Adam Dray

Air travel, scans and searches, and you

2010-11-16T20:18:20Z

I've been following the recent TSA policy changes with great interest and concern. It seems that in late October 2010, TSA changed its airport security policies to include a far more invasive "pat down" for travelers who opt out of the backscatter x-ray scan (or "nude-o-scan," as it's been called). Citizens have health and privacy concerns about TSA's Advanced Imaging Technology program and privacy and other civil rights concerns about the advanced frisks. Because these methods are basically ineffective terrorism countermeasures, it upsets me that people have to endure these risks to fly. Call your senators and representatives and let them know how you feel.

Health Concerns

Airports use two types of devices primarily to scan people: millimeter wave scanners and backscatter x-ray scanners. The backscatter x-rays consist of two walls. The traveler stands between them, puts his hands up over his head, and the machine bounces low energy x-rays (ionizing radiation [1]) all over him. The energy bounces off the skin and produces a picture that looks like you without your clothes, but it also highlights high density objects like guns and knives.

This is a very low dose of radiation (0.025 μSv [2]) compared to the amount of radiation you get while flying across the U.S. (20 μSv), getting a mammogram (700 μSv), or getting a CT-scan (10,000 μSv) [3].

Traditional x-ray machines and other natural ("cosmic") radiation has a much higher energy, and it passes through the body. You can't just compare low energy radiation to high energy radiation because it affects the body differently. All this backscatter x-ray radiation is going to end up smashing into your skin, and that means it is more dangerous than high energy radiation of the same dosage. How much more dangerous? No one really knows, though some Ph.D. and M.D. types are concerned [4] and would like the government to release some more information and do some more research.

The feeling is that even if the individual dosage is very small, certain people are at higher risk for cancer and don't need the extra radiation. Pilots and other frequent flyers, the elderly, children, people with autoimmune deficiencies, and perhaps pregnant women are at higher risk.[4] Statistically speaking, someone will get cancer because of these machines, even if the government is correct about the low risk.

Privacy Concerns

The machines produce a picture that resembles you naked.[5] Obviously, this concerns a lot of people. Who sees these pictures? What guarantee do we have that our privacy won't be taken for granted? What happens to the pictures after we're gone?

According to the TSA, the person reviewing the nude images is in a remote, private room, and the machines "cannot store, print, transmit or save the image." [6] However, there is already one report of machines in a Florida federal courthouse -- not an airport, mind you -- improperly saving 35,000 images on their scanner. [7] There are also personal anecdotes [8] of bad behavior, such as TSA employees profiling attractive women for scans [9]. Human behavior being as predictable as it is, I have little faith that there isn't some improper behavior occurring here.

Opting Out

Travelers have the right to opt out of the nude-o-scan. Before late October 2010, this would get you patted down in the usual way. After October, this subjects you to a much more invasive body search that many find objectionable.

The new searching procedures involve a fully clothed body check that includes the groin, rear end, and breasts. One traveler likened it to a prison inmate intake procedure [10] and another said it reminded her of her sexual assault [11]. Many accounts [8] back up the notion of gloved hands and fingers going into very private places, sometimes not gently, and on one account without consent or warning. The procedure usually takes place right there in line, in full view of the rest of the line. TSA employees often make a big deal about you opting out of the nude-o-scan, sometimes yelling at people. There's a general feeling among travelers and some news reports that the frisk is meant to punish the person opting out and serve as an example to cow everyone else considering it.[12][13]

Would you want your young son or daughter handled this way? Remember that these are TSA employees, who are not law enforcement officers. Recall the news story about the TSA employee who was mocked by another TSA employee about his "package size" and brutally beat the other guy down with his baton in a parking lot over it.[21] Are these the people you want to trust with your privacy?

Apparently you can ask to be frisked in a private room, though it seems many TSA personnel don't volunteer that option. Also, I suspect most people fear going into a private room with TSA people more than getting frisked in front of a crowd. We've all seen the movies, right?

Opting out may also subject your baggage to closer scrutiny and cause the TSA to enforce the rules about liquids and such more rigidly. And while the TSA website says the pat down takes a few minutes, anecdotes [8] claim more serious delays.

TSA claims that you do not have the right to opt out of both the backscatter x-ray and the pat down. Once you get in line, you have consented to a security search. Saying you didn't know is no defense. It's on the website, after all.[14] There's an old court ruling saying that you never have to submit to this kind of search just to fly on an airplane. There's a more recent 9th Circuit ruling saying you do have to submit to them once you're in line.[15][16]

Effectiveness

A lot of the arguments in favor of the new screening techniques call for any measures necessary to protect our safety. That's all well and good, until we start giving up our rights as citizens for no good reason.

These security measures are not effective. There is no evidence that the new technology would have stopped the "underwear bomber," for example. A terrorist who gets a little more creative about how far into his body he's willing to hide something can smuggle a bomb or other item past the nude-o-scan (which only goes skin deep). Also, the backscatter machines can't detect certain low-density materials, like organic compounds and certain explosives.[17]

Furthermore, the U.S. needs to entirely rethink its airport security policy. Consider how many U.S. terrorist attacks on an airplane since 9/11 have been thwarted by passengers versus TSA security checkpoints. Consider how a country like Israel handles airport security under much more serious conditions.[18]

We're basically engaging in "security theater," as security expert Bruce Schneier calls it.[19] It's expensive for taxpayers and basically ineffective. So the "any measure necessary to protect our safety" argument is flawed. The measures don't protect our safety and they aren't necessary.

What People Are Doing

A lot of people aren't worried about the scans and just grin and bare it.

Some people are calling for a boycott of the scanners (and asking for pat downs). Others are boycotting flying altogether. If you're not passing through one of the airports using the new technology [20], you're at little risk -- unless the list is out of date [14].

One guy asked for a law enforcement officer to be present during his pat down, and that seems to have saved him some grief.[8]

The Senate is holding a TSA Oversight Commission on Wednesday, November 17, 2010. Concerned citizens should check the list of senators to see if their state sits on that committee. If so, make a phone call. Let the senator's office know how you feel about the new TSA rules.

References

I tried to supply references for most of what I said. If I missed something for which you really would like to see a citation, just ask me and I'll do my best to supply one.

[1] ionizing radiation
[2] radiation levels from FDA
[3] sample radiation exposure
[4] concerned doctors
[5] "nudity" of backscatter x-rays
[6] privacy according to TSA
[7] privacy breach
[8] personal anecdotes
[9] "got a cutie for you"
[10] inmate intake
[11] sexual assault
[12] punishment as deterrent
[13] punishment as deterrent
[14] cannot opt out of both
[15] court decisions
[16] U.S. v. Aukai
[17] low density vulnerability
[18] Israel airport security (GREAT ARTICLE)
[19] security theater
[20] airports with AIT
[21] "suspicious package"

Caldera: Gargoyle (new race)

2010-08-11T03:32:20Z

Statues come to life, exploring the city, but always keeping an eye on their old neighborhood.

There are three kinds of gargoyles, based on size. Each has different traits and abilities.

Small Gargoyle

RACIAL TRAITS

Average Height: 2’0” – 4’0”
Average Weight: 100 lb.

Ability Scores: +2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution
Size: Small
Speed: 6 squares
Vision: Normal

Languages: Common
Skill Bonuses: +2 Acrobatics, +2 Stealth
Living Construct: You are a living construct. You do not need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep. You never make Endurance checks to resist the effect of starvation, thirst, or suffocation. All other conditions and effects affect you normally.
Gargoyle Manifestation: Choose one gargoyle manifestation: rooftop aegis or fountain guardian. That manifestation is part of your nature. Each gargoyle manifestation offers particular benefits and provides an associated encounter power. Your appearance changes based on the manifestation you choose.

Rooftop Aegis: You gain the roof diver power.
Fountain Guardian: You gain the fountain gusher power.

Roof Diver Rooftop Aegis Gargoyle Racial Power

You leap off the roof and glide on your small wings.

Encounter

Move ActionPersonal

Effect: Leap off a cliff or building or similar high place and fly 5 squares for each 2 squares of elevation you have. If you don't end your move on solid ground, you float to the ground without taking falling damage.

Fountain Gusher Fountain Guardian Gargoyle Racial Power

You open your mouth and belch forth a huge jet of water.

Encounter * Cold

Minor ActionMelee 1

Target: One creature

Attack: Dexterity +2 vs. Reflex

Increase bonus to +4 at 11th level. Increase bonus to +6 at 21st level.

Hit: 1d6 + Dexterity modifier cold damage, and you push the target 1 square.

Increase damage to 2d6 + Dexterity modifier and push 2 squares at 11th level. Increase damage to 3d6 + Dexterity modifier and push 3 squares at 21st level.

Caldera is full of small stone statues, all shaped like horned monsters, frogs, or angels. They sit on rooftops and pour water into fountains. Sometimes a gargoyle comes to life as a living construct, usually to protect its neighborhood or to right a wrong that it watched when it was just a statue. Once alive, the gargoyle stays alive and must figure out how to fit into the world of people.

Play a small gargoyle if you want…

to look like a small, monstrous statue
to be a creature searching for the meaning of your existence
to be a member of a race that favors the Ranger class

Physical Qualities

Small gargoyles look like they did when they were statues: they seem to be made of solid stone with no joints, though they can move as any other creature. They are usually shaped like monsters: small horned devils and demons, large frogs or lizards, fat cherubic babies, or ugly bearded dragons. They are usually gray, sometimes covered by furry moss (which they may consider part of their look).

Once “awakened,” gargoyles age slowly, living around 200 years. As they age, their stone cracks and chips. Of course, some were already hundreds (even thousands) of years old, but everything before a gargoyle’s awakening is a fog and those years don’t count against a gargoyle’s lifespan. They might have dreams about the events that led up to their awakening (sometimes a crime or injustice they saw in their neighborhood). A gargoyle always misses “home,” the place they used to sit. They may return there again and again to make sure things are still okay, or just to remember.

They don’t need to wear clothes, though many do to fit better into society or disguise their appearance.

Small Gargoyle Characteristics: Adorable, calm, laconic, patient, sentimental, still, vengeful, watchful.
Small Gargoyle Names: Alarm, Froggy, Fatbaby, Granite, Graystone, Gurgle, Limestone, Waterpipe

[Caldera] Residuum (Magic)

2010-08-03T00:38:15Z

Caldera is my new fantasy setting for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Two million people are packed into a city of street levels stacked on top each other like pancakes. Why? Because the leaders figured out that the emotional and creative energy of people living close together creates magic. This is an article about the rock beneath the city becoming infused with magic.

Read more about Caldera on my Obsidian Portal website.

Residuum

The core rules explain that disenchanting a magic item extracts the magic from it and transforms that magic into a fine, silvery dust called residuum. It’s so rare and useful that a mere pound of it is worth 500 thousand gold pieces. Wow, right?

In Caldera, residuum is not so rare. In fact, the magical energies pool in the rock below the city, whose citizens mine the stuff. Well, they don’t mine pure residuum; they’re mining ore, called arcanite, which contains minute quantities of residuum. They use heat and magical processes to smelt the arcanite, and to extract the residuum. The miners are exposed to all kinds of strange magical effects over time, and most exhibit strange transformations. In general, the process the smelters use protects them better (through use of shielding, special suits and goggles, and so on).

