Guns in The Outlaw

[Daddy Warpig]

Packs of The Outlaw

In the chaos of the Collapse, hundreds of thousands of packs (ad hoc itinerant modern tribes), with millions of members, formed. Most packs eventually died out, the majority of the rest settled down, but thousands of these itinerant tribes never found a home. They continue their migrations today.

There are several types of modern packs, which differ in nature and function. "Packs" are made of families, parents and children. "Gangs", on the other hand, are almost always adult-only (in the Outlaw, you become an adult at the age of 15).

Okiepacks — Migrant workers, including farmhands, mechanics, electricians, tailors, and more. (The focus on skilled labor means Okiepacks are a magnet for Alfar.) For settlements too small to develop much division of labor, Okiepacks are a life-saver.

Carniepacks — Entertainers, including actors, singers, dancers (usually including a burlesque show), tumblers, musicians, and other performers. (Some even offer gambling.) Carnies are welcome, especially in the Outlaw where other forms of entertainment are rare. Welcome, but mistrusted. Carnies have a reputation for loose morals, thievery, and assorted illicit activities (like narcotics trafficking).

Flea markets — Packs who buy and sell sundries, including salvage. A key part of the Outlaw economy, as they can supply goods to a settlement that they cannot produce locally. (Such as salt, a necessary nutrient.)

Locusts — Packs who offer no services or goods, but forage, hunt, and fish on claimed land. While not actively hostile towards townies, still they are loathed for consuming resources towns need for their survival. Most move on relatively quickly; failing that there is usually some kind of armed confrontation.

Warpacks — The human name for a troll-lead warband (named so because each band is lead by a warlord), all-human warpacks have become increasingly common in the last decade. Warpacks survive through (and specialize in) foraging and hunting. They often offer martial services to towns (competing with Guns), or services as hunters or weapon trainers.

Rotpacks — The slow rot is the slow motion version of the rotting plague. The plague kills in weeks, the slow rot takes years. Much less contagious (people have lived with sufferers for years without catching the disease), and very difficult to detect or cure, the slow rot is the 2039 version of leprosy. (Rotters, once their skin begins to peel off, cover themselves with bandages or rags. The stench is incredible.) People who contract the disease are invariably exiled or killed. Rotpacks are groups of rotters who live together and survive together. (Unlike other packs, rotpacks have no families — the diseased are the only members.)

Fleshgangs — During the famines of 2016, some people turned cannibal. Fleshgangs are packs who hunt and feed off other humans. They are universally loathed and hunted. (Fleshgangs, despite their name, are usually groups of families, passing down their unique dietary predilections from parent to child.)

Bloodgangs — Ghouls must feed on human flesh, fleshgangers choose to. Bloodgangs are gangs of ghouls who hunt as a group. (The name comes from blood-drinker ghouls.) They are feared and hunted: fleshgangers can only eat you. Ghouls can make you one of them.

Bezerkergangs — Marauders, bezerkergangs rob, rape, and murder. They attack, take what they want, terrorize the locals, and drive off. Hated and hunted without quarter.

Towns that are hostile towards packs get a bad reputation, and packs avoid them in the future. This can be deadly — again, salt — so nearly all settlements at least tolerate packs (in general, specific packs may have a bad reputation), and most welcome them. Traditionally, towns charge packs a camping fee; settlements who charge too much drive packs away.

[Daddy Warpig]

Building the Outlaw

There are two main gameplay goals for the design of the world: to provide interesting material for players and GM's, and to provide a variety of options for players and GM's. Hence the several races, the 5 magical talents, the different polities, varied types of packs, and so forth.

Variety. Fascination.

As for the world itself, I'm trying to design it so that it feels plausible — enough like a world that could be real (given the fantastic conditions that exist) that people can accept it.

Trolls are born leaders, they draw others to them, and can motivate and inspire them. This is an ontological fact. Plausibility comes in when we consider the effects.

