuff, both Joyless's work and Loomer with the novels.
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Jul 9, 2023 17:35
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Explodingdice posted:I'll add another voice to that, I've certainly been enjoying the world of darkness stuff, both Joyless's work and Loomer with the novels. Thank you both. It truly does mean a lot that folks here have been so supportive, either in joining the conversations when the reviews are posted or folks just going to the site to read the reviews in full. Something Awful remains the top source of traffic to the site for the past year 
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Jul 9, 2023 18:54
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I have a lot of World of Darkness nostalgia... I have the POD V20th and have considered splashing out for the others based on what I have read, though sadly I was not able to get the POD Wraith 20th. But I also got started relatively late in the line, around when Changeling was new, which I suppose would be around '96? '97? So I missed a lot of the EARLY stuff, so it's interesting to see. I did buy a $3 remaindered copy of the last Sam Haight adventure, though. 
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Jul 9, 2023 19:15
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Nessus posted:I have a lot of World of Darkness nostalgia... I have the POD V20th and have considered splashing out for the others based on what I have read, though sadly I was not able to get the POD Wraith 20th. But I also got started relatively late in the line, around when Changeling was new, which I suppose would be around '96? '97? So I missed a lot of the EARLY stuff, so it's interesting to see. Sometimes the anniversary games go for super cheap on DTRPG if you just want to read them. (Sorry we never got one for you two, Hunter and Demon.)
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Jul 9, 2023 22:12
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Infinity RPG: PanOceania THEY CALL IT GODDAMN BOMJESUS BomJesus is a continent that is named BomJesus, and it sits roughly on the equator, making its weather stable and warm, with pretty regular rainfall feeding its rich croplands. It was mostly grasslands until the formation of the La Guardia-Orujo and Zacuto CFZs, both of which have turned a lot of that grassland into farms, largely focused on either fruit or livestock. The two CFZs are designed as rings, with a large perimeter of pastureland around a middle ring of cereal crops and a central area of fruit orchards. This protects the fruit trees from the ravages of the grasses, and the rings are also separated by protective walls for the same reason. Most of the livestock is herd animals - sheep, cattle, goats and vaca peluda. BomJesus, like most of the planet, is geologically active and prone to earthquakes, except for the relatively stable area around Cidade BomJesus, because they also named the continent's biggest city that. Architecturally, BomJesus has developed to withstand the quakes, focusing on shorter and squatter buildings that sprawl over a wider area. While the pressures of land usage for farming have tended to push Acontecimento to densely packed urban landscapes, BomJesus is only relatively recently settled and has allowed itself more sprawl. It is less known for its agricultural production, even with the two CFZs, and is more generally focused on industrial work, refining and manufacturing goods out of ore and minerals from elsewhere on the planet. Many of the consumer goods that Aconteccans use are produced in the continent, and many more are shipped out for sale elsewhere in the Human Sphere. Cidade BomJesus is the largest city on the entire planet and the capital of Acontecimento, as well as being home to one of the single most important Christian churches in space (the Basilica of Santa Maria) and a ton of industrial factories. It is the most densely populated of the planet's cities and the only one to have a significant number of skyscrapers, built as it is on a relatively geologically stable chunk of land. The city center is where most of those skyscrapers are, and outside that area is a ring of industrial zones, full of manufacturing facilities, corporate offices and R&D labs, plus tons of warehouses. Outside the industrial ring is the residential ring, a huge and sprawling mess of houses and apartments connected by wide roads, plus more warehouses and bus depots. Outside the residential ring are the scattered Atek slums. While city services and utilities often pass through the slums, they do not generally maintain the areas well. That said, Acontecimento is generally less awful to Ateks than other places in PanOceania because of their understanding that the factories are reliant on Atek manual labor. Still not great, though. Cidade BomJesus is also notable primarily because the sheer number of corporate industrial facilities in the city has made it a hotbed of corporate espionage. Orujo is the city of transportation, the hub that keeps BomJesus' goods moving off planet and manages the shipping infrastructure for...honestly, most of the planet as a whole. It is the home of the Asturius Astroport, which feeds supplies to the orbital manufacturies, the Triangle Airports that run shipping flights of important goods to the other continents, and maintains an extensive port on the Rondon Sea that handles the transport barges carrying the produce of BomJesus' CFZs to other parts of the planet. It is believed to also be the center of a number of planetary smuggling operations, who conceal themselves in the legitimate traffic constantly flowing in and out. The city has an extensive maglev network that crosses it in multiple directions to move large numbers of minerals and produce to packaging and shipping facilities, most of which are intended to move goods