Residuum comes in many forms. The most common form is called arcane residuum, and is a fine, silvery powder that shimmers with moving colors. In Caldera, it’s worth about 100 gold pieces an ounce (about 1/300th the value of what the core rules describe). There are other forms, each with special magical properties sought by wizards and enchanters.

Magic in powder form is incredibly useful to one who knows how to use it. However, the street has discovered a simple use: snorting it. When ingested or snorted, residuum produces heightened emotions in the user. In the right headspace, the drug creates incredible euphoria or megalomaniacal confidence. Unfortunately, these feelings are addictive and over time a residuum dependence requires more and more of the drug to achieve the effect. Withdrawal symptoms are painful and often lead to death (or suicide). An ounce of residuum will cover a typical addict for a few weeks. In addition to magnifying emotions, taking residuum occasionally transforms users permanently, giving them strange magical powers often accompanied by changes in physical appearance. These powers are often dangerous, making encounters with angry or scared residuum addicts potentially lethal.

There’s an even purer form of residuum called liquum. When residuum is combined with elemental water, heated with elemental fire, filtered through elemental earth, and then distilled with elemental air, the result is a shimmering liquid form of magic a thousand times more potent than residuum. It is generally too expensive to be used as a street drug, but it is used in powerful enchantment rituals as an amplifier.

A knowledgeable arcanist can use specially-prepared residuum and liquum to boost the power of his spells. This works like the metamagic feats from the previous rules edition, making saves more difficult, damage higher, range further, casting easier, and so on.

In general, because of the presence of mineable residuum in Caldera, magic items are more common. In fact, there’s an industry built around enchantment. The most common magic sold is for convenience (lighting, cleaning, cooking, communication), safety (weapons, security), or entertainment (games, recording and playback).

[Red Box D&D] Keep on the Borderlands

2010-08-01T17:03:43Z

So yesterday I gathered a few friends and we played a bit of B2 Keep on the Borderlands using the Basic D&D (Moldvay) set from 1981. I still have my original books, the ones I cut my teeth on when I was ten years old. I dug up a fantastic replica of the old character sheets and printed out a dozen for the 3-4 players I expected. I re-read the Keep and skimmed the Basic rules again. It was surprising how much I still remembered after 25-30 years.

I had three players. Jamie doesn't really like D&D and had never played the Basic version. Mark hadn't role-played much in years and years. Brandon had started with D&D 3rd Edition.

We made up characters by the book. 3d6, six times, in order for the attributes. No rerolls, no swapping. Pick a class based on the stats you rolled. Brandon had a good Strength and Intelligence, so he chose an Elf. Jamie wanted to play a Thief and got the good Dexterity score to back it. Mark's best stat was Intelligence, so he chose a Magic-User. When they rolled hit points, Mark managed to roll a 1. Ouch! Well, we were playing by the book so we went with it. The Elf's spell book got Read Magic, Charm Person, and Protection from Evil (memorized). The Magic-User's spell book got Read Magic, Sleep, and Magic Missile (memorized). I let them choose their spells, realize.

The Keep

I had subtly changed a few things about the Keep. I placed it in a mountain range between two warring nations. The mountains were a sort of buffer zone that had become populated by monsters and other terrible things. There were also ruins of an ancient civilization here and treasure hunters often would come out here seeking fame and fortune. The party had joined a merchant caravan headed up to the Keep. Brandon decided his elf was a sort of religious mystic (I supplied the religion, the Torchbearers) who wanted to return home with a religious artifact that would redeem him in the eyes of his Order.

As they approached the Keep itself, they saw smoke rising up from the ruins of buildings around it. This was a personal addition. In the original module, the Keep is a stand-alone village. I re-envisioned it as a true Keep with a farming village around it. Humanoid raiders had recently burned the village to the ground, and the inhabitants had fled back to Karameikos (I borrowed the nation's name from the old Mystara setting for BD&D), though some had managed to find shelter inside the Keep.

It soon became apparent that the Thief was a troublemaker. She insulted the guard at the gatehouse and the party ended up sleeping outside in the cold the first night. They behaved better the next morning and gained entry to the Keep, which I reminded them was the private residence of someone powerful, not a town. In the gatehouse, a portly guildmaster shook them down for "taxes" on anything that he thought was valuable--in this case the spellbooks of the Elf and Magic-User. The mage insisted that the books were of no real value, perhaps worth only a silver or two, but when the guildmaster offered him "a silver or two" for them the mage quickly shut up and paid the 2 gold piece tax.

We had some great role-playing scenes in the Keep. The Thief got into a poker game with some guards at the Tavern and tried to cheat. I had her make some Pick Pocket rolls, which she failed. Eventually she got caught and lost 40 silver pieces and earned the distrust of the guards. The players decided that the 1-hit-point Magic-User was the Thief's "bitch" (in a sort of prison sense), and he was all "yes, dear," "of course, dear." The inn's proprietor recommended that they talk to the Lantern (ranking priest) at the Chapel of the Torchbearer. While the Thief eyed the offerings box, the Elf discussed business with Lantern Sentos, the priest. It became quite apparent that the Thief was a greedy mercenary who cared only about coin, but the Elf agreed to help out the Torchbearer cause without compensation. For this, the priest secretly gave him a potion of healing (cures 1d8 hit points).

What the players did not know is that the Torchbearer priests -- and many important people in the Keep -- were under the influence of the evil cult in the Caves of Chaos. In area K of the Caves, there is an ancient altar that can infect people's minds and make them serve the elder evil gods. (This is already in the module!) I decided that because the Keep is so close to this altar, it made sense that tough adventurers over the centuries would stumble upon the altar, become turned to the evil cause, and settle in the Keep to protect the Caves of Chaos. This was my own evil twist. In the original module, there were two priests: the one at the Chapel was truly good (well, Lawful) and the roving priest in the apartments was secretly Evil. I swapped them. The roving priest was now secretly investigating the Chapel. The Chapel priest got the "vow of silence" acolytes and was encouraging adventurers to go off to their deaths in the Caves of Chaos. A potion of healing was rarely enough to keep them alive, he knew. The Castellan, too, was converted to the cause of Chaos, of course.

Caves of Chaos

The three adventurers set off down the old trail into the mountains, eventually coming across this box canyon (pictured at right)--thanks for the idea, mearls! The Thief was yelling, testing out the echo in the canyon and obviously alerting the monsters to their presence. When they came to the first cave (area A), the six kobolds were ready for them and ambushed them with surprise. "Bree-yark!" When the Elf slew the first kobold, I rolled a morale check, which the kobolds failed, and they went skittering back into the cave. The party would have fallen into the pit trap inside the cave but the Elf said he was praying at that moment, so I gave him a sense of impending danger. He warned the Thief, who quickly spotted the trap and then saw the kobolds peeking around the corners of the T-intersection.

Instead of fighting, the group tried parlay. Awesome! The Thief offered the little dog creatures some dried meat from her rations and they accepted it warily, but this built enough trust. When the Elf spoke at them in Hobgoblin (he didn't speak Kobold), the creatures recognized the "Master" language and quickly kow-towed to the obviously dangerous warriors. They led them to their chieftain, protected by three large kobolds (well, large for kobolds). They made demands to the chieftain, who laughed at them. The bargaining became more serious as the players realized how dire the situation was becoming. I think the Thief finally pissed off the chieftain enough that he just snapped his fingers and his guards started attacking.

Total Party Kill

Combat in basic D&D goes very quickly compared to current versions. First, initiative is party vs. monsters, not every player. The player with the best initiative modifier rolls d6. DM rolls d6. Compare. You can tie. Second, there are very few tactical options built into the rules: attack with a melee weapon, attack with a ranged weapon, cast a spell (if you have any), or run away. Of course, the game expects players to make up tactical options that aren't in the rules and expects the DM to accommodate them; there's just no rules support for this.

The melee lasted 4-5 rounds. Within a couple rounds, the 1-hit-point Magic-User was down. The Elf went down to 0 hit points quickly--which I interpreted as a non-combatant but conscious--but he quaffed the potion of healing and was back to the fight quickly. A couple rounds later, the kobold guards killed the Thief and knocked the Elf back to 0 hit points and captured him. Total party kill. We left the fate of the characters uncertain--maybe eaten, maybe slain, maybe ransomed, maybe imprisoned.

New Characters

They rolled up new characters in about ten minutes. This time I let them swap two ability scores and take maximum hit points (8 on a d8, etc.). Mark made a fighter this time. Brandon made a Magic-User (Read Magic, Magic Missile, Floating Disc). Jamie made a Cleric and I let her start with a potion of healing for 80 gold pieces. She had rolled very well for money (3d6x10 and she started with 160 GP).

Clerics get no spells at 1st level in this game! They're basically half way between Magic-Users and Fighters, in that they can wear any kind of armor, use any blunt weapon, get 1d6 hit points, and get a spell at 2nd level (if they live that long). A Magic-User is far squishier: no armor, use only a dagger, get 1d4 hit points, but get one spell at 1st level. Fighters can use any armor and weapons, get 1d8 hit points, but no spells.

This Time, Henchmen

We fast-forwarded through the Keep with this group, but paused at the Chapel again. This time, Jamie's character (the Cleric) cooperated with the Lantern and earned an additional potion of healing. This time, the players worked hard to collect a bunch of henchmen to assist them. The Lawful priest in the apartments offered one of his acolytes, who also had taken a vow of silence. They got the Guild to send one man-at-arms to help retrieve the guildmaster, who (months after the prior PC adventurers had been killed) was now being ransomed by the evil humanoids in the Caves of Chaos. Finally, at the Tavern, they dragged the Corporal of the Watch out of his cups to help the Cleric retrieve her brother, who Jamie decided was Brandon's Elf from the previous group. The Corporal had lost some family in the raids and this jolted him out of his despondency. The Corporal was a 2nd level Fighter and a great addition to the party. I made each player handle the rolls for an NPC.

They found the box canyon containing the Caves of Chaos and, for reasons I do not fathom, decided to explore the caves "higher up." Their choice put them in area C of the adventure: a group of orcs that were a little tougher than the kobolds the previous party had encountered. Luckily they didn't go to the other side of the canyon, where even tougher hobgoblins lurked.

The group inadvertently set off the trip wire alarms outside the orc cave, and they'd lost their element of surprise--a melee soon ensued. The party was far stronger now, though. Max hit points plus three NPC retainers. Still, the man-at-arms fell to 0 hit points quickly and they decided to carry the nearly-unconscious man around instead of use a potion of healing. They soon stumbled into the "common hall" where four orc swordsmen and two orc crossbowmen attacked (and eight orc women and children huddled for safety). More violence though the PCs did try to parlay. The orcs wanted none of it. Death before dishonor!

This is when we discovered that Brandon's Magic-User had memorized Floating Disc, a utility spell that created a hovering disc for carrying stuff. Floating Disc?! Why had no one memorized Sleep, arguably the best 1st level spell? It has no saving throw and it knocks 2d8 Hit Dice of creatures into a deep sleep, and then you can slay them.

