The Campaign Builder's Guild

Hmm, I'm a bit confused on how the Yghreb work still. The fact that their is a unified culture combined with the fact that they change so quickly and efficiently, seems like a paradox.

There's really nothing to say that they can't have a multiple cultures - look at humans in every setting - especially with their penchant for change. Northern Yghreb and southern Yghreb could radically different in everything - language, culture, religion, appearance.

But I think you should have at least one unifying factor, especially physical, that makes them a single race - however diverse - instead of them seeing like a million different mutants that have no common ground. Even if it's strange or small, like they all have red eyes, or they all have black hair, or that they only have 4 instead of 5 fingers - something strange that's hard-coded into their DNA that they cannot change. 

I'm honestly not entirely sure myself :p

I can't really give them an obvious discerning characteristic since they have to able to masquerade as humans. I think growing eyes on the back of your hand every once in a while is difficult enough to keep hidden from your human wife as is.

There'd definitely be cultural differences between Yghrebian clans and especially between the city-clans and the traditional clans.
A few different ways their adaption/evolution could work:

• Pure Adaption: Trial-by-error evolution. Freeze -> grow fur. Get hurt -> grow tougher. Outrunned -> grow faster
• Biological Theft: This idea was one of my original ideas for the Yghreb (then Melek) where they physically steal limbs, organs, eyes, whatever and insert them in themselves, assimilating them into their bodies. Warriors who lose an arm would just steal another one from the battlefield and if the liver or another organ is hurt they just swallow another one. They might even steal multiple hearts or adrenal glands. The issue with this is that they end up looking a little much like patchwork beastmen and they can't e.g. get a mantis arm (*cough* Half-a-Prayer) because it's way too tiny
• Random evolution: This would probably be in addition to one of the other ideas. Basically they just suffer from random natural mutation like humans, but at a faster pace and while still alive.
• Evolution through Association: They could simply adapt to what they see, eat and mate with. For the eating part, they'd kinda be stealing small snatches of DNA that might then appear in their random mutations later. The mating part would essentially make mating with humans a very interesting prospect for the self-destructive city-living Yghrebs, which could cause some interesting conflicts and prejudices about changeling incubus creatures and what have you.

Without wanting to go too much into the science aspect of it all, I think I will take a line from the Thing and say that the cells/tissues of these creatures are basically independent creatures (capable of working, living, dying and evolving on their own) working in concert. Would also be sorta creepy since you'd see, for instance, an Yghreb hand crawl away after being cut off and so on.
They'd primarily be going through the random evolution process, their tissue clusters dying and regrowing at an unusually swift pace. Bad alterations would be weeded out of the gene pool through natural selection of body parts in their own lifetime, while the really bad alterations would be made exempt from the gene pool by good ol' fashioned death. But now, I need some way for the city-living Yghreb to actively become more human and I think the organ-snatching idea is probably the best fit. The Yghreb might have a penchant for grave-robbing, scavenging human body parts in an effort to modify themselves.  
Also, let's give them the you-are-what-you-eat evolution as well. Creepy as fuck, but would allow them to acquire e.g. human faces (no, they wouldn't eat the face, just some flesh or something). This does bring them a little close to ghouls though, who represent a substantial part of the Besmakian post-mortem ecology, but I don't know what I could do to differentiate them further.
Last, but not least, let us say that their weird genes are oddly dominant. They can cross-breed with anything and the child is always Yghreb with some traits of the other parent thrown in. Think the eponymous creatures from the Alien films; they also acquire genetic traits from whatever they were born in. In the cities Yghrebs would be immensely interested in finding human mates.  
Ehm, so now they basically embody every taboo of the human society they are trying to blend into. Are they too nasty? Their worldview has always been about survival and the continuation of the species (whatever guise it takes) and I can see how they'd justify all these pretty abhorrent acts.