In the Beyond (in specific, the continent of Cienvue, where the mage races lived), trolls dominate war and politics. That makes sense. A race of people who are compelling leaders *would* dominate politics. That's plausible.

This is the sort of relatable internal logic that I'm trying to build the rest of the setting around. Sometimes it's working forward from a known event — "What effects would the rotting plague have?" — sometimes it's trying to justify a cool idea — "Why do computers affect the shadow world?" — sometimes its just making two ideas fit together — "How are spellcasting, shadow walking, and enchanting related?" — and often it's all three at the same time.

But no matter which I'm doing, I'm always working towards those dual goals — variety and fascination. The extent to which I can succeed, will mark the limit of the game being any damn good.

[Daddy Warpig]

How To Make A World That Feels Real

So, I'm shooting for plausibility in setting design (behind variety and fascination). How do you build a plausible world? Last time I talked about sensibility: the world has to feel like it makes sense.

But there are two other concepts to making a setting and a history that works. These are "History Never Stops" and "Mankind Adapts".

The world in which we live is ever changing, and we live in one moment of it. The past is different, the future is different, and things always change. History Never Stops.

The setting of 2039 is supposed to feel like one moment in an ever-changing world. Cracking via shadow walking is new, having materialized in the last decade. Many other technomagical devisements are also brand new, as in less than a couple of years old. And old things — AK-47's and Land Rovers — are experiencing a resurgence, thanks to the new circumstances of the Outlaw.

The politics of America are fluid — there are tensions between the polities, and at any time the balance of power could change. Will change, I should say, at some point.

The Dakotas are the least invested in the Fed union, they may withdraw at any time. Or, unexpected events might push them closer to the Fed. Mexico's dictatorship might expand north, in an effort to eliminate the Mexicali Narco-kingdoms, or it may fall apart into warring states. The Fed might liberalize its policies, or might move even closer to a police state. History never stops, and 2039 is just one moment in the long history of the world.

Mankind Adapts.

Humans thrived when we had sticks and stones, but no fire. We thrived when we had fire and metals, but no printing press, compasses, or electricity. We thrived when we had the internal combustion engine and assembly lines, but no computers. And we can thrive when we have technomagic and spells and vortexes.

We adapt to our changing circumstances.

The world economy broke down during the collapse, and the Emergence has made continent-wide supply networks problematic at best. People adapted by turning to old, rugged designs.

The most popular individual weapon in the Outlaw is based on the AK-47, and the most popular vehicle is a clone of the 1948 Land Rover. Both are simple to make, rugged, and easy to maintain. You can make AKs in any machine shop; the same machine shop can mill replacement parts for the Land Rover. Given difficult circumstances, people adapted.

Technomagic is the quintessential example of "Mankind Adapts". Technomagic is the application of the principles of Enchanting to the technology of our world. And, using that same technology, we can do things with enchanting Beyonders never imagined.

We can surgically inscribe runes on people's bones, allowing them to become Augments, artificial shadow warriors. Normal people can shadow walk, using technomagical bracelets. We can enchant our cars, our computers, even our bullets, allowing them to do incredible things.

So, in addition to variety and fascination, and in service of plausibility (or verisimilitude), the setting of the Outlaw is intended to reflect History Never Stops and Mankind Adapts. These are two truths evinced by all human history, and incorporating them in setting design makes the fictional world of the game feel more real.

[Daddy Warpig]

California — The White Line Nightmare

California is the garden paradise of the Fed — balmy clime, full employment, and plenty of food. To those living in the cramped and rotting jungles of New York, it seems like Eden. Of course, all those benefits come with some serious drawbacks.

Like New York, California is less than free. The state is run by by a small group of powerful and wealthy families (politicians, business leaders, entertainers), and their hangers-on. The entire legal and economic system of the state is rigged to protect their economic interests and physical security.

Their businesses get all the government contracts (and the implicit protection of the regulatory regime), their woes are quickly addressed by fawning bureaucrats, and their wishes are law (through a rubber-stamp legislature). Elections are pro-forma, their outcome known ahead of time, and the families' chosen candidate always wins. So although the state bills itself as a democracy, in practice it's a banana republic.