Me: "Floating Disc?!"
Brandon: "I thought it'd be useful!"
Me: "For what? To carry your friends' bodies home?"

The party was taking serious losses. The Magic-User took a hit and went down, but the Cleric healed him with a potion. They decided to flee back to the Keep to get their strength back. We stopped there, as Jamie had a poker game she was supposed to go to.

Thoughts on Old School D&D

So, this was very, very fun. More fun than playing 4E. When I consider why it was more fun, I have to try to separate the feelings of nostalgia from actual fun. On the nostalgia side, consider that running Basic D&D takes me back to the "golden age" when this was all new. I was ten or twelve years old, running games for my brother Jason and my friend Mark (a different Mark).

But I think, even without the nostalgia, there is something to this old school stuff. The game is so much simpler. Even though the players and I were just rolling "to hit" over and over, the fiction didn't suffer for it. There's plenty of room for players being clever. This group of players tried to be clever a lot, but often scuttled their own cleverness, like the Thief being a smart-ass to the kobold chieftain while the charismatic Magic-User was making deals with him.

As much as D&D 4th Edition (4E) is all about being a hard-ass tactical game, it's way more forgiving than Red Box. If this group of characters (henchmen and all) would have continued as they had been going, I imagine another TPK was coming. C'mon, memorizing Floating Disc? No. You memorize artillery spells like Sleep, Charm Person, or even Magic Missile ("even," because it's clearly inferior to the other two at 1st level). If you need a Floating Disc, you rest and memorize it tomorrow, then high-tail it to safety with the loot on the disc.

I'm not entirely sure how, decades ago, parties of 1st level characters ever survived the Caves of Chaos. I am pretty sure I must have fudged a lot. Back then, we didn't have constant TPKs and I'm sure the players were just as guileless. In the stories about adventurers at Gygax's tables, you hear of constant character deaths. There's a Darwinistic evolutionary force here. If your character survives 1st level, it's pretty likely that you're doing something right; you'll probably survive 2nd level, and then 3rd, and so on. 1st level is the training ground for players, as well as characters. Learn which spells to memorize. Learn to hire henchmen. Learn not to get surrounded by monsters. Learn to search for traps and alarms. Learn not to smart off to the kobold chieftain unless you can back your words with damage output.

It was crazy, when the players survived the first orc encounter, to see that they'd earned exactly 100 XP for it. A two-ninths share of that for each PC (retainers get half the experience PCs do) is only 11 XP for each player character! Most characters need 2000 XP to reach 2nd level. Hell, an Elf needs 4000! What are the chances of a 1st level character surviving 200 encounters, each with ten orc warriors? Pretty slim, I think. Oh, and while I'm discussing XP: why do some characters with high ability scores get an XP bonus (5-10% usually)? I mean, you rolled well on some dice and got a 16 in your prime requisite. That's a reward in itself, isn't it? The other players are already jealous of your +2 bonus to hit or whatever; why add insult to injury and let you level up faster, too?

I can definitely see what drew me to D&D back in 1980. As complicated as it seemed then, the ideas were pretty simple. The simplicity of the characters left many "blanks" for a player to fill in around the character. As later editions of D&D became more and more "completionist"--starting with the weighty tomes of 1st Edition Advanced D&D and culminating in today's power-focused 4E rulebooks--the books started to fill in the rulebooks for you. Mind you, there's still plenty of room for players to fill in the "color" around their characters, but something in the design of the Red Box game encouraged it, even necessitated it. It reminds me of the Betty Crocker egg story. Requiring housewives (in the 50's) to add their own egg to the cake mix removed the guilt of "cheating" in the kitchen. I think newer editions of D&D include the egg in the mix, where the earliest editions were closer to making the cake "from scratch."

Caldera: Mura (Ratlings)

2010-07-08T23:17:19Z

It's not 100% official yet, but I have a fantastic job. I'll post details once they're final. Now that I've gotten business out of the way, I can get back to fun.

So two notes. First, I moved my Caldera stuff over to Obsidian Portal (if you like Caldera, please vote for it!). Second, I wrote up the mura (ratling) race for 4E.

Fast, cunning bipedal rat creatures who skulk in the deepest, darkest tunnels of Caldera.

RACIAL TRAITS
Average Height: 3’0” – 3’6”
Average Weight: 50-60 lb.

Ability Scores: +2 Dexerity, +2 Intelligence
Size: Small
Speed: 5 squares
Vision: Low-light

Languages: Common, Mura
Skill Bonuses: +2 Nature, +2 Dungeoneering
Mura Weapon Proficiency: You gain proficiency with the dagger.
Mura Poison Resistance: You gain a +5 racial bonus to saving throws against poison and disease.
Shifty: You can use shifty as an at-will power.

Shifty Mura Racial Power

You slip and leap through enemy ranks, under legs and around weapons.

At Will

Minor ActionPersonal

Effect: You shift 1 square.

Every city has rats. Caldera has giant, intelligent, bipedal rats. Mura sometimes called ratlings) are a small race that evolved from the giant rats that infest the darkest levels of the Caldera subcity. They are known for their cunning and quickness.

Play a mura if you want…

to look like a giant, bipedal rat.
to be a sneaky, unpredictable hero who likes dark places.
to be a member of a race that favors the ranger, rogue, and sorcerer classes.

Physical Qualities

Mura are thin, athletic rat creatures that stand on their hind legs. Their five-fingered paws have adapted to have an opposable thumb. They’re about half the height of humans. Mura bodies are covered by a layer of short fur that can be gray, black, white, or brown. Some have spots. Like their rat ancestors, mura have long, smooth tails. Their eyes are usually black, but ruby or pink eyes are not uncommon.

Ratlings grow up quickly, reaching maturity in about 8-10 years, and live only about 40 years. On the other hand, their resistance to poisons and diseases prevent a lot of infant deaths. They make the most of their short lives, daring things that many other people would avoid.

They don’t need to wear clothes, though many do to fit better into society. Some wear just a belt or bandolier, or just a short tunic, or maybe just a cap or hat.

Playing a Mura

The mura a relatively new race, though magical mutation has made “new race” much less of a novelty in Caldera. As a mutation, however, mura are quite common. Where typical mutations produce one or two unique creatures, the mutation that produced ratlings has created a population large enough to call it a new race. Census counts estimate 10,000 or more mura in the city, though there could be many more deep in the subcity. There are a few dozen large warrens where they have built communities.

Other races only see giant rats when they look at mura and some recoil or react with horror. This is a kind of natural prejudice that every mura must overcome. So far, no mura has held any office of importance. Ratlings are killed by angry bigots when they try.

Mura are often hungry and will eat just about anything. It doesn’t matter if it’s squirming, spoiled, or rotten. This often disturbs members of other races, even if they consider the mura a friend. Ratlings also have a reputation for being sneaky and underhanded. It’s true that they can be unreliable and unpredictable in battle, but they’re no less trustworthy than other races, in general.

Mura Characteristics: Alert, cunning, curious, foolhardy, hungry, nimble, resourceful, slinky, skittish, unpredictable, untrusting.

Mura Names: Dark, Drain, Dung, Garbage, Jerk, Odor, Penny, Puddle, Rust, Shadow, Shiny, Slink, Stink, Torch, Twitch.

[Caldera] Inspiring Terrains: Alleyways

2010-07-08T13:44:58Z

Saw this article in Kobold Quarterly: Inspiring Terrains: Alleyways. It's perfect for Caldera.

Caldera: Life and Death

2010-06-24T04:41:14Z

I hadn't planned on posting today. I had a tough day lay-off) and spent my time doing other, more important things. However, as I peeked over some of the Bloodsand Arena material that previews the Wizards of the Coast's Dark Sun setting, I thought about life and death in Caldera.

In the Dark Sun world, life is cheap. No one cares if you live or die. I realized that Caldera is different. I believe the city is a bit schizophrenic about the issue of death. On one hand, two million people are crammed into a city, stacked like sardines, so violence is a fact of life. On the other hand, the government has a compelling interest in increasing the city's population.

This got me thinking. If population growth is a primary concern, the senate would do everything in its power to combat those things that attack a city's population growth: disease, malnutrition, violent crime, fires, and exodus.

Disease
I recently posted an article about dwarf sickness, a disease unique to Caldera. The city is constantly stricken with all kinds of ailments, normal and magical. These ravage the city population. A terrible plague can wash over a city and kill a vast number of people.

The senate funds the temples to research divine magic that can cure diseases. The temples sponsor clerics who go among the sick, helping them.

Malnutrition
In general, Caldera has enough food for its people. There is sufficient farm land around the city to provide basic needs for everyone. There's a grain dole for the poorest. The problem is getting the food to the people who need it most. Evil gangs intercept food deliveries and extort the citizens.

The senate deputizes adventures as police to protect food silos and shipments from gangs and monsters (especially giant rats).

Violent Crime
While there are many complicated laws prohibiting and punishing criminal acts, the senate has been unable or unwilling to fund a proper police force. There's a long tradition of justice requiring the plaintiff to drag the defendant to court. That is, the aggrieved party has to do the policework.

Recently, the senate has started deputizing strong adventurers to go out and bring the worst criminals to justice. Before this, citizens would hire adventurer types to serve as bounty hunters. This still occurs, especially when a noble house wants swift justice.

Fires
Especially in old cities like Caldera, fires are a huge threat. Either by arson or accident, a fire can spread quickly in a city so densely packed as this. Most of the city's buildings are made of stone but they contain a great deal of wood and other flammable materials, and even stone burns.

The senate has established a system of fire squads and preparation. Firefighting in Caldera is very dangerous due to the presence of elemental fire created by magic. This fire seems to have an evil will of its own. PCs might be hired to serve on a firefighting team.

Exodus
The simplest way a city loses its population is by exodus. That is, conditions get bad and people just leave. This is not easy to do in Caldera.

Centuries ago, the city's government made it very difficult to leave the city. Only trusted mercantile citizens come and go as they please. It is easy enough to get into the city. To get out requires having the right papers.

Caldera: Servilla Caste

2010-06-23T03:54:56Z

Nothing too exciting today, setting-wise. Finishing up castes with the lowest of Caldera's four casts: Servilla.

Caste Servilla: Workers & Farmers

The Servilla cast is comprised of two groups: the Manutha ("Laborers") and the Greia ("Farmers"). The Manutha are expected to do all the hard, unskilled labor in the city, such as mining, porting, and cleaning. All the farming and animal raising (herding, milking, and so on), however, is done by the Greia, whose families are tied to the land they sow. These are not serfs or slaves, but hard-working lower class families. The highest ranking among them are overseers and managers.
Servilla are barred from holding any public office. This is not a point of contention for most of the caste, though there are occasional rabble-rousers.

Members of this caste have an unwritten code of good behavior that includes the following four commandments:

Labor is the furnace that hardens men. Work hard and be proud of the work you do.
Harm no one. Live a peaceful life.
Share with others less fortunate.
Honor your family and your gods.

These commandments are ideals and it's a rare individual who leads a perfect life.

(I owe some caste feats for Servilla.)

Caldera: Personalities

2010-06-22T03:01:46Z

I took a shot at creating a couple notable people you might bump into on the crowded streets of Caldera. I borrow from mearls's excellent Stat Blocks for Roleplaying article for describing these NPCs.

