Ideal This is another of the realities created in response to the Pocket Dimensions contest announced in _Infiniverse Newsletter_ vol 1 #39. ----- Newsgroup: alt.games.torg #1477 From: David J Oakes Subject: ideal (pocket) cosm (LONG!) X-Gated-By: The Black Marble Wombat@cool.khis.com Date: Thu Jun 16 23:46:34 EST 1994 well, since everyone else is doing it, why cant i? (because i have a really f**ked system that doesnt believe in text uploads, thats why) "but dave," i hear you cry, "it's too long, its not a pocket cosm, and they already have a toon cosm to boot!" 1) i just cant shut up (there is at least three things more i wanted to add) 2) got me there 3) their so called toon cosm is beneath even "pella god-inay" in contempt but anyway, as i told them, this was my last chance to contribute something to TORG (from the survey WEG posted, TORG is dead, long live RIFTS...), so i had to try. dave "not bad, as swan songs go" oakes "Once upon a time, there was Nothing. Nothing was all alone, because there wasn't anything to be with it of course. And then along came Aperios, who was everything, and asked "What is your name?" and Nothing replied "I do not have one," because Nothing could not have something, or it would not be Nothing, it would be something. And so Aperios said, "Then I shall call you The Nameless One." At first, Nothing was happy. But the more it watched Aperios, the sadder it got. Aperios had everything, and would not let The Nameless One have any of it. "Go away," Aperios said, "I cannot talk to you, for you have no name. I can only play with things that have names." And The Nameless One was very sad. "I know," thought The Nameless One, "I will make Aperios go away, and then I will be Nothing again, and I will be happy." So The Nameless One gave names to parts of itself, which became Darkness, which we call Devices, and sent them to Aperios to make it go away. And these Darkness Devices went to the cosms that were parts of Aperios, and found people who wanted technological marvels, religious and economic power, and even the perfect fear, and promised these people all of these things if they would make Aperios go away. And the Darkness Devices and their High Lords were all happy. All except one Darkness Device. This Darkness Device was the first to be named, and was the favorite of The Nameless One. But it was still unhappy. For in the cosm that this Darkness Device went to, the inhabitants did not want anything. They did not want technological marvels because anything they could think of they could have. They did not want power over one another because they knew that was Bad. And they didn't even know what fear was because they were never too hot and never too cold and never ever ever died. And the inhabitants recognized that this Darkness Device was Bad too, and would not play with it because it did not play well with others. And so this Darkness Device sat. Sat. Sat. Sat. And this Darkness Device begged to be played with. Begged. Begged. Begged. And this Darkness Device demanded to be played with. Yelled. Yelled. Yelled. But the Ideals wouldn't play with it, because it was Bad and did not play well with others. And so this Darkness Device went mad. Mad. Mad. Mad. So mad that it even forgot its own name, given to it first by The Nameless One itself. And in madness came inspiration - if no one in this cosm would play with it, then it would find someone in another cosm that would! And so this Darkness Device began to look in other cosms for someone that would play with it. But the other cosms all had Darkness Devices already in them, and those Darkness Devices had names, and enjoyed the games they played with their High Lords, and didn't want Aperios to go away and leave them with nothing. And so they drove it away, and told it never to return. But there was one cosm without a Darkness Device. In this cosm it found a man. And this man drew pictures that looked a lot like the Ideals that it hated. In these pictures the Ideals were crushed under anvils, or made all black and crumbly by dynamite, or punctured clean through by giant bullets. And that made this Darkness Device very happy, for it knew that it had found someone that would play with it, someone to be it's High Lord. And so the man went with this Darkness Device to the cosm of the Ideals. He was no longer the man whose name flashed by so fast in the credits that even a VCR with super slo-mo doesn't help. No, he was The Man Who Draws Things, The Man With The Power! And he would use the Ideals to bring life to his visions, and prove his genius to the world, and the entire Infiniverse too! And so this Darkness Device and The Man Who Draws Things lived happily ever after, and they are really the only important