The current state of California is much smaller than its predecessor. It runs from San Francisco, the current capitol, to Sacramento. It also controls most of the Central Valley, from Redding to Modesto, but other than those two corridors, the rest of the state is Outlaw, Emerged, or run by the Narco-gangs.

The northern 2/3rds of the Central Valley are a land of great bounty, and employ most of the workers in the state. California produces a surfeit of food, more than enough to feed its towns; it sells the remainder as luxuries to the rest of the Fed, Texas, and free convoys (for distribution across the continent). People willing to do backbreaking seasonal labor for rock-bottom wages are always welcome in the valley.

San Francisco is a dangerous urban landscape, much like New York. Like New York, a large portion of it is Outlaw — beyond the control of the government.

South of the capitol are a half-dozen smaller cities, the epicenter of the continent's technomagical revolution. Cracking was developed here, as were augments, shrouds, and nearly every other significant technomagical breakthrough. It is a mecca for technomages, technoshamans, crackers, augments, and (of course) Guns.

The most famous city in California, isn't actually in California. Instead, it's sandwiched between Outlaw settlements, wild Emerged lands, and the Mexicali Narco-kingdoms. Bakersfield, the fortress city of oil, is a colony built deep inside enemy territory.

Southern California is controlled by Narco-gangs, refugees from the brutal anti-crime crackdown of the current Mexican dictatorship. Southern California is also the location of nearly all oil in the state.

The Dakotas have long been experts at establishing, protecting, and expanding resource colonies (their source for iron and coal, for example). Oil is the life's blood of California, used in agricultural production and for military purposes. When California decided to begin their own domestic oil production, they turned to Dakota chartered companies. A company town, run by the Dakotas, Bakersfield exploits the oil fields of the Monterrey formation, producing (at first) thousands of barrels of oil per day, with a projected goal of tens of thousands by 2042.

Bakersfield is a walled city, very much along the European model. Within the walls are oil extraction facilities, refineries, domiciles, company shops, bars, strip clubs, and every other need a growing city has. Being a Dakota town, this includes a great many automobiles and even three Huey's.

Convoys run constantly between Bakersfield and Modesto, carrying refined gasoline of many grades. Well-armed convoys, because the Narco-kingdoms covet it all.

Welcome to the California Highway Wars. A protracted and ongoing series of low-intensity conflicts between the Narco-kingdoms and Bakersfield Irregulars, the wars are fought with fleets of fast interceptors, armored gas tankers, and bruisers (built on Land Rover chassis and bristling with armor and machineguns).

Armed with their own oil wells, and their own industrial capacity, the narco-kingdoms launch raids constantly. All along the length of Highway 99 (the Black Vein, California's jugular), the convoys and the bandits play a cat-and-mouse game, killing and being killed, for control of the latest convoy of gas.

(The road is littered with wrecks, bodies, and shell casings. Outlaw towns make a fortune clearing the patch close to their settlement, and helping maintain the highway. They sell what they take for salvage, of course, usually to the Irregulars or their narco-bandit opponents. Many also mill replacement parts for convoy vehicles, and sell them at a ridiculous profit. If it weren't for terror-raids and Emerged monstrosities, life would be pretty good.)

The sheer value of gas makes this possible. At one time, every single gallon of gas burnt in California had to be trucked in from Dakota or Texas, across thousands of miles of Emerged terrain or the Outlaw. Bakersfield to Modesto is a four hour drive, and even with the losses due to bandit activity, it's more than worth it. The value of gas to both sides means the Wars are likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

California is caught between the Oregon Anomaly and the Narco-kingdoms. Even so, it is wealthy and growing. Guns can find plenty of work here, in the Outlaw (especially the bandit-plagued Outlaw coastal tract from San Jose to Santa Barbara), the cities, the Emerged lands, and, of course, Bakersfield.