Senator Urilliam Trovani

The Trovanis of Caste Arima are the most powerful family in the city. Urilliam is the head of the Urilliam family, and the most powerful leader in the senate. He is 78 years old, but in good health, and still considered very attractive.

Key traits: Calm, confident, savvy, funny
Goal: Prevent political change that diminish his power or his family's
Motivation: Believes he has a god-given right to lead the city; wants to leave his grandchildren in power
Fears: Being overthrown or killed by his son Yeraldius; getting punished for corruption
Weaknesses: Easily manipulated by his young relatives; greedy

Level 14
Alignment: Unaligned
HP 20
Str 7, Dex 10, Con 10, Wis 16, Int 12, Cha 20
Diplomacy +23, Intimidate +23, Bluff +23, Insight +21

While Urilliam himself is not much of a fighter anymore, he is nearly always accompanied by a retinue of a dozen or two dozen clients, many of whom are (or were) veteran soldiers. When he is not doing city business, he has his two bodyguards with him (each a 15th level elite soldier).

Naleia Ganter

The Ganters of Caste Benevor are an incredibly wealthy merchant family who make their fortune off textiles and paper. Naleia is the head of the Ganter family. She has a very friendly outward appearance, but she can be brutal and unforgiving when she takes action. Rumor has it that she killed her husband to take control of the family, but the truth is she loved him very much and they shared control as equals. Since his death two years ago, she's become more vicious.

Key traits: Unpredictable, vengeful, ostentatious
Goal: Get Senator Urilliam Trovani in her pocket
Motivation:Relax trading laws that hold back her family business
Fears: Her children coming to harm, being blamed for her husband's death
Weaknesses: Makes rash decisions when angry, overprotective of her children

Level 8
Alignment: Unaligned
HP 35
Str 12, Dex 16, Con 15, Wis 14, Int 12, Cha 16
Diplomacy +14, Intimidate +10, Bluff +14, Insight +18

I realize these aren't complete stat blocks. They're really not set up as combat encounters, but more for social encounters. Also, I hand-waved the stats. I need to revisit them and properly vet them.

Caldera: Magic (take 2)

2010-06-21T02:59:41Z

I've rewritten the introduction to my article on Caldera's Magic. Thank you to Raven and Joshua for speaking up when something smelled. ;)

Most of the article remains the same, so I won't repeat it all here. You can read the full article on my wiki.

The entire opening is replaced with this:

The world has always had magic in it, but not a lot. Often, when people gathered for some great cause, when they wanted something with all their hearts, miracles happened. They thanked their gods and goddesses for these miracles, and made great sacrifices in their names, so that the next time they needed to call upon their divine protectors, their prayers would be heard.

When people began to build great cities, the magic got stronger. It took many centuries for the scholars to figure out that there was something besides the divine at work--and, really, the debate rages on. The leading theories explain that masses of people living close together releases magical power from the earth, and that emotion produces magic. This is true, but it isn't the whole truth.

Magic in Caldera is produced by emotion and creative energy. There is magic in joy and sorrow, in pain and pleasure, but also in art, beauty, planning, and dreams. When people communicate, the emotion and ideas exchanged between them is a kind of magical heat. It's like the friction of people's lives rubbing against one another causes something supernatural to happen. So a sculptor working alone in a quiet workshop may create a very small amount of magic, but if he sculpts a statue for his wife, it creates a larger amount of magic, and sculpting a great statue for the Forum while the city's people watch can create a large magical effect.

Perhaps because of the amount of misery in the lowest levels of Minotaur (the oldest part of the city, buried deep under layers of new construction), weird magic is strongest there. It remains potent within the city itself, and sharply weakens in the farmlands inside the crater. Outside the walls, the magical effect recedes to nothingness.

The powerful forces created by the magical feedback loop in Caldera have created two new universes: the plane of nightmare, where your worst fears come alive, and the plane of reflection, which connects every one of the city's shiny mirrors.

I've also added this bit about monsters:

Sometimes monsters are creatures borne completely of strong emotion. A creature of elemental hate is a terrible agent of vengeance. A being of elemental love is a troublesome, meddling cupid.

And I also added this little game mechanic:

Appealing to Emotion

A character in deep trouble can appeal to emotion, letting emotion take over. This lets the magic in.

In game terms, once per level, a player can re-roll any die roll the player made and take the second result instead. The player must convincingly role-play the character letting emotion completely take over. This should be a moving, emotional role-playing scene. Whether it is convincingly played or not is up to everyone at the table.

D&D: Sandbox vs. Safety Rails

2010-06-20T17:17:29Z

ThadeousC on Twitter posed the following problem:

I really didn’t think my thoughts would turn into such a big deal; when I shared them on twitter they sparked a discussion spanning a few hours time. The frustration with the 140 character limit had driven me to bring the conversation here to my site.

What was said? I initially posed a question: “In OD&D running from monsters is often a valid option over fighting, does it ever happen in your 4e game?” and I followed up the question with my own reply: “In an attempt to run a more open game my players are allowed to go where they want. Which means they might end up over their heads.”

I'm joining the fray of his "blog carnival" with my two cents and my own rules. I can't understand theirs but you can read some responses to ThadeousC here and here.

The gist of the argument goes that players should be allowed to take their characters wherever in the game world they want, even if it means running into encounters that are grossly inappropriate (too difficult) for them. Some arguments given in favor of this are:

to create tension, "just by knowing that there are places too dangerous to explore" [ThadeousC]

to increase players' feelings of accomplishment, having defeated a monster that defeated them before

to create a world that doesn't feel like it's built to cater to the player characters

to create game play that feels more like fiction (the Tolkien analogy)

I think there are better ways to do all of these things.

If you want to create tension and make the world seem dangerous, tell the players how dangerous certain areas are. If they head off to Dragon Pass, just say, "Are you sure? It's full of 20th level dragons." If they go anyway, hey, it's their funerals. One of the articles argues that the DM should be giving clues to the players that they're about to enter a dangerous area. Why? Is the argument that these clues always exist? If not, isn't this just another kind of catering to the players (see below), especially combined with "if you run, you always escape successfully" DM fiat.

If you want to increase the players' feelings of accomplishment, just make encounters balanced but on the challenging side. They're not going to win every encounter. They will have to run every once in a while. Then they can go back and get revenge.

If you're afraid of making the world feel like it's built to cater the players, well... okay, I don't have a better solution for this. My feeling is "get over it." The fantasy world is made to cater to the players! But the concern is that it doesn't feel that way, which is some kind of illusionist trick, right? I sense this is some kind of "realism" argument couched in other terms. Can you have areas that PCs clearly are not ready for, and just tell players not to go there yet unless they're ready to face certain doom, and still maintain that realism? How much do you have to hide from the players to make it feel realistic?

Anyway, what is this idea that every encounter is built for the players to win? and not challenge them? I think it's a straw man. Every version of the rules I've ever read suggests that encounters should be a good mix of easy to very hard, and that if players are not smart, they could well find themselves in a lot of trouble. In many encounters, a few bad die rolls could easily spell death for our heroes, regardless of how the DM balanced things.

If you want to make game play feel more like the fiction, then you're going to have to make the escapes as exciting and as dramatically important as the fights. D&D has pretty crappy escape rules. Probably because escape isn't very interesting most of the time. In most versions of D&D, as far as I can remember, the success or failure of an escape is pretty much left to the DM to decide. So the DM is left with a few choices: a) make up escape rules, b) decide by fiat (with a chance that the PCs die) and risk angering players, c) decide the players always escape but make it seem more dangerous (basically illusionism) and hope they don't wise to the fact that you're not gonna let them die if they're willing to run away.

Let's face it, in old-school D&D, you weren't expected to escape. If you ran into a monster too powerful for your party, it was a total party kill and you rolled new characters. All this talk of realism and what-not never really mentions a TPK as an acceptable outcome. "Oh, you wandered into Dragon Pass. Two ancient red dragons swoop down and *rollrollroll* you all take 185 points of damage from the fire strafe. Too bad, so sad."

I would also argue that Tolkien's characters did not have to "level up" before they could face the obstacles that blocked them. They just needed to find another path, thus the obstacle was not too challenging for them. Still, it's folly to compare literature to gaming. Tolkien never had to risk his hobbits to a roll of the dice. He knew that they'd win in the end, because he held the pen. He also didn't have to share story creation with a bunch of other players or a DM.

One of the blog posts used video games as an example. Video games let players roam around and run into monsters they're definitely not ready to handle. At the same time, these designers also "zone" the world so that you mostly can deal with the stuff your character runs into. There are clear signs that you're entering a zone built for tougher characters. Video games also give you multiple lives, "save" points and restarts. Clearly, the analogy breaks down.

A lot may depend on the version of D&D you're playing, too. If you're playing an old-school version (say, AD&D 1E or before), it's probably appropriate to let the bodies pile up. Crunch all you want; the players will roll up more. If you're playing 2E, just stop. If you're playing 3E or Pathfinder, the game really isn't designed for easy balance of encounters, anyway. You might think an encounter is fair and the PCs wash over it without a sweat; or on the other side of things, an "easy" encounter might turn out to be seriously life-threatening for the PCs. D&D 4E is pretty well "balanced" compared to other editions, and the rules are definitely designed for tactical play. Is part of the challenge for players knowing when to run? Should this knowledge be based purely on in-character knowledge or can or should players bring meta knowledge to bear? "I read the MM and know this creature is 10th level! Let's get out of here!"

Caldera: Disease

2010-06-20T03:00:51Z

I promised a rewrite of Magic but I've been sick today. I've managed to write something Caldera-related every day since I started, so I hate to miss a day. I decided, since I'm not feeling well, there's no better time to write about... disease!

Since Caldera is an urban setting, I couldn't imagine a better opportunity for weird and fantastic diseases, and D&D 4E has pretty cool disease system.

Dwarf Sickness
Common to dwarven miners, dwarf sickness affects people who explore the dark, tunnel-like streets of the depths of Caldera.

Level 5 Disease
Attack: +8 vs. Will
Endurance: improve DC 22, maintain DC 18, worsen DC 17 or lower

The target is cured

Initial Effect The target feels out of breath. At the start of combat in any passage less than two squares wide, the target suffers a -5 penalty to initiative.

The target believes it is Large sized and cannot enter any space less than two squares wide. If the target ends up in such a space, it becomes dazed.

Final State The target is catatonic and unable to take actions.

Caldera: Caste Benevor

2010-06-19T03:42:41Z

I still owe a rewrite of Magic, but that will be tomorrow. Today, I talk of the Benevor caste.

Merchants and Artisans

The Benevor ("good men") caste is comprised of two groups: the Fiasi ("Makers") and the "Ventheros" ("Sellers"). The Fiasi are the only citizens who can buy permits to build and make things. The Ventheros are the only people allowed to buy and sell large quantities of goods, own stores, and import and export goods.
Benevor caste members tend to be skilled laborers and they tend to come from a dozen or two large and wealthy mercantile families, operated much like guilds, but much more like an olden-day Mafia. However, individual members don't necessarily share their family's wealth and are expected to prove themselves without help from the family. Also, only a small percentage of a guild are actually members of that family, and those family members tend to fill the leadership positions.