ones, right?" - The Ideal Darkness Device, called The Other Nameless One, relating the events of its existence to no one in particular, just talking, la de da - oh! what nice flowers... The Ancient Greek philosopher Plato talks of a higher plane of existence populated not by items but their ideal representations, of which everything we see is just a pale shadow. Many American Indian tribes speak of animals that can talk and stones that can move. And the Aborigines of Australia believe that there is a place behind reality, one reached by dreams, where anything can be created just by singing it into being. Is the Ideal Cosm the basis for these beliefs? Maybe. Or maybe it did not even exist until the 1940s when enough Core Earth children saw the images moving on the Saturday matinee screen and believed they were real? Maybe it is all of these, and more. The Infiniverse is a very big place, and reality can be a very tricky thing sometimes... The Axioms of the Ideal Cosm: Tech: 0 There is nothing Unliving in the Ideal cosm, some things just move slower than others. The very act of being unliving is a contradiction. The tech axiom must have been higher at some point, since the inhabitants all remember sticks and stones and televisions and cosmic zap guns and machines that go ping. But with the ability to just make what ever you wanted out of thin air, the Tech axiom fell like a rock. And now the average Ideal can't even tell you how a rock works. In fact, while the items that the Ideals use look like real tech (and occasionally Weird Science gizmos) on the outside, on the inside they are homogeneous gray matter - the same as the Ideals and everything else in the cosm except for it's High Lord and Darkness Device - with no mechanism of action whatsoever. Social: 28 Due to their World Laws the Ideals quickly developed a society where everyone was treated fairly and equally, even to the point of evil being a contradiction. The Darkness Device has tried very hard to get rid of this, but has only been able to reduce it by a few points. Magic: 21 Spirit: 21 The Ideal reality is very "soft" and bends easily to a strong will or belief. Whether this is a cause or a consequence of the World Laws is unknown. The World Laws of the Ideal Cosm: The Law of Karma - Like many of the known cosms, the Ideal Cosm is quick to define Good and Evil, and the interplay between them. But unlike other cosms, the balance is not equal, and is in fact weighted heavily towards Good. Possibility energy flowed freely through those who respected the rights of others and did not seek to harm any living thing. This quickly drove the Social axiom upwards, to the point that the cosm didn't only help the Good, but actively tried to squash Evil. This was one of the first things that The Other Nameless One tried to change upon gaining a High Lord, with somewhat limited success. In game terms, every Ideal gets a certain number of free possibilities that are used by the GM - without the player's knowledge - when she feels that the character deserves a little help beyond their own possibilities and cards. These possibilities can be used to buy off damage, counter a possibility spent by an opponent, or even negate a setback result against the character or increase a roll that could otherwise fail, which normal possibilities cannot do. If the GM feels that a setback would be too disastrous, she may negate the effect - for that character only - by spending a Karma possibility. If she feels that a character shouldn't fail at a task, she can spend a Karma possibility after the result as been determined, and add her own die roll to the character's to create a new total. The total number of possibilities that may be spent in this fashion each act of play is listed as the Karma skill. The skill, like Orrorshan Corruption, does not have a base statistic like other skills. Only the number of "adds" need be recorded. All Ideals start with one Karma, which cannot be increased with possibilities. Non-Ideals cannot gain the Karma skill during play except through transformation to the Ideal reality. Should the GM consistently spend the character's full Karma during each act of an adventure, she should consider increasing that character's Karma limit by one for furture adventures. The Karma limit will never go down, but the GM should not feel obliged to spend all of the Karma for a character that is not "playing well with others." Another aspect of the Law of Karma is Instant Karma. Any act that intends harm - physical, emotional, whatever - to another being immediately creates a setback result for the offending character. This setback usually manifests as a +3 or +5 increase to a difficulty, or loss of the action entirely, but when