[Daddy Warpig]

Xiyatu: The City of Dragons

Xiyatu, the City of Dragons, is the Shanghai of the Pacific Northwest. Built in the ruins of Seattle, the majority Chinese city is a welter of contradictions and impossibilities.

A high-tech, cramped cyberpunk city, ruled by seven draconic monarchs. The computing capitol of America, and the origin of all magic traditions in America, yet nearly bereft of technomagic. An economic powerhouse, utterly dependent on imports from Alaska, China, and the Fed.

Xiyatu is a weird, imposing, magical and technological city. The story of this paradoxical metropolis begins where all Outlaw tales begin: in Beijing, with Patient Zero.

The rotting plague killed a quarter of the population of China, roughly 350 million people. China was the first country stricken, and Beijing was the first city. The disease spread outwards rapidly from there, and after two months of contagion and death, the familiar wave of collapse and violence spread across the nation.

From the beginning, people panicked. Many tried to flee to other Asian countries — Russia, Mongolia, India — but thousands fled to America. Smuggled by snakeheads in cargo containers, tens of thousands of Chinese refugees arrived in ports along the West Coast, from Vancouver to Los Angeles. The plague arrived with them.

In a panic, the Federal Government ordered the refugees quarantined in a camp located in Fort Lewis, Washington. Eventually, some 50,000 Chinese refugees were settled there. Living in makeshift tents, with temporary facilities, the camp was ill-prepared for the harsh winter of 2015. Most of the refugees died.

The survivors, some 25,000, escaped during the Collapse, when the base security perimeter collapsed. Making their way north, most settled in Seattle.

Like all major cities of the Collapse, Seattle was almost wholly depopulated, a vast urban landscape empty of people. The Chinese refugees took up residence in the abandoned buildings, feeding themselves off fish and foraged food. They converted yachts and motorboats into sail-powered fishing vessels, rode bicycles scavenged from the city (many without tires), and adapted to their new life, a small group of people in a massive, empty city.

From this modest beginning, the city-state of Xiyatu would emerge to become one of the six major states of 2039 America.

[Daddy Warpig]

Xiyatu: The Chinese City-State

In the aftermath of the Collapse, the rest of the world began to see America the same way they once saw Africa: as a global backwater, riven by tribal divisions and endemic warfare, its various nations ruled by a collection of corrupt dictators, barbarism run amuck. Many of the country's largest cities were emptied, abandoned, and there was no semblance of national military, transportation, or trade.

China, in contrast, managed to hold onto a functioning government. Six of them, in fact, fighting a bloody series of civil wars. It wasn't long before refugees looked to flee the slaughter.

To a distant, uninhabited land. A land without a national military. A land where whole cities stood abandoned, just waiting to be taken. A land where a colony of refugees had been established.

The Xiyatu refugees — "Xiyatu" being the Sinocization of "Seattle" — communicated with the homeland via radio, telling them of the peace and relative prosperity of Puget Sound and the surrounding territory. Seattle, the abandoned metropolis of the Pacific Northwest, became the chosen destination for refugees fleeing the slaughter.

In 2016, snakeheads — Chinese human smugglers — first began arranging for sea passage out of the Chinese warzones to the Americas. The first sizable numbers of refugees began arriving in 2017. By 2018, there were approximately 100,000.

In 2018, the Civil War turned against the Communist stalwarts. Driven back at every turn, the Communist leadership made preparations to deploy nuclear weapons against the rebels.

The generals of the Red Army intervened, and negotiated a settlement. In return for turning over China's nuclear weapons, the nearly-defeated Communist Party leadership would be granted asylum — in Xiyatu.

Nearly a million Communist Party officials, their families, and hangers-on departed for the Chinese city-state. Along with them went tens of billions in gold and other valuables, as well as 250,000 Red Army soldiers, vehicles (including warships), and materiel: gasoline, weapons, and ammunition. Seattle had been colonized, and the Pacific Northwest had a new nation.

[Daddy Warpig]

Xiyatu: Shanghai on the Sound

Washington state weathered the Collapse better than any other place in the country, which is what killed it.