Each individual guild has its own requirements, but they all tend to have some variation of these four rules:

Your first allegiance is to the family/guild.
Obey the rules of the guild at all costs.
Do not make or sell inferior merchandise.
Maximize profits.

Rules for D&D 4E

Each caste and group has its own caste benefit, which replaces a character background (the way Forgotten Realms' regional benefits replace a character background, as described in the Player's Handbook 2).

Magicforger: You are a member of the mercantile Benevor caste. Through your family, you have access to fine magic items. Whenever you level up, you may trade in a magic item for one a level higher but within the same magic item slot (armor, weapon, gloves, etc.).

Feared: You are a member of the mercantile Benevor caste. People fear your name. You gain a +4 on all Intimidate checks.

Caldera: Magic

2010-06-17T19:48:46Z

The world has always had magic in it, but not a lot. Often, when people gathered for some great cause, when they wanted something with all their hearts, miracles happened. They thanked their gods and goddesses for these miracles, and made great sacrifices in their names, so that the next time they needed to call upon their divine protectors, their prayers would be heard.

When people began to build great cities, the magic got stronger. It took many centuries for the scholars to figure out that there was something besides the divine at work--and, really, the debate rages on. The leading theories explain that masses of people living close together releases magical power from the earth. This is partly true.

The entire truth is that most large cities today are built upon powerful amplifiers of magic. When the earth was formed, giant clusters of crystals formed deep underground. Over time, people happened to build cities near these crystals. They built cities in other places, too, but given a magical city and a mundane city, which do you think has the best chance to survive the tests of time?

Today, the largest cities are built on great amplifiers. Caldera is built on one of the largest, and one of the most exposed. Its crystal caverns sit a few hundred feet beneath the lowest levels of the city, and magical water surges through them and gurgles up through the rock and then down the falls of High Caldera to form the Cerul River.

Caldera's magic is strongest in the lowest levels of Minotaur (the oldest part of the city, buried deep under layers of new construction). It remains potent within the city itself, and sharply weakens in the farmlands inside the crater. Outside the walls, the magical effect recedes to nothingness.

The powerful forces created by the magical feedback loop in Caldera have created two new universes: the plane of nightmare, where your worst fears come alive, and the plane of reflection, which connects every one of the city's shiny mirrors.

Magic in D&D

The strange rules of magic affect D&D 4E characters and monsters in interesting ways.

Proximity

Character level is affected by proximity to the city. In general, characters have levels over 1st only when they're in or near the city.

The magic in the heart of Minotaur is so strong, PCs gain 10 temporary hit points if they take a brief rest there. Leaving the city for more than a day causes temporary loss of one character level, which is restored after a full rest in the city. Leaving the crater entirely causes the loss of one character level per day until the character reaches 1st level.

Power Sources

All power sources are magical. That is, player characters are magically-enhanced beings. Arcane magic is a contrived kind of magic, powered by thought and artificial constructs that wizards and the like dream up. Divine magic is similar, though more pure, in that pure thought and belief shape it. And (so far), the world has not experienced psionic magic, which is the purest way to work magic. Primal magic is a kind of reflected magic. Characters who use the primal power source draw their energy from the world around them. The martial power source is a kind of magic, too. Martial characters allow their bodies to be infused with the magic around them.

Monsters

Many monsters and most high-power NPCs would not exist without the enhancement of magic. Creatures and people who have left the city all know that their power depends on staying in the city, or at least the crater.

Monsters are constructs from people's nightmares. If the masses get excited and frightened of the rumor of some kind of night stalker, their terror can amplify the magic and create terrible night stalker monsters. When those monsters murder people, the populace becomes more frightened, and the greater fear makes those monsters stronger. Only strong action of brave individuals can destroy the monsters and calm the people.

Cosmology and Planes

The cosmology of Caldera's universe is relatively simple. There's the earth and its universe. The earth has pockets of magic caused by crystal, and the magical power there is magnified by the thought patterns of creatures living nearby.

Deities are not real--well, they're real only in the sense that they are creations of thought patterns of sentient creatures. They are not real people, however (at least not yet). They are ideas formed from mass agreement of their divine form. These ideas are very powerful and create effects in the world similar to those you'd expect from distant, abstract deities.

Other planes: There is a co-existent ethereal plane throughout the world, even where there is no magic, but magic is required to go there. The city's magic makes the plane of shadow real. This is a co-existent plane that exists only in the city. The astral plane does not exist (Devas share a mental link with living people, not the souls of their ancestors). There is no feywild or anything similar (Eladrin and the like do not come from there). There are only two other planes: the plane of reflection and the plane of nightmare.

Every mirror, every still pool of water, every polished steel shield is a potential portal to the plane of reflection. This is a sort of virtual world where everyone has an alter ego (with a different race, class, and level). Whenever a character enters the mirror world, the player can create a new 1st level character (and level him up independently of his main character) or choose any mirror world character he's played before (and retain the levels that character has earned on previous adventures). The plane of reflection is full of glassy corridors and mazes, and shining portals that lead out into other mirrors in the city. A very clever mirrorwalker learns how to get into locked places that happen to have mirrors in them. The catch: when you exit a mirror that you didn't enter, you remain the same as your virtual character. To be restored to your old self, you need to exit the mirror you entered.

The plane of nightmare is a horrible, twisted version of the real world. It is an agglomeration of the worst dreams and fears of the people of the city. Where Caldera is crowded, cramped, and claustrophobic, Nightmare is worse. Where the dark places of Caldera is ridden with frightening monsters, Nightmare is plagued with them. It is a kind of dark hell. Sometimes people get dragged into the plane of nightmare at night by their own guilty consciences. Some people learn to use Nightmare as a way to face their fears and remove curses. There's a tenuous connection between that plane and the real world, and scholars are only beginning to understand the practical uses of it.

Caldera: Politics vs. Government

2010-06-17T19:39:40Z

I realize that I asked you if you wanted to hear about Caldera's politics, and then I fed you a bunch of stuff about Caldera's government. I know the difference. I just forgot what I was supposed to be writing.

Part of the problem is that it's hard to talk about the politics without the government. Government is the structure and politics is what's happening in the structure and how people are using that structure to achieve their agendas.

The rest of the problem is that I am a creature of abstraction, an INTP by Meyers-Briggs description. "If I just sketch out the boundaries and write down the rules, the details will be obvious." Well, the details aren't always obvious.

This is where it's important that I define my goals and audience. If I'm just creating a game setting for my personal use, abstract is fine. I can fill in the details when I run this thing. Why post in LJ then? Well, it creates a sort of accountability for moving forward and it gives me a sounding board.

However, I'm creating a game setting for eventual publication, so my readers will want specifics. I think the specifics make a setting engaging, so I need to create them.

Describing politics is tricky. Paragraphs of text will not best convey the complex machinations of people and factions. I think some lists of people and their primary goals or alliances, combined with some relationship maps, can better convey the political situation in Caldera.

Caldera: Caste Kura

2010-06-17T02:19:19Z

This is continuation of my discussion of Caldera's social castes, which I started with Caste Arima. In Caldera, people are born into social castes, distinct strata that are nearly impossible to change: warriors & leaders (nobles), mages & priests (scholars), merchants and artisans (skilled labor), and workers and farmers (unskilled labor). This is a look at Caste Kura.

Priests and Mages

The Kura caste is comprised of two groups: the Chantos ("Those Who Pray") and the Oribili ("Circle-Drawers"). The Chantos are the only people legally permitted to hold a priestly position in one of the temples, and the Oribili are the only people allowed to study arcane magic in the Temple of Mysteries. Note that divine and arcane spellcasters of all types exist outside the Kura cast, but they must hide their magic.

Upon reaching adulthood, members of the Kura caste (whether they command magical power or not) swear an Oath, with four tenants:

I shall use my power to the better of the city.
I shall never use my power to harm the city.
I shall use my power to protect the city.
I shall hunt down those who misuse their power.

Rules for D&D 4E

Each caste and group has its own caste benefit, which replaces a character background (the way Forgotten Realm regional benefits replace a character background, as described in the Player's Handbook 2).

Oathbound: You are a member of the priestly Chantos caste (Kura). You have sworn an oath to protect the city. As long as you do not break this oath, your spells have greater power. Once per day, force an opponent to reroll a saving throw. If you break your oath, you lose this power until you atone and become right with your Temple (at the DM's discretion).

Binder: You are a member of the wizardly Oribili caste (Kura). You have sworn an oath to protect the city. As long as you do not break this oath, your rituals have greater power. Your effective level for casting rituals is one level higher. If you break your oath, you lose this power until you atone and become right with Caste Kura (at the DM's discretion).

Elements of a D&D Setting

2010-06-15T18:54:38Z

So, unless you've been in a dark cave (or you've clicked on a link that miraculously brought you to my blog), you know that I'm working on a new fantasy setting, Caldera. I thought I'd change things up and not talk about Caldera for a bit. I want to talk about creating settings, in general -- specifically, creating settings for D&D.

I fibbed. I'm going to use examples from Caldera to illustrate some points, but I promise not to go into dreadful detail.

Part of creating a setting is working with the expectations of the audience. A setting will be more successful when it builds on expectations as much as possible while choosing a few memorable surprises that run counter to expectations. The creator of a D&D setting must deal not only with genre expectations, but also system expectations.

Players approach a new D&D setting as readers and as gamers. As readers, they want the setting to transport them to a wondrous place full of magic and epic stories. As gamers, they want the setting to open up exciting new avenues for play and challenge them in new ways with innovative constraints.

The most obvious path toward creating new avenues of play is character options. Every innovative D&D setting must offer unique races and classes, the staples of character generation. Settings often prohibit or limit other choices of race and class.

Because you are building on existing expectations, a designer must be careful not to go too far. Add one new race--two at most. Make sure the races and classes you add really characterize the setting. A generic race or class that doesn't support the themes of play is just noise that distracts a player from the core of the setting. For Caldera, I initially wanted to add three races: kenku (birdlike humanoids), mura (3' bipedal ratlings), and gargoyles (statues come to life). I really like kenku but they don't really belong in the setting. Rat people definitely fit into a claustrophobic city setting. The neighborhood-bonded gargoyles do, too. They stay.

Block as few existing race and class choices as possible. Eliminate them when they are the signatures of another setting. For example, the kalashtar is one of the signature Eberron races, and the artificer is one of that setting's signature classes. Including one of those in your setting requires a strong justification; is your setting too similar to that other one? You also can eliminate setting elements when doing so is a powerful thematic statement. For example, in my Caldera setting, I eliminate all the psionic classes, because the psionic power source doesn't exist.

Don't feel you have to create brand new races and classes. Races are easy but creating a new class is arduous and complex. Offer alternatives to a class's main powers to give it a new twist. It's much easier to tweak an existing class than to create one from whole cloth. For example, Calderan ratlings are just kobolds, stat-wise.