off-planet, or to massive abbatoirs where absurd numbers of animals are slaughtered and butchered to provide for the restaurants of all of PanOceania. The suburbs of Orujo Minor around the city proper are mostly industrial, operated by companies on military contracts. Goods and resources flow into these facilities at all hours to fuel experiments in new weapons technology or to produce components for ships built in the orbital naval yards. Much of the information regarding what is actually produced in Orujo Minor is restricted, so even the workers are often not entirely sure what they're making or shipping off. For tourists, however, the chief landing site is Puerto La Guardia, and...well, it's often rather disappointing. It's a clean and well laid out city, sure, but it is surrounded by a gigantic ring of Atek slums called Os Aneis. Tourists often find this initial bump with reality to be a bit of a sobering experience when they expected to be visiting a rural luxury resort planet, and Puerto La Guardia's city council has initiated many redevelopment plans to try and fix Os Aneis up, but none of them have really been very effective. The city proper is dominated by the orbital elevator and the hotel industry surrounding it. Hotels, restaurants, entertainment centers, theatres and stores serving the needs of tourists are all exceptionally common in the city center, all trying to be as close as they can to the elevator's base. Travel around the city is easy thanks to the maglevs that also serve to move food and goods around for shipping. Tiradantes is a sister city to Cidade BomJesus, connected to it by orbital arch. The completion of the arch has seen its economy soar in the past decade, and the city has capitalized on it well thanks to knowing it would probably hit when the arch was finished. Tiradantes is carefully managed and laid out, with the city center redeveloped around the base of the arch and split into multiple clear districts connected by efficient public transport. The city is now laid out into separate areas for food and entertainment, shopping, manufacturing and shipping, each kept separate and surrounded by the industries required for what goes on in the district. It is also the central headquarters for the Acontecimento Regular Army, who maintain a training ground and barracks in the city, as do the Military Police, whose planetary headquarters are in Tiradantes' Hall of Justice. Our final city on BomJesus is Zacuto, a relatively small city known for its conservative politics, its political domination by the farming engineers that maintain the Zacuto CFZ, and its extremely large number of churches. Christianity is the order of the day in Zacuto, and most of its people are extremely religious and extremely involved in social religious life. They pride themselves on a slow and quiet lifestyle of piety and social cohesion. Unfortunately for them, Zacuto also has the highest murder rate per capita of any city on the planet and the highest rate of accidents on the job per capita. It is unclear why. The main point of interest besides the churches and CFZ is Da Gama University, situated in the largest non-church building in the entire city. It is both a theological school and an agricultural one, which is a bit of an odd mix, but they make it work. We move on to the third continent of Camoes, the eastern half of which is mostly the planet's second-largest forest preserve, and the western half of which is mostly the Camoes CFZ. The continent was the one in which the indigenous grasses were always weakest, and at this point the grass species have been eradicated from Camoes for the safety of both the forests and the CFZ. This does, however, mean that the soil requires more continuous fertilization, as it cannot be left fallow to be overtaken by the grasses and rejuvenated between harvests. Large amounts of manure are imported from BomJesus' pastures to handle the problem. Camoes is north of the equator and is largely temperate, rainy and good for farming. The lack of grass means the forest preserves require significantly less protection, and the farms extend out to the edge of the woods. Culturally, the people of Camoes are reputed to be well educated and artistic, with a special love for poetry, song and group dance. The Camoes CFZ is one of the major reasons for the constant surplus in crops that Acontecimento enjoys, and most of its production is dedicated to export crops. The Camoes forest preserve is likewise a vital part of the planet's biosphere and one of its premier tourist attractions, as the lack of grass protections allows average people to experience the woods and see what the planet was like thousands of years ago. It is much easier to gain legitimate access to the Camoes preserve than the Great Arboreal Reserve, and it is a favorite destination of both professional biologists and those with merely amateur or casual interest in wildlife. The city of Punta Norte used to be quite small, mostly notable as a center for the quarrying of rare types of beautiful stone used in architecture. However, it has grown over the years under the careful guidance of its city council, which has overseen all redevelopment plans with an eye towards aesthetics. Nearly every building in the city has been carefully and painstakingly designed for artistic beauty, at least partially funded by the government, and it is considered to be a sign of success and talent in PanOceanian architecture to be commissioned to design a building in Punta Norte; the prestige is, in fact, so great that talented architects compete from across the Human Sphere whenever a new commission opens up. Some criticize Punta Norte's council for wasteful spending, but they claim that it is advertising the stones of the local quarries, which are used exclusively in the work done there. Certainly the quarrying has been extensive and successful enough