I think it'd probably be best if I just aim for a visual somewhere along the lines of heavily grafted human with the occasional set of antlers thrown in. No, they'd probably look mostly human with some canine or maybe even avian traits. Sleek perfect hunters.
I don't think they can diverge too much from the bipedal humanoid form e.g. they can't become cows through selective breeding.

On another note, they would probably live in creature ghettos like the Melhune, except above-ground. I have this idea of the human-looking Yghreb being forced to wear a badge in public to identify themselves as monsters (yes, inspired by the holocaust badges but not intended as an analogy). Also, a select member of the community would be chosen to be the community's guardian, or Fury. The Fury would be pumped full of a dozen beating hearts, grafted muscles and multiple hormonal and adrenal glands allowing them to launch themselves into a superhuman drug-fuelled rage. These furies would be extremely valuable to the often persecuted minority, but also short-tempered virile loose cannons in constant need of appeasement in the form of young Yghreb virgins and enough food to keep their heightened metabolism going.

EDIT: another necessary part of City Yghreb culture is the self-modification and -mutilation they must perform to hide their non-human traits and keep up appearances. This could involve anything from hiding slitted pupils behind optics to cutting off extra fingers. 

I have also been tinkering with them having a special biological response called a "flare" where their body (especially the evolutionary aspect of it) goes into overdrive. This typically happens when angered, scared or frustrated: the body will adapt almost instantaneously and the Yghreb will typically display certain "hidden" features. This roughly corresponds to a cat extending its claws or a frilled lizard opening its frills. An involuntary aggressive display betraying their true nature. A favorite of mine would be a krenshar-like (D&D monster) behaviour where the Yghreb pulls the skin away from the bones of his skull in a threatening manner. A secondary set of teeth is also an option. The city-yghreb would have to practice self-control.
I also imagine that the Yghreb have heighened awareness of their body and maybe even additional control, but they are also more spontaneous and instinctive creatures than humans. 

How common are the Yghreb? Are they spread thinly throughout the world, or are they in a few but concentrated pockets?

As for your 4 points, I'm leaning towards the first one. But the mention of random (read: rogue yghreb) would be cool. Like freaks of nature that are way too evolved and are extremely dangerous and powerful.

And what about the extended description?

There are quite a few on the desolate southern continent, but many have migrated to the cities of Besmakia. This is where they live in the highest concentration and where they are regulated the most. Some migrate further north where their kind is more uncommon and where it is easier to blend in. On the other hand they will probably be subject to harsher repercussions in the north if their true nature is discovered, risking being shunned or beaten

In Besmakia there'll probably be a ghetto for them in most cities and a small community in most towns, but further north you will only find them in the larger cities.

I'd be grateful if someone could give a more in-depth impression of my thoughts on the Yghreb.

Loving the concepts for the happenmen and grammarians. I think the word's fine, but I'm curious to hear more about how abstract concepts are used as weapons... whether it's more manipulation of thought or actually swinging a poem at somebody's face.

I love the general idea behind the Yghreb. Two questions: How fast do they change, under what conditions, and what else can they do? For example, fast healing is good for a shapechanger who can just squeeze wounds shut. You mentioned their bodies "learning from" what they eat and mate with. What if they actually need a sample for any anatomical trait? Or what if they can "wear" parts from other creatures. Like just picking up an arm and putting it on.

(last paragraph written while reading page one)

This is a pretty good rundown of a school of magic I've been wanting to use for ages. For the species, I can see a mix of factors being in play.

I like the idea of being able to pick up and use parts quickly. If you make regeneration a part of their schtick, that plus the genetic compatibility could easily justify this without it having to be the predominant form of mutation in the species.

I like the idea of normally more slow mutation, suited to whatever task the Yghreb most undertakes. But maybe allow minor control to happen faster? Like rearranging or reshaping facial features could be a minor trick.

I really really like the "rage" that can accelerate the process. It could probably get a lot wilder though. As in being able to break from the normal frame, grow a load of limbs, break open the jaw and swallow a cow, and other really alien/freeform things.