Changes to races and classes may be the strongest mechanical statement you can make with your setting material, but there are many other rule changes that can convey your setting's ideas. You can mess with the alignment system, how combat or healing works, or even the composition of the universe. Caldera's world has a unique planar topology that eliminates the astral plane and introduces two new planes (Nightmare and Reflection). But don't go overboard, especially with changes to rules (like combat): a little change here goes a long way. Creating new equipment items is an easy way to make a big impact on a world with little risk.

In summary, when you create a D&D setting, you have an opportunity to alter the rules to enforce your setting's themes and ideas. Do so carefully and deliberately. Don't add rules material just because it seems cool. Make a list of the core ideas of your world and bounce every new idea for a rule change against those ideas. If it doesn't fit, alter it till it fits or toss it out.

Caldera: Geography (part 2)

2010-06-15T15:02:21Z

Caldera was not a planned city. Its roads wind around the small cone and the bumpiest terrain inside the crater. Still, there are some key geographic features obvious to anyone who studies the city.

Superstructure

The city has two main sections. High Caldera is the part of the city built on the flat top of the small cone. Beneath and all around High Caldera is Low Caldera, though everyone just calls it Caldera.

This much larger part of the city is almost perfectly round except for a slice cut out of it where the Cerul River runs. It's a truly unnatural river, originating at a gushing spring in High Caldera, running down a series of falls and out of the city, through the farm land in the crater, and eventually through a series of canyon tunnels that let the water escape out of crater entirely. The river eventually runs into the western sea. The buildings along the river are cut in a stepped "V" pattern, as the owners of the land closer to the river have been able to prevent buildings over top of theirs.

A City of Layers

The top layer of the city is the newest and most miraculous in many ways. It contains many large temple complexes, streets lined with impressive manors and homes, giant statues, all sorts of towers, and numerous arenas and amphitheaters.

Beneath these layers is not solid ground, but seven other layers of buildings. Each layer is usually one story, but often two or three. It's misleading to think of the city in eight perfect layers. There are buildings which reach from the bottom to the top. Sometimes roads just descend into lower levels and you barely realize it. Other times, you need to take a ramp, stair, or elevator to reach another level.

With few exceptions, the streets of Caldera are very narrow--usually around 5 feet wide, and the side alleys usually around 2-3 feet wide. Space is at a premium and it was not wasted on streets. The streets are also not very straight. They wind around hills or buildings and cut off abruptly where someone decided to build a new structure. People generally know the maze of their local neighborhood, can get around the areas nearby, and get totally lost anywhere else. In the poorest areas, people cut through houses to get around more conveniently; this is an accepted way of life.

In the lowest levels, there is no natural light. To get around, people carry magical light sticks, which are plentiful (torches are frowned upon, for fear of starting fires). Some streets have permanent lights, though there are monsters that seem to feed on them regularly. Higher up, many streets have open plazas that get sunlight, casting everywhere else in a hazy, dusty dimness. Only on the uppermost level do people enjoy full sunshine.

Neighborhoods

There are hundreds of distinct, small neighborhoods, each with its own name. Few of them are worthy of mention. A handful do stand out, however.

Cerulside is the mile and a half of terraced land along the Cerul River. This is the most choice real estate in the city, owned by the richest and most powerful families. Hundreds of years ago, the Arima caste kicked the tanners and smiths and other craftsmen off the river and built their villas here. (The craftsmen now get their water piped into their shops and factories, or they have shops on the many underground canals, far away from the quiet river.) Every building in Cerulside has full sunlight, because of the way it's terraced all the way down to the river.

Gold is another rich neighborhood. When Cerulside filled up, the rest of the elite moved topside. Considered gauche compared to the old money of the riverfront, Gold is still one of the best neighborhoods in Caldera. The homes here often exceed Cerulside's in size and grandeur. Incidentally, Gold is so-named not for the money here, but for the sunlight (the true gold of the city).

Tursala, named for Tursa, the Torchbearer, goddess of light, is a temple district that reaches from the top of the city to the lowest levels, where its original temple complex was built. These top layers are filled with temples, colleges, dormitories, and the like. The temple of Tursa sits in the center of the neighborhood, its 100-foot-high torch filling the area with light every night.

Minotaur is the scariest neighborhood in Caldera, sitting at the lowest levels near the city's center. It has become known for being plagued with monsters, which the inhabitants try to kill or contain. People say that magic is strongest there and it warps everyone who lives in it. The streets are especially maze-like here and visitors often get confused and lost.

This is just a sample of the city's notable neighborhoods.

Caldera: Geography (part 1)

2010-06-15T02:09:08Z

The city of Caldera is an enormous, "stacked" city built around a small, secondary cone of an enormous, dormant volcano crater. Before history, a volcano exploded violently, blowing off the top three-fourths of the mountain. Much of it collapsed in on itself, leaving a fairly flat plain inside the crater. Over time, a smaller volcanic cone grew inside the crater (a bit off center). A few thousand years ago, Tarisian horse nomads built a fortress here and over time this grew into the megacity called Caldera.

Outside the Crater

Caldera's crater sits in the middle of a large isthmus called the Sea Bridge, which connects the northern and southern continents. The Gold Road hugs the morning shadow of the Liuven Mountains, the north-south range that Caldera's dormant volcano belongs. The Sea Bridge has a very well-kept road of stone that crosses the mountains from sea to sea, passing right by Caldera.

Caldera sits at a temperate latitude. The winters are very cold. The summers are hot. The protected seas to the east and west of the city do little to moderate the climate. The land around the caldera is a mix of rocky, mountainous terrain and forest-covered hills.

The crater is a quarter of a mountain, most of its top destroyed long before history. It's about 7 miles across, with a jagged ring of peaks forming the crater wall. The top of this ring is fortified with towers and a wall, largely invisible to people on the ground. Guards make regular patrols, but it's impossible to keep dedicated people from climbing the walls. The patrols are meant to stop armies.

Five long switch-backs wind back and forth up the steep slopes of the outer caldera walls, which stand at least 2000 feet high. Each terminates at a different tunnel about half the way up the mountain face. The tunnels are protected by very old, very strong gatehouses, manned 24 hours a day by guards. Each gatehouse has a permanent garrison of soldiers assigned. It is nearly impossible to get into the crater without passing through these tunnels, unless one wants to scale a thousand feet of icy, rocky cliffs. Visitors pay a toll to enter the crater.

Inside the Crater

The tunnels emerge at ground level inside the crater. Visitors are often surprised by what they find inside. Regardless of the weather outside, inside the crater, it always seems to be warm. It may not be sunny and clear and it often rains and sometimes even snows in Caldera, but the temperature rarely dips below 60F or reaches over 80F.

Most of the crater is covered with about 18,000 acres of terraced farmland and small forests and lakes. There are small manorial villages scattered around the crater to service the farms.

The city, built around a small volcanic cone, is clearly visible from every point in the crater. It is an overgrown thing, almost a single structure with every building connecting to every other building, in an organic stack of at least eight layers. Some very tall buildings and monuments stick out the top. The outer edge of the city cuts off abruptly, eight stories high, as ancient laws forbid building more than about 1.5 miles from the city's center. For this reason, the city is almost perfectly round, too.

There are a few main city gates, but there are thousands of ways to get into the city. Caldera depends on the volcano walls to protect it.

Tomorrow: Inside the city!

Caldera: Races

2010-06-13T19:42:35Z

This is a look at the races of Caldera. By "races," I mean D&D races, not cultures, though I think the two go hand-in-hand and probably ought to be considered together. I'll tackle these alphabetically from the core rulebooks, but Humans get to go first, out of order. Also, I might mention a couple races from sources outside the core rulebooks.

In general, I have never felt that I needed to allow players every possible rules option into my fantasy settings. But then dikaiosunh pointed out that I wouldn't be able to play my beloved cardinal kenku in most DMs' worlds, and that struck a chord with me. Now I endeavor to at least accommodate the more unusual race choices, even if they're not established cultural icons.

Things ahead to watch for: gargoyles and ratlings as PCs, the dual nature of all elves...

Permitted Races

The main races of Caldera are humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves, and kenku. Elves include eladrin (each individual has an elf and eladrin nature that comes out at different times). Half-elves are about the same as usual. Dwarves include gnomes, which are a slave subrace. The kenku (bird humanoids) existed on earth before the magic of the city started warping races.

Caldera offers a few new character races. Most notably players can choose gargoyle as a race. Gargoyles are statues come to life. They maintain a strong bond to their original neighborhood, protecting it for the rest of their life. Another new race is Mura, or ratlings. Every city has rats. Caldera's rats are overgrown and have magically mutated into an walking, talking race.

Dragonborn, changelings, and orcs are not uncommon. They're mutated versions of dwarves, elves, and humans, respectively. The orcs just use half-orc stats, but no one calls them half-orcs.

Players can choose most other races, but they're unique individuals in the city. It'd be unlikely to see two devas in Caldera. Or two genasi or duergar. These individuals are considered to be magical mutations of some other race, forged in the depths of the city, and possibly considered a monster by its parents. Devas are not astral creatures in Caldera; instead of a connection to thousands of other deva, they have a connection with the living people of Caldera.

Caldera prohibits some races entirely. Kalashtar, in particular, do not fit into the city. Goliaths do not exist, but you can play a large gargoyle and be almost exactly the same as a goliath. Warforged do not exist, either, but if you want to play a living construct, play a Goliath. Half-orcs exist, but they're called orcs. See the chart below for a list of common races listed in many of the 4E sources, and the status of each in Caldera.

Permitted Races Chart

Race	Source*	Status**
Humans	PHB	base race
Changeling	PHB2	mutated race
Deva	PHB2	individuals
Dragonborn	PHB	mutated race
Drow	FRPG	individuals
Duergar	PHB	individuals
Dwarf	PHB	base race
Eladrin	PHB	base race, see Elf
Elf	PHB	base race
Gargoyle	original	individuals
Genasi	FRPG	individuals
Githzerai	PHB3	prohibited
Gnome	PHB2	base race, see Dwarf
Goliath	PHB2	prohibited, but see Gargoyle
Half-Elf	PHB	base race, see Elf
Half-Orc	PHB2	see Orc
Halfling	PHB	individuals
Kalashtar	EPG	prohibited
Kenku	MM2	base race
Mura (Ratling)	MM	mutated race
Orc	MM	mutated race
Shifter	PHB2	individuals
Tiefling	PHB	individuals
Warforged	EPG	prohibited, but see Gargoyle
Wilden	PHB3	individuals

* Sources include the Player's Handbook (PHB), Player's Handbook 2 (PHB2), Player's Handbook 3 (PHB3), Monster Manual (MM), Monster Manual 2 (MM2), Forgotten Realms Player's Guide (FRPG), and Eberron Player's Guide (EPG).

** Base races are true races in the setting and existed in some form before city magic created new races. Mutated races are magically changed forms of base races. Prohibited races do not exist at all in this setting, though often there is a suitable replacement. "Individuals" means that while there is no race of these creatures, there might be one or two unique individuals who have this race's qualities (with the permission of your DM and friends).

Caldera: Musings

2010-06-12T19:15:40Z

I'm playing with the idea of introducing Wuxia -- really Quinggong, the Chinese flying and jumping thing (popularized by the wire fu of many films, such as The Matrix). Most of Caldera's streets are only 5 feet wide, and my imagination immediately jumps to PCs bouncing up the close walls, back and forth. I reimagine the Eladrin fey step as an advanced leap, not a teleport. What if all PCs had this ability to some extent, letting them jump upward along wall faces as regular movement? Caldera has some pretty unique terrain and I want to encourage players to take advantage of it.