After the rotting plague came famine, strife, and other, lesser plagues. Starvation makes one vulnerable to infections, and in the absence of a robust medical system, the spread of disease can be fast and deadly.

Other than Seattle, Washington state managed the Collapse very well. The state government established refugee centers where people could come to be fed, sheltered, and receive a modicum of medical care. These centers enabled many to survive the Black Winter of 2015-2016, when they might otherwise have died.

They also concentrated much of the populace into tight clusters. Secondary diseases, when they came, hit the camps hard. When they arrived, cholera, dysentery, and the seasonal flu spread rapidly, killing millions. In the space of a few months, Washington lost more people to these lesser afflictions than it had to the rotting plague.

In all, the state suffered 90% casualties. By the end of 2016, there were less than 700,000 Washingtonians left alive. When the Communist Party exiles began arriving in late 2018, the state was overrun.

The million refugees from the collapsing Communist nation were slowly evacuated over the course of five years, on a multitude of different vessels (powered with fuel bought at dear prices from the Siberian junta). The top officials were evacuated on luxury liners, while the poorest were stacked into cargo containers in the holds of massive ships (that had once carried plastic toys to Wal*Marts). The soldiers came over on military ships and pretty much anything else that floated.

The city gradually grew in size and power, as more and more citizens, soldiers, and military vehicles arrived. It began to push outward into the depopulated Washingtonian countryside, first to the greater Seattle metropolitan area, then south to Olympia, west to Aberdeen, and north to Bellingham.

Starting in 2019, the state faced increasing military pressure from several surrounding enemies: Outlaw settlements and roaming gangs in Washington, the militia of the hardline state of Jefferson in Oregon and California, and several hundred thousand well-armed, peevish Canadians in Vancouver. (Peevish by American standards, that is, which made them rampaging barbarians by Canadian standards. Vancouver had become their capitol, after all.) Border spats with the two polities became increasingly common in 2020, and the Chinese were hard-pressed to maintain their territory.

That same year, they negotiated a trade treaty with the Fed (which effectively recognized Xiyatu's sovereignty over most of Washington), which allowed them to buy ammo, replacement parts, and fuel with the bullion and other artifacts brought from China. This trade gave Utah's arms industry its kickstart (leading to the popularization of the AK-47) and helped Dakota expand its nascent industrial base.

When the Chinese industrial base began to normalize in 2021, Xiyatu became one of its most loyal clients. It imported nuclear reactors, for electricity (and other purposes), and electric automobiles (for use of the elites). Due to this trade, Xiyatu became a major port city, the only continental source for computers (manufactured in China), and the primary export hub for American raw materials and finished goods.

Nominally Communist, in practice the city was an authoritarian polity, with a partially-liberalized economy (similar to New York and California). The ruling clique had a large number of perquisites, and there was severe restrictions on the press and non-State organizations, but other than that the economy was fairly unregulated.

Of course, all this changed after Emergence, when a clutch of dragons settled in the nearby mountains, and successfully claimed Xiyatu for their own. And with the dragons, magic.

[Daddy Warpig]

Dragons of the Beyond

So, let's talk about dragons.

Dragons are mythical creatures, even to Beyonders. The continent of Cienvue, where the Beyonder races — trolls, fae, alfar, and wisps — live is analogous to Australia — geographically isolated and biologically discrete. Many strains of creatures exist only on Cienvue, and many of the creatures emerging from vortexes (the most monstrous and horrific strains) originate on other continents, and are wholly unknown to the Beyonders.

The first time Beyonders encountered draconic races was on Earth. They existed in myths, but if dragons had ever lived on Cienvue it was before the rise of the Atlantean Dominion, some 20,000 years ago. All that we know of dragons has come from encounters with them on Earth.

The are many different strains of dragons, hundreds, maybe thousands. Of these, less than a hundred strains are True Dragons or Great Dragons, dragons capable of spellcasting (crafting and using spells).

