The Cadaverous Earth

[Steerpike]

[ooc]WOW thanks!  That's so perfect - I wanted a very brown/bleached looking map as opposed to a colorful one but didn't want to be picky, so perfect!  I like the non-contour text, it works very well... thanks Nomadic!  This is going on the front page.[/ooc]

[Nomadic]

You are very welcome.

[Steerpike]

[ooc]I have a general question about setting presentation.  Do you guys think I should use spoiler tabs more extensively to compress the information presented here?[/ooc]

[Nomadic]

[ooc]I have a general question about setting presentation.  Do you guys think I should use spoiler tabs more extensively to compress the information presented here?[/ooc]

Nah, I like it the way it is. Spoiler tags make things more tedious. As it is your organization is pretty good.

[Llum]

I'll second Nomadic's statement. I like spoiler tags, but your layout is perfectly good as it is now. Even if you did something like Polycarp! and made it all nice and spoilered, I don't think it would really add anything.

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Cool, thanks for the input guys.  I'll keep it as is.[/ooc]

[LordVreeg]

Here you are, let me know what you think (and if I messed up anything). The text is all non-contour because that takes a fair bit of extra time. However if you want I can probably fix that.

[spoiler=map]

[/spoiler]

he is damn good, isn't he?  Hopefully, he'll move to Boston soon.

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Heh I found these song lyrics online - they're from a metal band I believe called Extipration.  The song is called "This Cadaver Earth" and shares more in common with the Cadaverous Earth than a similarity in name (I got it from this site):

"This Cadaver Earth
The day has come
Our planet is completely raped
All soil contaminated
All animals eradicated
No clean air, no fresh water
Death by radiation is near

Chorus:
We'll never learn
We'll never stop
This is what we deserve
This cadaver earth

Dissatisfaction with nature's gifts
Thoughtless exploitation of life
Devouring without hunger
Feeding the greed for more and more
Who said that this planet
Was meant to be our whore

Although we have brains
We never used them
Ignored history and wise people
More interested in consumption
And reproduction

Let´s hope we´ll never find another planet
To populate and destroy
That our destructive appetite
Is extirpated along with the human race
A better universe without decadent
And disruptive ape descendants"[/ooc]

[Nomadic]

Here you are, let me know what you think (and if I messed up anything). The text is all non-contour because that takes a fair bit of extra time. However if you want I can probably fix that.

[spoiler=map]

[/spoiler]

he is damn good, isn't he?  Hopefully, he'll move to Boston soon.

Nobody likes a kiss up :P

[spoiler]
but I am not nobody and indeed such flattery will get you far.
[/spoiler]

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Added a section on Gods and Religion to the first page.  It's after the post on Oneiroi and Characters (now collapsed into a single section) and before the post on Witchcraft.  It's far from an exhaustive list but it does flesh out some hinted-at but not fully detailed religions/deities.  The Gibbering Goddess, Striga, some of the Driftwood Gods and similar deities will eventually get more treatment.

Happy holidays.[/ooc]

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Added a long vignette to the second post, i.e. the overview/primer of the Twilight Cities, detailing an approach to one of the cities (probably Baranauskas) told from the perspective of a nameless vagabond.  Several races and characters make cameos.

Incidentally, Somnambulon is now about half "done" (to the extent that the other Twilight Cities have been given treatment).[/ooc]

[LordVreeg]

I enjoyed almost all of this.  The one jar was the mention of 'Golgatha', a real-world referential.

I did enjoy the sense of age an implacablility of the cities, and using the vagabond as a vessel helped make the focus the city.  
Eyes have a lot to do here in this failing world.  Begogggled and jeweled, i notice a focus on the ocular.

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Thanks, I wasn't sure about that myself, so I took it out.

I think I have some kind of ocular fixation.  Eyes creep into my writing a lot, not entirely intentionlly.[/ooc]

[Kindling]

You know, I think this is the first setting someone online has homebrewed since I first saw Dystopia that I'm actually thinking of running a game in. And, moreover, I think it'd be better to run a game in than Dystopia - it's pastiche of various different gaudy and vividly dark elements comes together in a way that seems much more coherent. It may just be down to presentation, but I dunno... Either way I think next time I can find some poor wretches to let me master a game for them, they'll be starting out with your Lophius adventure hooks!

EDIT: This post is in no way meant to disparage Dystopia in any past or future incarnation. SA, if you don't know by now that I'm a fan of your work, you never will, haha. Just using it as a benchmark for comparison, y'see?

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Dystopia was a pretty substantial influence on the Cadaverous Earth, particularly in some of its imagery.  I think that CE aims lower than Dystopia: it doesn't capture the feel of unfathomably epic or arcane scope that seems to me inherent to Dystopia (the reality-transforming technologies, the quasi-abstract cosmology, and similarly mind-boggling stuff) but it does provide a lot of very nitty-gritty details about neighborhood composition, geography, etc.  I don't trust myself to work too much with abstract or intellectually radical forces in the same way that SA clearly can, so I tend to focus on the visceral and concrete and on pouring as much detail into the world as possible.  This might make a CE game easier to run; I think Dystopia asks more form its players and GM, though it might ultimately be more rewarding.

I'm really flattered that you consider the world play-worthy, Kindling!  If you do get a group together please let me know how it goes and what system you use.

EDIT: Btw, I think Knife's Edge, along with Dystopia (or SA's old gem "Vagrant Story") and the Jade Stage, would be my top choices to run a game in.[/ooc]