Nibiru Update #8 - Myth
over 5 years ago
– Fri, Dec 07, 2018 at 05:43:33 AM
Hello Vagabonds!
Lunch time update rolls in and... Look at how close we are to the first stretch goal! YAY! We'll update the KS as soon as we hit it, and we'll also get to reveal the fourth one.
Yesterday, together with @BeskarTom from @TheRpgAcademy and @rolistespod, we had a chat about the game over Twitch, which you can check out here.
Today I wanted to talk a bit about the religious traditions of the Skyless World. Now we all know the mythologies of our world came to be due to a need to find the reasons why the world is the way it is. Though myths in Nibiru were born out of the same ingenuity and curiosity, the vastly different nature of the Skyless World entails different questions, and thus different answers.
One such question is the one posed by the cults of the Age of Silence. When civilization was taking their first steps out of the vaults, a group of philosophers asked themselves: Why is it that all lifeforms can feed off of electricity, the world's nectar and its very lifeblood, while we are burned, harmed, cursed by its touch? These thinkers believed they had been shunned by Nibiru; denied the privilege of its most precious gift. That the need to consume other lifeforms to survive was a harrowing fate—a divine punishment.
This belief fostered the search for an answer, a prime reason (much like the Original Sin,) for which humanity had been cursed. It established bio-electric lifeforms as objects of worship, and saw complex machinery as a way of tricking the world into earning what they did not deserve.
These cults cemented the first ideas about the world being a living organism, one that shared the fruit of its body only with those it deemed worthy. These ideas would then evolve into the organised religion known as the Pilgrims of the Core (whom we will discuss in a future installment).
Nibiru Update #7 - The Habitat of BrightTown
over 5 years ago
– Thu, Dec 06, 2018 at 05:41:45 AM
Hello Vagabonds!
Lunch time in London is on, and the push continues! After the awesome victory of yesterday, we are now almost halfway through to our next stretch goal. Exciting times indeed :)
For all newcomers, let me remind you that we have such a thing as the Pilgrimage! This is a social contest that allows us to get out there, spread the word, at the same time netting you a series of free PDF stories, centered around a journeying caravan of Pilgrims. You can read more about it here (and I'd expect to be telling you more about the Pilgrims themselves, and religion in Nibiru, soon!).
You might know that Habitats are the archetypes of Nibiru. Generally, character creation in this game is as simple as deciding on a name, thinking about who you are in terms of look, personality and drives, and then picking one of these Habitat-thingies.
Today I wanted to address the first of our Habitats; our very own, little village of BrightTown.
BrightTown is probably the most relatable Habitat of them all. It's no wonder we used it in the Quickstart Guide, since it's not only easy to think of when writing memories, but it's also super fun to use when in a group. Since there's just one BrightTown out there, players can discuss how life was back there, how the place looked like, and how they related to each other and the rest of the townsfolk.
There is, however, a darker undertone associated with BrightTown. The Habitat itself is all about nostalgia. BrightTowners, fallen from grace into the Skyless World, have probably some of the hardest of times coping with their newfound present. Nibiru is so alien to them that it's only by seeking the lost fragments of yesterday that they can reconnect to their past.
Mechanically, BrightTowners need to find an object of their home town to remember—and this object has to feature in all their memories of the past. Some objects, however, are more important than others, and this significance is what tells you how many memories you can write based on any given object.
Once that's done, however, you need to find more relics. This opens up an avenue for character motivation, for goals and drives that can push their story forwards. Whether a skateboard that was found in a villain's hoard, or a series of pictures from BrightTown acquired by a collector in an auction, these mementos prompt cool story hooks and push the players to engage with the story.
Ultimately, as happy as the memories of BrightTown can be, the present and the future are grim—unable to return, with such a contrast between past and present, constantly clinging to the memories to find solace.
Nibiru Update #6 - FUNDED!
over 5 years ago
– Wed, Dec 05, 2018 at 10:47:29 AM
WE DID IT!
Now that the stressing part is over, in comes the fun part! We gotta keep on pushing, telling friends and people that might be interested about the project, so that we make those books as handsome as possible!
The next stretch goal is...
Once we reach it, our Corebooks will be graced with beautiful black and gold linen bookmarks! Ain't that fancy? Also, we will unveil the next, the mysterious, fourth stretch goal (!!!).
I'm super excited for you guys to know what's in store, so lets make every day count and keep retweeting, sharing, and spreading the word!
You are AWESOME, Vagabonds!
Nibiru Update #5 - Fauna
over 5 years ago
– Wed, Dec 05, 2018 at 05:47:28 AM
Vagabonds!
We are just one step away from getting funded!