True Dragons are larger (house-sized or more), longer-lived, and more intelligent than the other strains (being as intelligent or more intelligent than humans). They cannot be tamed or domesticated (unlike, for example, the drakons of Europe).

Great Dragons are long lived, on the order of 500 years or so, but eventually will die. Great Dragons are the size of dinosaurs, and well-armored to boot. In the myths of the Beyond, dragons were unkillable, but experiences on Earth have shown this to be false. They can be killed, just not very easily.

A big enough explosion (for example, from a cruise missile), being shot by large enough rounds (30mm depleted uranium rounds from a GAU-8/A minigun seem to do the trick), and other massive amounts of damage seem sufficient. Lacking these, Great Dragons are effectively immune to physical and magical trauma.

Great Dragons are opponents to be feared. They are, as individuals, nearly invulnerable to personal weapons and spells. More, they are at least capable spellcasters, and very often maguses of great renown.

They are cunning, intelligent (for the most part), and acquisitive. Humans are pawns, to them, pieces to be manipulated to achieve their ends.

More, they are not solitary creatures, as a rule. Great Dragons travel in clutches, and pissing off one means you have, in all likelihood, pissed off 4-6 other nearly-unkillable, genius level, dinosaur-sized, armored flying death machines.

Life expectancy, in such cases, is rather low.

[Daddy Warpig]

A Clutch of Dragons

The basic unit of Great Dragon society, analogous to a human family, is the clutch, a group of 5-7 dragons that were hatched together. Clutch-mates are bonded together emotionally and psychologically — dragons will kill for their clutch, suffer for their clutch, and even die for their clutch.

There are no inter-generational bonds, sibling bonds, or pair-bonds in draconic society, no parents, siblings, or lovers. There is only the clutch, only their clutch-mates. A clutch is born when the dragons are hatched together, and dies when they pass from this world (or when it is shattered). Clutches may ally with each other, but such alliances will never be as close or as lasting as the bonds within a clutch.

(Only Great Dragons form clutches, and nearly all Great Dragons belong to a clutch. There are lone dragons, but such beings are pitied and feared. They age much quicker than other dragons, and are prone to disease and deformity. More, they are prone to erratic behaviors, including total social isolation (an extreme aberration, as all Great Dragons crave the respect of their peers). Absent the bonds of a clutch, dragons are capable of nearly anything. Other dragons fear and avoid the loner.)

Unlike families, clutches are not accidental. They are crafted. An older clutch will purchase or steal eggs from other clutches, and when they have assembled 5-7 eggs of various strains (the ideal clutch has 7 dragons of different and rare strains), will quicken the eggs, place them in a nest, and allow the eggs to hatch. The newly hatched dragonlings imprint on each other within moments of emerging from the shell, and the clutch is born. Clutches cannot add new members, all there are at the beginning is all there will ever be.

Clutches are temporary arrangements. As dragons die or are killed, their numbers dwindle, and when all are dead, the clutch will cease to exist. More, as their numbers dwindle it becomes ever more fragile.

A 4-dragon clutch is a weak clutch, and they tend to quickly break down into lone dragons. (With the infirmities and strangeness noted previously.) A clutch of 8 or more is also a weak clutch, and never deliberately created as it would break down quickly.

If, for some reason, 8 or more dragonlings are born in the same nest, the larger and more powerful dragonlings will gang up on the smallest and weakest, slaying them, until there are 7 or fewer left. In those cases where the weaker dragonling is spared, they often turn out to be an unusually powerful, frequently a spellcaster of great renown.

Dragons can only breed within their strain. Dragons are hermaphroditic, they chose which sex they will be at the time of mating. Mating is a purely practical matter, dragons bargain with each other for mating privileges. The female is the buyer, they are buying a fertilized egg. (Dragons can produce two or maybe three eggs during their lifetime.)

Once fertilized, the dragon lays the egg. Eggs lie fallow until quickened, they can survive for centuries this way. Quickening involves a Great Dragon swallowing the fertilized egg, and allowing it to pass through their system. Once quickened, an egg will hatch in roughly 20 days. Any Great Dragon strain can quicken an egg, no matter what strain that egg is of.