I also really don't think it's necessary that they stay human. Your example of one looking like a cow because that's what's on hand and grazing is the order of the day is kind of fun. The idea of a cow going into a "rage," incorporating three more cows into itself, and going on a rampage doubly so.

I like the ideas behind the furies. Both the idea of more monstrous variants existing, and the idea that they'd be a bit crazy and have to eat pretty much everything all the time.

Lastly, there's magic in the world, and no guarantee that genetics works as normal. Maybe throw some real craziness in there. Allow "traits" from inanimate objects, or occasional breaks from conservation of mass.

Quote from: Superfluous Crow
And what about the extended description?

There are quite a few on the desolate southern continent, but many have migrated to the cities of Besmakia. This is where they live in the highest concentration and where they are regulated the most. Some migrate further north where their kind is more uncommon and where it is easier to blend in. On the other hand they will probably be subject to harsher repercussions in the north if their true nature is discovered, risking being shunned or beaten

In Besmakia there'll probably be a ghetto for them in most cities and a small community in most towns, but further north you will only find them in the larger cities.

I'd be grateful if someone could give a more in-depth impression of my thoughts on the Yghreb.

In so few words, I think they work. The visuals of yghreb ghettos with the Fury enforcer is pretty good. But what are the limits of their anatomical flexibility? If they moved to very steep, high mountains, would they grow wings? Or just become good climbers by growing longer, stronger limbs and a more accute sense of balance?

What is the culture of the Yghreb like? Is it like their anatomy where they just adapt other things, or do they have their own, unique culture, religion, and language despite their vast physical differences. (Which brings up a thought that maybe the Yghreb don't see physical appearance as anything important, but are more drawn towards other things?)

As to the level of adaptation, I'm just saying that if an Yghreb only "assimilated" cows it would not, in fact, become a cow, but more of a powerful, broad-girthed man, perhaps with hooves, horns and four stomachs. Eating only wolves they might get improved nightvision, fangs and claws, a lupine gait and the ability to lope quickly on all fours and a lean muscular frame. Unhinging the jaw is a cool idea, one I originally had for my ghouls but which I had been thinking of moving to the Yghreb. Thanks for reminding me! They probably won't swallow entire animals (at least not larger ones), but they might down entire limbs or still-beating hearts, fresh from their prey.
Wings, too, I fear are a bit out of their reach, but yeah, they'd definitely develop leaner forms, better balance, stronger lungs and legs, as well as climbing claws.  

They definitely have their own culture, but it might be more syncretic than most as you suggest. I think they have an animistic approach to religion and believe in certain relationships between the hunter, his family, his prey and his environment. They do have their own language. Since they live fairly isolated, even from others of their own kind, they might even have more than one plus dialects for each. A lingua franca of sorts would probably develop in the cities.  

I'm considering making their base more avian, though. I have always been a fan of the kenku race, but I think this setting has reached critical mass when it comes to races. The next step from the current state would be pure racial anarchy a la Bas-lag and I am not sure the premise can handle that. So I figured that maybe I could roll them into one. Instead of raven beaks I was thinking ibis/kiwi beaks though. To join the cityfolk they'd have to tear off their beaks and replace them with human teeth.
I think this might be a good approach. Would differentiate them from ghouls and humans and give them a unifying (and unique!) visual.
I imagine entering an Yghreb ghetto would be like walking into a colorful maze of tall dilapidated tenements with long-fingered four-eyed birdfolk weavers plying their trade on the street, clusters of lean, clawed hunters with crooked knives talking in their guttural language over freshly flayed meat, newly-made beakless drugged into senselessness, still feeling the agony of the open wound they call their mouth, now full of crooked teeth and blood, a red sun sewn onto their vest, hulking muscle-grafted ibis-men dragging carts through their streets while their small heads look to the ground subservently. Somewhere the fury would be hiding, drunk on wine, sex and adrenaline, a mass of claws and muscles, crowned by a set of antlers, and served day-and-night by the "well-adapted" courtesans who throng the neighborhood and service both Yghreb and men. And of course, there are the true bleakless, the half-men, who look perfectly human yet somehow don't seem out of place in the ghetto.  