A lot of my ideas from Metrocalypse are getting recycled, too. In Metrocalypse, a real-world city gets sucked into a savage D&D world. Normal, everyday people start transforming and exhibiting magical powers. This is a justification for races and classes. In Caldera, many of the races and classes already existed, but the city's magic turned up the volume and flooded the world with monsters. I'm tempted to say that Caldera's world has a limited number of fantasy races, and the rest are magical mutations. That way, I don't have to create a government and culture for a race that I'd just as soon eliminate from the setting, and I don't have to tell a player they can't play a gnome, because normally I hate them; oddly, though, Caldera seems to wants 4E gnomes and 3E gnomes, so we'll see what happens.

I'm creating a new character race, Gargoyle. It subsumes the role of Goliaths (MM2), Warforged (Eberron), and Minotaurs (Dragon #369). They're literally city statues come to life, and they always have a strong bond with their home neighborhood. There will be a small, medium, and large racial option. The small gargoyle gets a limited version of stone form (see MM2), which confers minor damage resistance and regeneration. The medium gargoyle gets goring charge (see Minotaur). The large gargoyle gets the normal Goliath abilities.

A cool idea about elves fighting their savage, horse nomad roots. Choose either Eladrin or Elf as your race. Whenever you retrain between levels, switch if you want! Swaps all your racial bonuses, abilities, powers, etc.

Dark fantasy fiction

2010-06-12T03:45:46Z

Hey, a post about something other than Caldera!

My wife (stephdray) just published a short (4-page) story in Dark Valentine Magazine. Her 4-page story is buried deep in the magazine, but you can read it here: The Threshing Floor.

Steph writes under two pen names.

As Stephanie Draven, she writes paranormal romance. Her stories so far (all part of her Mythica series) explore the lives of war-torn people who find themselves being transformed into (totally human versions of) monsters from Greek mythology. In her first eBook novella, a young woman realizes that when she carves statues of the war criminals who killed her family, they die. She's become a modern medusa. Steph has two electronic novellas out right now, and her first paperback due out this Fall. Another paperback in her Mythica series hits the shelves some time next year, and she has just secured a contract to write two more novella eBooks. All of these are under the Harlequin Nocturne label. I enjoyed reading them, so it's not just girl stuff. ;)

Under her real name, she writes historical fiction. Steph sold two books to Berkley Publishing: Lily of the Nile and Sorceress of the Nile. The first explores the early life of Cleopatra Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra and Marc Antony. Selene was captured by her parents' murder, Octavian (Augustus Caesar), who forced her and her brothers to live with his own family. What a weird dysfunctional family! The second book gets into her life as a young adult after she's manipulated Octavian into making her Queen of Mauretania. Lily of the Nile (tentative cover shown at right) will be in bookstores in January 2011. Sorceress of the Nile is still in draft.

Caldera: Adventures

2010-06-12T02:11:43Z

So there's this enormous city, right? And it's like, in the crater of a gigantic, ancient, dormant volcano. And the city blocks are stacked atop each other -- I mean, the oldest streets are like black tunnels under seven layers of newer buildings -- because the city planning officials want to get as many people living as close together as possible. Are they sadists or something? Probably, but that's not why they do it. Thousands of years ago, they figured out that lots of people living in close proximity created magic. Welcome to Caldera.

Caldera is a points of light setting. The city is a kind of dangerous wilderness. Stick to the main roads and public areas, and if you don't have many enemies, you'll probably be safe. Still, you'll have to avoid pickpockets and gangs like every other citizen does. Some sections of the city -- especially the dark recesses buried deep under the newer layers of the city -- get forgotten and abandoned and occupied by awful things, and adventure can lead PCs into danger. At night, the city streets are prowled by monsters and wise citizens shut themselves indoors. Brave adventurers often have business to attend in the dark.

What is unique about this setting?

Well, first, Caldera is a setting, not just a city. It's designed to be the only place characters really ever go. They never leave the city. And if they do, they lose their magic over days, as levels are drained from them. When they come home, they get their mojo back. To be a complete setting, it needs everything that any other D&D setting has. All the action of the game takes place in the city.

Caldera's government offers many opportunities for PC involvement. Because of the crazy, multilevel bureaucracy, there are myriad positions that a PC could fill. At the lower levels there are tax collectors, senator aids, police guards, army lieutenants, and building inspectors (for example). Seemingly mundane positions become dangerous in Caldera. At the higher levels of government are senators, executives, governors, and generals. Players are encouraged to get their characters involved in government at every level and make a change within the system. A lot of settings treat the PCs as outsiders by default. Characters in Caldera have roots, and have a stake in the politics, but can still be dwarven wizards, elven rangers, human bards, or whatever.

What do characters do in Caldera?

In general, characters do what they do in any D&D setting: explore dangerous places, kick ass, take names (and loot), and get more powerful. This is Dungeons & Dragons, dude. But the city is a giant situation generator. Every bit of "color" should be construed as potentially dangerous. It's not just a senate, it's a scheming, amoral senate. It's not just a market, it's a market full of pickpockets and con men.

One of the setting's themes is the proximity of people and danger. While D&D's points of light setting typically treats the city as the "home base" where characters are safe and can rest between trips to the dungeon, Caldera is not safe. The points of light in this setting are a friendly noble house, a guarded workshop, a quiet private library, or a fortified apartment. Furthermore, the most dangerous places in the city are still populated. Deep underground in the "crypts" (forgotten and buried city streets riddled with monsters and magical traps), people still live there. They're just trying to survive like everyone else, but their misfortune and poverty has driven them to live in parts of the city that everyone else considers "the dungeon." Imagine a dungeon crawl where you have to determine at every step who is friend and who is foe. Sure, you can just kill everyone, but what kind of hero would that make you?

There is magic in large gatherings of people. You see it in Caldera itself. Massing two million people into about 4,000 acres has awakened an ancient power, and magic affects everything in the city. This is the passive magic of Caldera. The active magic is sometimes more frightening. Watch how the arena's reality warps as a hundred thousand people cheer on a pair of gladiators locked in a deathmatch. Witness the miracle of resurrection as a large crowd mourns a fallen hero, the tears of the people becoming a kind of elixir of life. Caldera's elite rulers fear this kind of magic, because they cannot control it, and it gives the popular mob terrifying power.

Mirrors are gateways to another realm. Not long ago, the sorcerers of Caldera learned to open mirrors and step into the world behind each one. Since then, more practical wizards have harnessed mirror magic to create a network of communication glass, the fantasy equivalent of modern teleconferencing. More importantly, skilled magicians can mirrorwalk, stepping into the plane of reflection. In that strange world, everything is reflected. A character has a different race and class, and an avatar in that universe doesn't have the character's normal powers (everyone has an alter character for the mirror world, and this character starts at 1st level and advances normally in the plane of reflection, but that experience doesn't transfer to their "real world" self).

So what do characters do in Caldera? It's tempting to answer, "Anything they want!" but that doesn't help describe the Caldera fantasy setting. This is a list of some ideas around which a DM could build an entire campaign.

Gauntlet of Beads

The city needs new leadership. You are all members of one of the smaller Arima (noble) families, and the head of the family wants to put you into the senate. Of course, to be eligible for the senate, a candidate must first complete the Gauntlet of Beads, a course of political, religious, and military service over many years. You, with help from your friends and family, must build political strength, face down dangerous enemies, deal with blackmail and espionage, and do good works in the city. Impress key members of the senate, and you could join their ranks and solidify your family's power in the city.

Crypt Wardens

As the city piles higher and higher on top of itself, the oldest places get covered over. Even in the daytime, no sunlight touches the cobblestones of some streets. These areas are still inhabited, but not always by people. These poorest of the city's inhabitants have no place to bury their dead. The city's magic has begun reanimating corpses and angry spirits haunt the darkest areas. The temple of the Torchbearer assigns teams of aid workers (led by a priest) to help the unfortunate people down there.

Silver Swords

Your Kura-caste family has a mercantile tradition of a hundred generations. As long as you can remember, you have had the exclusive charter to produce weapons for the Calderan Guard. Recently, your iron mines have come under attack, and you can't meet the senate's production orders. You're sure that a rival family must be behind the assaults. The head of your family assigns you to stop the attacks before the senate gives the charter to someone else.

Avenue of Thieves

You are junior members of an organized crime gang, the Avenue of Thieves. You've mostly stuck to a "protection" racket in a few blocks of the city, but your boss wants to branch out. You'll be muscling in on the territory of some rival gangs and they will meet you with violence.

Chains and Pain

Often strong slaves are forced into gladiator schools and forced to fight for the entertainment of Caldera's citizens. Originally from a small village outside Caldera, you were captured and trained as a gladiator. Since you've been in the city, you and your fellow warriors have been... changing... in odd ways, growing in power and skill faster than anyone has ever seen. Make a name for yourself in the arena! There is glory in death and victory! Perhaps you can earn enough money to buy your freedom.

Caldera: Politics

2010-06-10T20:51:06Z

The politics of Caldera are complex, seedy, and corrupt. Gather two million people together in a cramped city and people will seize power over other people. Politics concerns itself rights, privileges, and benefits. These are the commodities that are traded by people or groups in power. To understand Caldera's politics, you need first to understand its people, their traditions, and the power structures.

Historical Summary

Tarisians (nomadic elven horse traders) settle Aefex for protection.
Tarisians rule by council.
Neighboring dwarven city-state conquers city, renames it Boirnhemme.
Dwarves place it under a governor and the laws of The Hundred Stone Tablets.
Dwarves also brought a family-vocation system.
Governor became a hereditary monarchy, and became abusive.
Elite families rose up and forced the creation of a ruling senate.
Governorship weakened, became a senate-appointed position.
Human king conquered Boirnhemme, renamed it Caldera.
King needed senate families, shared power with them, enjoyed a golden age.
Died without designating an heir. His children tore each other apart till his teenage daughter won.
City became corrupt as families fought for power.
City crossed a crucial size threshold and social structures began to fall apart.

Caldera's People

Caldera has been conquered several times. Each time, a different group took over and imposed its own culture and laws on the city's people. Each time, the native people struggled to keep their own culture and laws alive, and had a great deal of success at this. Thus Caldera is a hodge-podge of ideas from different cultures, and the government is a meld of ideas from different times and different people.

The Tarisians--the founders of Caldera--were nomadic elven horse traders. They valued freedom and mobility and only settled down in the Caldera crater for protection from the increasingly violent city-states that were expanding their empires. Their city Aefex was ruled by a council of elders, not a god-king or emperor like their neighbors. Even as Aefex grew into a huge, fortified mercantile city, this council remained.

When the dwarves successfully invaded Aefex, they put the city under their written code of laws, The Hundred Stone Tablets. They put a dwarven governor at the head of the city, but left the council in charge of operating the city. The governor had supreme veto power, but for political reasons, rarely used it. The dwarves also brought their family system, which neatly categorized different vocations and duties into distinct family units.