For the most part, each egg produces one dragon, but twins are not unknown. As multiple births are usually unanticipated, this often results in too many dragonlings in the same nest. As is usual, the more powerful dragonlings slay the smaller and weaker.

The clutch is all to a Great Dragon. It was present from just after its birth, and lasts the rest of its life. The breakdown of a clutch is a traumatic event, deeply scarring, and tends to unhinge the dragon. As Great Dragons are nearly-unkillable, genius-level, dinosaur-sized, armored flying death machines, the thought of an insane one is somewhat unsettling.

[SA]

Best interpretation of the 'dragon formula' I've seen in years.

[Daddy Warpig]

Best interpretation of the 'dragon formula' I've seen in years.

Thank you. :)

I hope the post on stature, tomorrow, will prove equally as interesting.

[Daddy Warpig]

The Pride of Dragons

Dragons are pride. Not the boasting, bragging, importunate pride that demands you acknowledge it, no matter what it may or may not have done, but pride in accomplishment, pride in prowess, pride in success.

Dragons command respect, and the respect of other dragons is their coin and their pride. They live to gain stature, honor, admiration. They treasure it, hunger for it, strive to achieve it. They slave and claw and grasp for each mote of stature. They are driven so by their biology, and that operates at the level of instinct, in the most ancient portion of the draconic mind.

Dragons strive for excellence, as spellcasters, warriors, leaders, artisans, healers, and more; the more skilled and impressive a dragon becomes, the more stature they are granted. They acquire knowledge and wisdom, both bring stature. They amass wealth; the more wealth, the more stature. They acquire territory, territory brings stature. They acquire influence in human governments or organizations, influence brings stature. They create serfs, creatures who imprint on the dragon and serve them with their lives, and the more serfs, and the more remarkable and capable the serfs, the more stature.

In ages past, dragons fought for the right to mate. The largest, fiercest, most attractive dragon won, and mated, and the losers did not.

In time, this became about more than an impressive crown of horns, or shining scales, or sheer muscular prowess. (At least among the more intelligent strains, including the Greats.) It became about achievement, accomplishment, excellence.

The most impressive, the most intelligent, the most accomplished, the most clever, the most skilled, the most talented — these could mate, and others did not. Mating was a dance of stature, and the constant, urgent need to compete with all other dragons for stature became the cornerstone of draconic civilization.

All dragons are pride, but for Great Dragons it is not individual pride that matters, but pride in their clutch. The entire goal of a Great Dragon's existence is to increase the stature of its clutch. Wealth, power, achievements, admiration, renown — it gains these, and its clutch increases in stature, and all the clutch-mates benefit.

Great Dragons crave wealth and stature, and conspire to acquire both. They are greedy creatures, devious and cunning.

Conspiracy and intrigue are second nature to the Greats, and nothing they do is straightforward or easily understood. Their conspiracies operate on a scale measured in decades, not years, and are renowned for their subtlety and obscurity. Sentients are little more than pawns to them.

There is a constant battle for stature and success. Cleverness in intrigue, cunning in plotting, and skill in deception also brings stature. The intrigues of dragons are the battlefield in a complex and incomprehensible game of precedence and stature. Feints within feints, double-blinds, triple agents — all of these gambits are deployed not just to advance their position, but because the sheer artistry and effectiveness of each gambit gains the clutch stature.

Great Dragons are alien beings, whose psychology is more primal and primeval than mankind's. They conspire not out of desire or malice, but because such machinations are instinctive.

The Greats are like especially intelligent, eloquent, and polite sharks. But no matter how civilized they seem, they are always but moments away from a bloody attack. (If not literally, then metaphorically. A Great Dragon attack can involve a decades-long plot that manipulates three nations, two bloodgangs, and a Chartered Company's most prized assets.)