Lets give it a final push so that we make the game a reality! Once that's done, we can continue on to unlock stretch goals. Make sure to hop by our Twitter and Facebook so that we can spread the word.
As you'd expect from London, it's rainy and gloomy outside today :) I'm almost done with my lunch so I wanted to talk a bit about the lifeforms of Nibiru. Some of you already know a bit about them, but I felt it was a cool thing to chat about today.
When I started working with them, I thought about life on Earth, and the resources we have in abundance (for now) here. Sunlight, grass, water. Yet in Nibiru this is not the case: metal, fuel and electric power take center place. So how could life (outside of human beings) work in the Skyless World?
Enter bio-electric life forms! These gain energy not from "food" but from the very electric power that is the lifeblood of the station. With them, I wanted to bring very basic concepts from electronics into the game, to give a broad explanation of how the biologic mechanisms of Nibiru's fauna work—and so it is that I started drawing parallels between basic components in electronics and creatures' organs and systems.
In simple terms, bioelectric lifeforms have a series of organs dedicated to storing and releasing energy. To a degree, there's an overlap here with our own bodies, since we also have electric systems within us. Bioelectric lifeforms, however, drink power straight from their source; plugging themselves in to Nibiru's infrastructure to recharge their energy.
Let's take the basic concept of the Sparkling—a small, cat-like creature that is common across most of the station. Sparklings have, like other bioelectric life forms, energy storage organs. They have different uses for that energy, dissipating it into heat, using it for their motor functions, and even as a last ditch means of defense.
Energy acquisition, however, is a bit more complex.
At the tip of their tail, you'll notice two sharp blade-like terminations. One of them leads into an "in" vein (veins in bioelectric lifeforms are used to conduct electricity) and the other is at the end of the "out" vein. The Sparkling can use those terminations to puncture a power line and hook itself onto it, with energy now coursing through them, therefore allowing them to feed.
Their bodies have, as you could guess a certain degree of resistance, meaning they can only feed from low current power lines. They do, however, have a set of organs that act specifically as a resistor while isolating the rest of the body from high power currents. This means that a group of Sparklings can hook themselves first to a power line, and then regulate current so that the rest of the pack feeds.
More complex lifeforms tend to have more nuanced interactions with the power structures of Nibiru. From Webworms, building electrified webs to trap prey, to Mermaids, feed off of the electricity found within living bodies. We'll look more into those later!
Hope you enjoyed that update! See you later Vagabonds~
Nibiru Update #4 - Society
over 5 years ago
– Tue, Dec 04, 2018 at 05:50:33 AM
Hello Vagabonds!
It's lunch time here in the UK and we are steadily climbing up to about 87% funded :) we are likely to land at our goal by the end of the week, and then we'll have the remaining three quarters of the month to grab some awesome stretch goals!
We have the Pilgrimage in place for you to help with spreading the word, but if you'd rather go straight to the source, you can definitely help us by retweeting straight from our Twitter and sharing via Facebook. All help is super appreciated, and will benefit every Vagabond out there, including you!
I wanted to talk a bit about the socio-political landscape of Nibiru. We said before that the regions of the Skyless World (Antumbra, Penumbra and Umbra) tend to condition the kind of adventures you tell. But how is it that societies differ within each region?
On Earth, the main differences between the environments wherein civilizations rise are related to access to natural resources, climate, and distance to other civilizations. The same case applies to the station, but you also have to add to it the vast difference in resource availability between Antumbra and the lands of Penumbra and beyond, as well as the artificial gravity.
The vaults of Antumbra have pretty much all needs covered for those that make a home out of them. Coupled with the fact that vaults are nigh impossible to invade, its easy to see how the city-states of Antumbra evolved under a state of abundance. It also fostered the ideas of isolationism; why would I leave the vault if I have all my needs covered, and the world outside is not particularly welcoming?
This kind of behavior induced a sort of "Galapagos syndrome" in the Antumbran population: for a big part of their history, they grew isolated and with nil interaction between one another.
The concept of trade, which came as a response of the first contact between tribes, was more about the exchange of ideas and the curiosity for what's foreign, rather than to satisfy basic needs.
Scarcity, however, was not a thing the Antumbran peoples (called the Arku) were familiar with, until they faced Penumbra.
The great challenge that Penumbra posed to humanity was that, out there, the world stopped caring for you, and so you had to care for yourself. This was, understandably, shocking—likely to be the one of the prime reasons due to which the first forays into the Outer Reaches failed.
Within a short time, however, the Enesu (the people born and raised in Penumbra) did the switch. Humanity's numb survival instincts woke up, and the great divide between the Arku and the Enesu surfaced. A divide that surely would, in little time, breed conflict.