EDIT: On another note, I think the ecology of the setting is going to be a mix of living and extinct modern-time animals (e.g. wolf, eagle, dodo, tiger) and Miocene creatures like giant bears/sloths and terror birds and freaky sea monsters. Oh, and of course there is gonna be a lot of fantastical creatures as well.

Go with the ibis-men! That's awesome!

The second you mentioned birds, I was almost wondering if certain yghreb might have eaten pigeons for a while. Even if the base species is birdlike, and they are trying to be human, maybe you could consider radicals getting their beaks back and looking unique from both standard and most city yghreb.

@Beejazz: as in lose beak, then get a new (different) beak back later? Well, it probably wouldn't be impossible, but I can't imagine why they'd do it.

As to how you could use abstract concepts as a weapon, reifiers might have captured the concept of Fear and then used it to instill primal dread in the minds of opponents, or use the concept of Making-Unmaking to turn an armor into bolts, leather, and sheet metal. One might even capture a highly abstract concept such as Destruction, but although I am still not set on the details of grammarian magic I think this would be a very difficult endeavour.   

Although I should probably write down something about countries at first the many (read: 2) questions about magic caused me to want to write something down about it. Now, this is easier said than done.

I have a lot of thoughts about this (primary) system of magic but right now it is all a bit disorganized. I did manage to write something down, but mostly on the essential mechanics of the system and thus it is neither evocative nor colorful. It still lacks something. Just a premise explained at length.

[ic=The Premise]
Underlying the world we see is the world we think, a world dismissed by most as mere figment of thought. Some, though, realize that the world of thoughts is every bit as real as the material one. Thoughts, words, letters - all of these are symbols carrying a measure of meaning, hinting at some underlying truth or intent. The Magisters are willing to go far to find this hidden meaning.

They realize that the concept Fear is different from the word fear, that justice is not Justice, but that if they could bridge this gap they could bring the intangible closer to the material. Make the abstract real.
Through arduous training, reflection and meditation Magisters make an abstract thought cease to be a mere symbol and embody the very meaning of the concept.

They call the reified half-concept half-thought a geist. The magister retains control as it is a thought, but now he controls more than just a whim of imagination or consideration. He controls abstract nature. Acting as an eldritch key to an aspect of the hidden semantic world around him, the Magister is left with power over an intangible and ineffable force.

With power over the correct geist a skilled reifier can pull Truth from unwilling lips, instill primal Fear in a man's mind, make artifice be Unmade, and affect the world in a number of strange ways.
[/ic]

So, as you might be able to gather this system is about the reification (i.e. summoning) and control of abstract concepts - the words we use in our everyday life to convey ideas and thoughts. It is loosely based on Plato's World of Forms (ideas/concepts) where he reflects that everything material is a shadow of its absolute ideal.

Oddly enough, another source of inspiration is shamanism. I'm thinking that these Magisters would represent a "scholarfication" of the old traditions. Where the shamans would go into trances to visit the spirit world and speak with the manifested ideal of the Hunt or the Rain, the Magisters would chart the semantics of our own modern Word-gods and maybe even drug themselves on hallucinogenics to ease contact with the abstract world.  

While they are more scholarly, I think it would be cool to keep a level of spirituality, though. Make them slightly ecclesiastichal.

On a more basic level I was thinking that their ability to reify stemmed from a supernatural ability to manifest thoughtforms through strict psychic training. This would mostly be a gimmick - they wouldn't be able to summon thought-rhinoes or anything like. Just make malleable or chaotic things like vapor and fluid bow to the Magisters will to a limited extent e.g. create images in smoke or shapes out of water. Basically small effects that might as well have happened by way of pure coincidence.