combined with setbacks from the Drama Deck or skill results might cause a sixteen ton weight to appear from nowhere and squash the character flat! (Note that Instant Karma will never kill a character, but it should make a point.) The only inroad The Other Nameless One has had in eliminating the Law of Karma is in Instant Karma. A character will not suffer the effects of Instant Karma if the intended victim has attacked them first, or if they for some reason ask for it, during the current act. Note that if Ideal A attacks Ideal B, Ideal B may now attack Ideal A without Instant Karma retribution for the remainder of the act, but then Ideal A will be able to attack Ideal B as well! Instant Karma effects both natives and visitors to the Ideal reality. There is no limit to the number of setbacks that may effect a character in an act. It is due to the influence of this Law that martial arts was never developed by the Ideals, even though their axioms support it. But with exposure to cosms such as Marketplace and the change in the Law regarding Instant Karma this is changing. In fact, The Man Who Draws Things has found that a certain pair of Japanese Storm Knights are quite adept at mindless destruction on a planetary scale, even though they claim it's not their fault... Note: A mechanic for setting a Karma limit is not provided because Karma is not granted through a lucky roll of a die or through a high spirit, and the GM is urged to be careful in awarding an increase. Three Karma is reccomended for those characters that are really having fun, but not at another's expense. Five Karma should be only for those characters that really make the game enjoyable for everyone. The Law of Ideal - This is the basis of the Ideal reality. This is the law that gives physical form to concepts and makes thought and reality synonymous. Because of this, the Ideal cosm is "softer" than other cosms, allowing for the constant changes by The Man Who Draws Things. But it also allows the Ideals to have anything they want, go anywhere they want, and be anything they want! In game terms, this law powers three skills unique to the Ideal Cosm: Ideal body, Have Object, and Be There. None of these skills may be used unskilled. Ideal Body (MIN) - This skill grants an Ideal physical form. All Ideals must start with at least one add, and it can only be gained during play by characters who physically transform to the ideal reality. Though an Ideal takes shock, KO, and knockdown normally; wounds are determined using the value of the Ideal Body skill instead of TOU. The Ideal may also use this skill instead of TOU when healing wounds. Ideals still go unconscious when their shock exceeds their TOU, regardless of their Ideal Body skill. Ideals may also alter their size and/or shape with this skill (difficulty equal to the Ideal's MIN), but these changes are purely cosmetic and have no effect on the Ideal's characteristics (see Have Object). Most Ideals are so well adjusted that they are very happy with the appearance they have, and rarely change it. And while an Ideal body does not have to eat, sleep, or breathe, it is solid and cannot therefore pass through other solids or ignore gravity (see Be There). The downside of this near immortality is that the Ideals have no real existence, and simple disconnection can mean their death! Should an Ideal disconnect without physically transforming, it will take one wound per round until reconnected or dead. Have Object (PER)- Anything an Ideal can imagine can be made real by this skill. But since even the simplest form of tool is a contradiction, the Objects so created can only enhance an Ideal's natural abilities and skills. Have Objected is rolled versus a difficulty of the stat or skill to be increased, and the result points read on the power push table. The Object will then increase the Ideal's stat or skill for a number of rounds equal to the increase. An Object cannot grant an Ideal a skill it does not have. Regardless of skill value or roll, an Ideal may not have more than one Object at a time. And a failed roll does not always mean that nothing appears... ("Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!") Be There (MIN) - Though Ideals usually travel in a mode appropriate to their form, they are really just going through the motions. An Ideal need only think of a place to be there. The difficulty is equal to the measure of the distance, and a minimal or average result means that the Ideal arrives there a round later, a good or better result allowing the Ideal to be there in the same round. This method of travel works only for the Ideal, but not any objects it has created, nor can the Ideal go to a place that it has no knowledge of. Additionally, an Ideal can