Never show a dragon weakness, it is an irresistible inducement to attack. Even if they like you, even if they need you, weakness invites assault. And as Great Dragons are nearly-unkillable, genius-level, dinosaur-sized, armored flying death machines, such assaults nearly always prove lethal. (Even if it takes a while to notice.)

[Daddy Warpig]

Dradhakh, Continent of Wyrms

Let's talk, a little bit, about the home of the dragons: Dradhakh, Continent of Wyrms. Like all the other continents of the Beyond, Dradakh is isolated by natural and magical barriers. It is biologically discrete, with its own distinct ecology (different from all other continents) and dominant species.

Earth, prior to 65 million years ago and the extinction event, was ruled by dinosaurs. They were the dominant form of life, and most ecological niches, from aquatic life to land animals to flyers, from herbivores to carnivores to carrion-eaters, were filled by dinosaurs. After the event, mammals filled those roles; Earth became the domain of mammals.

Dradhakh is the continent of dragons — they are the dominant form of life, and most ecological niches are filled by draconic strains. Six limbed, usually sharp toothed, usually winged, scaly beasts rule the air, sea, and land. From the tiny hovering drakelets, akin to hummingbirds and no bigger than a man's thumb, to the gigantic leviathans, sea serpents with vestigial limbs (who plague Atlantic and Pacific shipping), from massive herbivores like giant 6-limbed komodo dragons, to the intelligent draconic centaur-like Khadach, draconics are everywhere.

Greatest of these, of course, are the Great Dragons. Highly intelligent, cunning, driven, the continent is theirs.

The continent is shaped like a long, thin knife, with tall, frigid mountains running along the spine, and torrid swamps and beaches lining the edge. In between is every biome known — deserts, swamps, temperate forests, wide, flat plains. And everywhere, draconics.

In ages past, the Greats would mate and retreat to lay their eggs. They kept them in a vault with their hoard, where they were well guarded. They preferred to find or make long, thin caverns, walled off from aerial attack and with only one ingress to guard. The eggs would be guarded by the entire clutch, and safe in the lair the Greats could form and hatch a new clutch.

Greats would mark off massive swathes of terrain for the hunt — all Greats are meat eaters. This was their land, their domain, and woe to those who trespassed its borders.

(Vegetation grows insanely fast in Dradhakh, and herbivores are plentiful. Else the dragons would go extinct. As Europe discovered, this is not always a good thing.)

The Khadach were a semi-humanoid species, common across much of Dradhakh. Picture a slender, 6-legged komodo dragon, about six feet long, that can rear up on its hind quarters. The front two limbs have hands, which the Khadach could use to make and wield weapons. Khadach are less intelligent than humans, but more intelligent than animals.

The Greats would imprint Khadach tribes, turning them into serfs. The Khadach would serve the Greats, guarding their lairs and their hoard, flushing out game for the hunt, scouting for intruders, and fighting off unimprinted Khadach tribesmen. They would clean their masters' scales and teeth (removing parasites as well as detritus), gather fresh fronds and grasses for bedding, and hunt down vermin. As serfs, they lived in symbiosis with their masters.

Draconics come through vortexes quite often. The Green Eruption that covered Europe in violent jungle was born of Dradhakh, as were the drakes the Europeans train to burn back the verdant growth. Many of the creatures attacking Utah come from the draconic continent, and the leviathans and sea serpents who make ocean passages a dangerous venture also originated there. Then there is Xiyatu.

Xiyatu is the domain of a clutch of Greats, the center of their territory. The Greats have imprinted on many, who are their serfs. And in the mountains nearby, is dug the clutch's lair.

The dragons have shaped the city into what it is: a sovereign kingdom ruled by seven nearly-unkillable, genius-level, dinosaur-sized, armored flying death machines.

[SA]

nearly-unkillable, genius-level, dinosaur-sized, armored flying death machines.

Gets me every time.

[Daddy Warpig]

Gets me every time.

Thanks. :) I'm trying to make the posts interesting, because It's a lot of in-depth campaign material. That stuff can be terribly dry.