There is already one book working with a similar system and I am trying to keep a comfortable distance to Daniel Abraham's poetry-spirits (although I had this idea independently; I should have kept from reading his book so I could have denied its existence :p ).
I need to set some rules and limits for how this works - what geists can you potentially summon, what risks are there, how does a good Magister differ from a bad one? What keeps you from e.g. manifesting lines of poetry?

I do not envision this as a classic faith-based mechanic. It is not because people "believe in Justice" that you get to reify it. Neither is Justice an immanent attribute of the world, here since the dawn of time. Instead, it is because the Magister constructs the idea of Justice and reifies it that it exists. It is all sort of cyclical and weird.

The geists which have a more direct effect on the world seemingly work outside the ordinary laws of nature. The Magister just tells the world to mean something different and it changes to accomodate this. Tell a box to be Unmade and the planks and nails would pull apart without the application of any external force. It just happens.

I also want a sort of strange pseudo-scientific/half-spiritual jargon built around this, with the mapping and charting of aspects, the analysis of poetry and linguistics, the structuring of the abstract. I imagine some things are relatively easy to reify while other things are impossible. Physical objects for one would be impossible to reify (you can't tell a thought to be a chair, no matter how good your training is). I'm also a little intrigued by cyclical concepts such as justice-injustice - we can all talk about concepts like these, but their definition is based almost directly on that dichotomy. One is the absence of the other. Like asking whether darkness is the presence of darkness or the absence of light (all physical notions of photons aside). Would these be easy or difficult to reify?

I would love to just get some input on this. I realize it is a bit hairy and vague so far, but I really like the premise and I would love to see it come together. Think scholarly word-priests controlling abstract concepts and I think you have the gist of it.    

EDIT: another source of inspiration and the primary cause for my unreasonable love for the term "reification" stems from the amazing novel the Gone-Away World.

I'm not dead set on them being called Magisters. It seems a little flat to be honest. I have a bag of words that seem appropriate, but can't figure out how to combine them into something memorable:
Arthas (Hindi for meaning), gestalt (something being more than the sum of its components), grammarian (sounds cool and brings to mind the names of Cubic/Equilibrium which I think have a good ring to them), geist, noo- (think it means thought in greek, not entirely sure) 

Quote from: Superfluous Crow
I also want a sort of strange pseudo-scientific/half-spiritual jargon built around this, with the mapping and charting of aspects, the analysis of poetry and linguistics, the structuring of the abstract. I imagine some things are relatively easy to reify while other things are impossible. Physical objects for one would be impossible to reify (you can't tell a thought to be a chair, no matter how good your training is). I'm also a little intrigued by cyclical concepts such as justice-injustice - we can all talk about concepts like these, but their definition is based almost directly on that dichotomy. One is the absence of the other. Like asking whether darkness is the presence of darkness or the absence of light (all physical notions of photons aside). Would these be easy or difficult to reify?   

Perhaps humans and the rest of the Ilk simply cannot fathom some of these ideas, just like we cannot. While it could be theoretically possible to reify a twig into the concept of Mercy, the mortal mind simply cannot wrap itself around such a bizarre and metaphysical concept.

So as far as mortals are concerned, they can only reify things in which they can understand the chance. I can personally see a sword being reified into the concept of Vengeance, but refiying a moth to embody the concept of Benevolence would be a stretch to say the least.

So just stick with things that make sense, even if theoretically the magic of BV can support such a thing, it is entirely acceptable for mortals to be unable to fathom it.

Hmm, I was mostly thinking in the veins of reifying abstracts as thoughts (which are still pretty intangible, but less so, so I will defend my right to call it reification), while you are moving into the territory of reifying abstracts as objects which isn't really possible in the current framework. But there are definitely some possibilities there as well.