that the town has created a number of giant canyons around itself. It is also, notably, home to the Punta Norte Defence Research Center, built in the depths of one of the first quarries. It was established in the first NeoColonial War as an R&D center for targeting systems and guns, but now it has been refitted to focus on infowar and quantronic weaponry, powered by a giant underground generator for the immense servers containing its state of the art automated expert systems that manage and assist in the research. It can only be accessed by underground tunnels, which have been turned into mazes by automated digger systems and protected by automated drones. The staff is confidential, and while the researchers and guards live and work in Punta Norte, they never talk about it, hiding their work by pretending to be part of the quarries. Selvia Preta is a town in the center of a forest reserve, a thing that can be done on Camoes because the forest is not under constant threat of destruction by grass. The town was designed to blend with the forest itself and is not possible to reach by road travel at all. It is accessible solely by VTOL, and VTOL taxis are pretty common as a result for transport of both goods and people. However, over time it has become divided - both metaphorically and literally. It is split into the Old Town and New Town. Old Town was the original settlement made by environmental scientists, with the organic-design architecture, buildings often suspended over the forest floor and intermixture with the old growtgh trees. It is full of raised walkways and paths and aesthetically is meant to feel natural, alive and beautiful. The New Town, however, was an expansion approved by the town council but bought out by developers who subdivided it up and then sold it at high prices. It is a crude copy of the Old Town aesthetics, its designs poor copies put together as prefab constructions and flown in. It has even used some clearcutting to make space for the new buildings, planting new and young trees to try and make the area seem more integrated with the land. Some of the older inhabitants of Old Town have sold off their stakes similarly because of the high land prices, but most of Old Town absolutely despises New Town and the people who moved in for the aesthetics rather than the actual love of nature and biological study. Sierpes Island is the center of Christianity on Acontecimento by right of being home to both the Catholic cathedral San Juan de Sierpes and the Quarters, the administrative and judicial heart of the Catholic Church. The Quarters manage and coordinate the efforts of the Church, the funding and businesses they own, their political lobbies and their liaisons with priests in the Military Orders. The Church's internal negotiations take place in the Confluence, a series of gardens and an estate that make up the northern half of the Quarters complex, and some argue that the influence the Church wields in the government makes Sierpes as important to PanO as anywhere on Neoterra. The island is also home the Garden District, a sculpted place of beautiful plants and flowing water intended to provide relaxation and a pleasing study space for visitors, modeling in miniature all of the environments of Acontecimento, with samples of every known and catalogued form of plant or fungus on the planet contained in a carefully constructed, climate controlled microbiome. The Church runs extensive biology classes there, and the work of the scientists involved has been revolutionary in medicine, nanomaterials and poison development. Nearby is the Great Library, extending deep into the bedrock of the island. It is a massive catalogue of books, music and other media for PanOceania, but also a storehouse of genetic samples of all known species of life on the planet, along with quite a few extinct ones. The city of San Juan de Sierpes proper is built almost entirely from Punta Norte stone, a small town entirely dedicated to religion. It is even more impressive an edifice than the cathedral in Cidade BomJesus, and the Archbishop of Acontecimento is a very powerful man within PanOceanian politics. The last major site on the island is the Monastery of Saint Paul of Sierpes, the headquarters of the Order of Montesa. It is a multi-layered bastion fortress, shaped like a set of overlapping stars to ensure anyone approaching is in overlapping fields of fire from the wall guns. The monastery is also a highly advanced military structure, and the monks take part in extensive military research into weapons development, particularly for TAGs. Next time: Magalhaes and the archipelagos
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Jul 9, 2023 22:29
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Ah, yes, founded by a youth pastor who straddled a chair, tossed a baseball into his other hand and said "You may like your Mayacast stars, but do you know who was the REAL 'Bom?'"
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Jul 9, 2023 22:30
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Explodingdice posted:I'll add another voice to that, I've certainly been enjoying the world of darkness stuff, both Joyless's work and Loomer with the novels. Oh stop, you'll give me an even bigger head.
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Jul 10, 2023 02:08
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Loomer posted:Oh stop, you'll give me an even bigger head. I'm looking forward to seeing your take on Book 2 with the kids and Madeline becoming a superhero, specifically The Punisher with Fangs.
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Jul 10, 2023 15:18
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Loomer posted:Oh stop, you'll give me an even bigger head.
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Jul 11, 2023 00:17
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