The city prospered this way for thousands of years, growing to enormous size under the dwarven watch, but the power of the council dwindled until they were no more than public works officials. All power rested in the hands of the governor, who was like a king here. His power even passed down through generations via the original governor's bloodline. The governor's ties to nearby city-state empires was a formality that was officially cut (and no other city was powerful enough to do anything about it). The governorship became more and more abusive.

Eventually, the powerful families of the city rose up and demanded representation and control of their city. The governor then was a weak man, Yarius IV, who caved to the pressures of the elite (and escaped with his life). The noble classes instituted a senate, comprised of one delegate from each powerful family (both dwarves and some elves). These became the Korinia, or "crowned," who ruled the city as a group. The governorship remained for a while as a sort of vestigial monarch with few powers, but those powers eroded over the decades that followed. The senate eventually reigned supreme.

When Ulthix II, King of Rhothes (a human empire), conquered Aefex (then called Boirnhemme by the dwarves), he needed the support of the senatorial families, who controlled commerce and every other aspect of the city. Though he desperately wanted to banish the senate and rule the city with no equal, he ceded much power back to the elite families and found ways to make them even more wealthy and powerful through trading agreements and arranged marriages with powerful families in other large cities. This cemented his power for the rest of his life.

During the 30-year reign of Ulthix II, the city (now named Caldera) flourished. This was a period of peace, economic growth, and intellectual curiosity... a golden age of learning and wisdom. There are some notable blemishes on this record. Ulthix's people brought institutionalized slavery to the city. They also codified the thousands of dwarven and elven families into various taxation strata, and these became today's castes, which are often used to subjugate the poor.

Ulthix II died without designating an heir, and his eight children (aged between 12 and 30) engaged in the worst kind of murder and betrayal imaginable in an attempt to secure the throne. The 15-year-old daughter, Vinala, had powerful allies--really, members of the Korinia caste who thought they could use her as a puppet monarch. She killed off most of her siblings and took the crown. Over the next five years, entire Korinia families were beheaded by Queen Vinala, who obviously understood when people were manipulating her. The city continued to grow under Vinala, but the elite families vied for the power trickling down off the throne.

Over the next 500 years, Caldera grew in size and power, but it also fell apart internally. The city crossed some kind of crucial threshold. There were too many people forced to live too close together. The city was basically too large and too populous to govern effectively under the existing system, and no one at the top wanted to change things. The upper echelons of the government were concerned mainly with their own wealth and power and the lower castes were pressured to work harder and longer.

That's where the city is today. It's ripe for revolution, really, but the elite families keep an iron fist around the necks of the lower classes.

Power Structure Summary

Caste Arima is comprised of the Korinia ("crowned" ruling class) and Quaros ("horsed" military class), all of which come from eight of the original ruling families.
- Arima exclusively comprises the senate.
- Korinia owns the wealth, and the means of production.
- Quaros controls the military.
Caste Benevor controls all the merchants and craftsmen.
- They're like organized crime families or guilds.
- They work within the law, or at least within the Arima power structure.
A criminal underworld works outside the law.
Caste Servilla (the common people) are powerful only when they're a mob.
- They have one legitimate means of dissent: a Tribune of the People.
Caste Kura consists of families of priests, scholars, and mages.
- They control the magic of the city.
- Kura members mostly have individual power, but family power is growing.

Caldera's Power Structures

Today, political power rests in five main groups: traditional ruling families, the military families, the merchant families, the criminal underworld, and the will of the masses. There were 64 original senators, representing the 64 elite families who opposed Yarius IV. Most of those families have dwindled away without heirs, combined through marriage, been executed by angry monarchs, left the city entirely, or lost their noble titles somehow. Eight elite families remain, though there are many distinct branches of each family.

The eight elite families and their branches occupy Caste Arima. Some are considered Korinia ("crowned" members eligible for senatorial positions) and the rest are Quaros ("horsed" members eligible for high officer positions in the military). There is some fluidity between the Korinia and Quaros, and each elite family has branches in both caste groups.

Korinia holds almost all the "deep" wealth in the city. They own the land. They own land in other cities. They own buildings, and giant mercantile companies, and fleets of ships. In short, they control the means of making money, and they will never let go of it willingly. These families uniquely hold the ability to enter the senate, the body that makes all the laws of the city. This group tends to be very financially conservative: they hate change because things are good. New laws further strengthen their existing positions and make them more money. New laws further subjugate the lower castes and protect elite interests. They create these laws without pretext or embarrassment, for they believe themselves to be the inheritors of the city to which all things are owed.

Quaros holds all the military power in the city. The military is less a vehicle for expanding an empire, and more a means to secure the city, prevent hostile take-over, and protect city interests such as trade routes. Caldera will send armies to protect allied cities when doing so is beneficial. The group's main political power is supporting Korinia's right to rule. This creates an obvious tension between Quaros and Korinia, but the groups have so many blood ties that infighting is usually avoided. Besides, the Arima Code starts with Blood is heavier than gold, an edict that has held Korinia and Quaros together for centuries (perhaps millennia, since the phrase is probably dwarven in origin).

Even though Arima holds the ultimate means of production, the Benevor caste holds all of the mercantile power, all of the craft. The makers and sellers of Benevor are also focused into powerful families, which much resemble modern-day organized crime families. They carefully guard their craft secrets and trade contracts and violently strike out against other families that encroach upon their territory. Contrasted with the peace of Arima, Benevor families are constantly fighting one another. Arima plays on this, helping sow disagreements between families to keep them from getting powerful enough to challenge the senate. The families of this caste seek to forge alliances with senators that will gain their families favor and positions of power in the city. They seek new laws that will help them gain monopolies of trade. Ultimately, many seek to rise up to rule the city themselves, but such talk is dangerous.

The criminal underworld has always existed but only in the last 50 years has it become a real power in the city. There are numerous secret groups that fight for power. These groups differ from the Benevor families in several crucial ways. First, they're not organized around blood ties. Second, where Benevor operates largely within the law (or at least with the blessing of the Korinia to break the law), the criminal underworld has no care for Calderian law and violates it in the worst ways: arson, consorting with demons, murder of senators, and so on.

The fifth main group of power, much overlooked by the other groups, is the common people. While individual members of the Servilla (unskilled laborer) caste have almost no rights, the other castes greatly fear the mob. Riotous groups must have a great deal of power, for whenever the Servilla grab stones and torches and march in the streets, the Quaros crush them down under their heel. While the Servilla want more rights and control over their lives, most believe they belong in that life, though a few dream wildly of complete freedom from the oppression of the upper castes. The right leader could organize the mob into a dangerous army, if that leader can overcome the caste's sense of servility and anti-violence. Of course, the slaves of the city, who are not considered a part of Caste Servilla, don't share the caste's ideals, and occasionally rebel until they're crushed under the city's boot. Recently the senate recognized a new office, the Tribune of the People, who interdicts in matters important to the populace. The senate feels that this concession serves as a steam valve that lets off popular pressure.

There is one final group that is growing in strength: Caste Kura, the mages and priests. Caldera is a city steeped in magic, though much of that power is not well understood or harnessed. As the learned class of the city gathers more information about the mystic power that permeates everything in Caldera, they become more powerful. Traditionally, most of this power has been individual in nature. Strong wizards and priests forge personal alliances with other powerful groups and thus firm their positions in the city. Lately, the families of the Kura caste have been growing in political power, manipulating things with backroom deals, espionage and blackmail, and as usual, bribery. Kura internally struggles with a drive for political power versus a drive for magical power.

Government Summary

The Senate rules everything.
- Senators are chosen by Arima family heads.
- The Gauntlet of Beads (a course of service in four different magisterial posts) determines senate eligibility.
The Exen Praema is an executive governor, reporting to the senate.
- The Praema has four Exen who oversee Coins, Architects, Walls, and Police.
- The Exens have Devens who govern neighborhood wards.
There are two official courts, plus a Holy Court.
- The High Court tries crimes against the city and against senators.
- The Low Court tries crimes against everyone else.
- People are expected to bring criminals to justice. Police don't do this.
The Tribune of the People is elected once a year to protect common people.
- The Tribune is resurrected if he dies during service.
- The Tribune can veto anyone but the senate and the Exen Praema.
There are countless levels of bureaucracy at every strata of government.
Life is made difficult by taxes, permits, stamps, and the like.

Caldera's Government

The city is governed by a senate of 64 members, chosen by the heads of the eight families of the Arima. Often a family will trade one of its eight senate seats for a year or two in exchange for favors. By tradition, one makes himself eligible for the senate by serving in four different magisterial posts. This service is called the Gauntlet of Beads, for the ornately carved beads that signify various offices. There are many different posts to choose from, but each senatorial candidate tries to serve in at least one military post, one political post, and one religious post.

This governor, called the Exen Praema, executes the will of the senate and answers to no one else. He or she manages four lower Exens (Overseer of Coins, Overseer of Architects, Overseer of Walls, and Overseer of Police) and they manage their areas by dividing responsibilities into city wards, each run by a Deven (of Coins, of Architects, of Walls, or of Police), which is a glorified manager.

There is a High Court that deals with crimes against the city (including crimes against members of Caste Arima) and a Low Court that deals with every other crime. While there is a police force, its main duty is protecting the city from arson, monsters, dangerous magic, and other city-affecting problems. They also serve as guards for the elite. They do not investigate crime, protect citizens from everyday threats, or make many arrests. In Caldera, if someone wrongs you, you have the right to avenge the crime, an eye for an eye. If you wish to inflict a punishment more severe than the crime they perpetrated, you have the right to arrest them yourself and take them to a court for judgment. The law empowers people to seek vengeance for crimes committed against family members or legal wards (such as are made in business agreements, like a bodyguard signing on to protect an armory). As you might expect, Caldera is a violent and dangerous place, but not so terrible that people cannot go about their lives most of the time. There's also a Holy Court, run by priests, that tries crimes of magic and punishes sins of morality.

In recent times, due to pressure from striking workers and rebelling Servilla and Benevor members, the senate recognizes an elected Tribune of the People. This person is elected once a year by popular vote (no easy feat in a crowded city of two million people!). The tribune is invested with the Magic of Caldera, which prevents his death (rather, resurrects him within a few days) during his service. The political function of the office is to protect the interest of common (non-Arima) people by intervening in legal matters on their behalf. A tribune may veto the ruling of any official except the Exen Praema or a direct senatorial decree. This veto power, combined with the tribune's invulnerability (at least until his or her term ends), protects the people from the worst excesses, though one tribune can only do so much for the city's two million citizens.

There are countless layers of bureaucracy between a common person and the upper levels of government. Daily life is plagued with taxes, tolls, papers, permits, stamps, and seals. This makes doing anything ten times more complicated, but it fills the pockets of myriad tax collectors, clerks, and magistrates. Ultimately, this fills the coffers of the city's treasury (some of that money makes it all the way to the vaults!).

Tell me what you want to know about Caldera

2010-06-10T17:55:40Z

I have started writing short articles about Caldera, my enormous fantasy city in the crater of a six-mile-wide, dormant volcano. Yesterday I added an article about one of the castes. I want to know what you want to know.

View Poll: Learn about Caldera