Maybe I should just make it a sort of semiotic magic based on metaphors and similes and abstracts? I don't want spells per se, but maybe a few things can be reified on the spot.

All of those ideas were very intriguing, but I like this one best for the Ibis-bird-creatures:

QuoteBiological Theft: This idea was one of my original ideas for the Yghreb (then Melek) where they physically steal limbs, organs, eyes, whatever and insert them in themselves, assimilating them into their bodies. Warriors who lose an arm would just steal another one from the battlefield and if the liver or another organ is hurt they just swallow another one. They might even steal multiple hearts or adrenal glands. The issue with this is that they end up looking a little much like patchwork beastmen and they can't e.g. get a mantis arm (*cough* Half-a-Prayer) because it's way too tiny

Took another stab at the geistworkers (formerly Grammarians). Still not in its final form, but getting better if stranger.

[ic=Geistworker]
The wizard is a common character of bards' tales. The powerful, scheming magi of ancient kingdoms, who controlled winds and fire with incantations and words of power. Sadly, the real world is not like that; there are no spells, no ancient incantations or powerful wizards with a crisp pronounciation and flamboyant gestures. But that isn't to say there isn't a grain of truth to the old stories. The idea of words of power has some merit to it, but it has been twisted from its original meaning. It is not about pronounciation, length, ancient memorized phrases or ritualistic invocations. It's about the inherent power hidden in all words: common or arcane.

The shamans of old found it first. That hidden world behind our own, the world of meaning rather than sense. Man and Ilk see the world around them through a lens of language, making flesh and blood family and foe, turning space into rooms and forests, making otherwise meaningless actions just or unjust.

The geistworkers are the heirs of this old lore. Over the centuries it developed into a secret system, well-studied yet infinitely complex, and the geistworkers set out to master it. They know the art of Projection, how to shape wind and water into feeble thoughtforms - illusions of power. Yet the world is stubborn. It will take more than willpower to change it. Yet outwards is not the only way to go, as the masters who came before taught them.

Drinking the sour juice of the Caraccan root and the ground dust of the Melte nut and ingesting or imbing other arcane substances brings the geistworker to frontiers of the conscious mind left unexplored by the ur-shamans and when they Project into themselves they enter a dreamworld of part madness and part meaning. Here, the lens is turned, and the language of the mind is made sense of by reflecting it in the material .

It is a strange world the geistworkers then enter, where metaphors talk and memories walk and where streets are made of Nostalgia and Dream. Their own mind seen as if it were real. Whether it actually is a real place or a vivid delusion has been the subject of many esoteric theses, but is unanswered as of yet.
In this otherworldly dreamscape they visit their own thoughts and instigate a paradox.

Over a cup of Sweet Taste they make a pact passed down through the centuries and tell the thought its definition. This sets in motion a strange process by which thought-thinks-thought and the thought becomes the thinker. A paradoxical sentience is awakened in the geistworkers mind and a Geist is born. A word is made alive.

It is by these old pacts of recursion that geistworkers acquire the power to change the world.
[/ic]

The geistworker will have two sources of power I am thinking. One would be the semi-sentient bound Geists, who award him with control of their domain in return for a part of his consciousness. These are purely intangible, residing in his mind. The other source of power would be metaphors. Essentially, a geistworker would find, make or acquire objects with a peripheral semiotic meaning, like well-trodden boots, a coin-given-freely, or a blunt pair of scissors and use the Art of Projection to attribute them with supernatural-but-reified meaning. These would be easier to use in the spur of the moment.

I am thinking this will be a very free-form system, limited by a few simple rules, GM fiat, and the player's imagination. There will also be an inherent risk to offering up your conscious mind to weird spirit-abstracts, of course. And visiting the dreamscape isn't without its own dangers either.  

EDIT: most of the Geistworkers will be natives of Setch, a country fascinated by meaninglessness or the lack of the same who follow the advice of Augurs and enjoy the ramblings of nonsense-poets.