ignore the effects of gravity with a difficulty of 14, plus one for every round spent doing so. In addition to these three skills, the Law of Ideals interacts in small ways with the high magic and spirit axioms to produce minor effects. Damaged characters may find stars spinning around their head. An Ideal that spends a possibility to buy of the damage of a fireball my find herself still blackened and crispy, until the next round. Adrenaline cards spent to increase a running total may show up as speed lines shooting out behind the character, and Idea cards are always associated with a light bulb over its head. The Law of Comedy - There is no Third Law! The Man Who Draws Things finds that set World Laws bind his Art and limit his Vision. Lacking the power to disrupt the other Laws, he created one that would change at his whim and allow him to explore more fully his artistic muse. Every time the Ideal cosm appears, it has a new law and a new look, all at the whim of it's High Lord. Possibility rated Ideals have two options: either forget the third law, and let the GM come up with a new one for each adventure, or choose to stick with one existing world law from another cosm. As usual the GM has final approval, and is suggested to be careful with "unbalanced" world laws that only offer advantages without any drawbacks, such as the Nile Law of Action. Some world laws that The Man Who draws Things has used in the past are: Law of Joe - all attacks against living things are at -5/-5, and attacks at tools - primarily guns and vehicles - are at +3/+3. For some reason The Man Who Draws Things always uses this when dropping in on the United States Army. Law of Anime - a character may spend as many personal possibilities on a single action as the number of rounds spent doing absolutely nothing immediately before said action (up to a maximum of five), not counting cards it may use or Karma the GM may choose to spend. A side effect of this law is that speed lines, a background device indicating rapid motion, spring up behind the character as they stand there motionless. Law Of Old Mr. Jenkins - the True death of any horror whose Perseverance has been exceeded becomes "removing the rubber mask and pointing out that it is just Old Mr. Jenkins who used to own the amusement park on the hill." This alone has forced the Gaunt Man to give up trying to incorporate the Ideals into an Ecology of Fear and order his minions to kill them on sight. Something that has proven easier said than done. Law of Marvin - gives the former Kantovian/currently Aztec Darkness Device, Hutzipuloci, mobility, gospogs, and an explosive space modulator capable of destroying the planet that trapped it back in the dead cosm of Kantovia. And then it provides Storm Knights to foil it at every turn. The Other Nameless One really, really, really enjoys this one! Law of Everybody Gets One - probably The Man Who Draws Things' most spectacular failures. This world law was intended to grant every Ideal it's own Darkness Device, immediately corrupting them and making the Ideal cosm the most powerful invader ever. When the smoke cleared, half the cosm was gone and nothing much had changed. Except to this day The Other Nameless One has trouble with acronyms - "T - O - O- N, that spells The Other Nameless One" - and cannot pronounce the word "axiom" correctly. The Man Who Draws Things and his Darkness Device, The Other Nameless One [Statistics for The Man Who Draws Things and The Other Nameless One are not included, because like their cosm they are constantly recreating themselves. But neither have physically transformed to the Ideal reality, and therefore lack the Ideal Body skill. The Other Nameless One makes up for it with the usual 200 TOU. The Man Who Draws Things runs away a lot!] The Man Who Draws Things is first and foremost an "Artist," even to the point of forgetting the time he spent before becoming a High Lord, and living "only in the moment." Of course, being High Lord material means that he is all of the bad things and few of the good. He is petty, vain, blinded by his own vision, and intolerant of his critics. He is rarely creative, usually relying on a pastiche of another High Lord's cosm or ideas taken at random from other art forms for his "masterpieces." Even when he recreates the cosm in his own images, he can barely take the time necessary to complete his plans before he has come up with new ideas that must be carried out, now! Imagine the attention span of the Pharaoh Mobius, the linear thinking of Ulthurion (in his current dragon form), and a sense of humor rivaling that of the technodemon Thratchen and you get the general idea. The Other Nameless One is a total nut burger, plain and simple. If it's ramblings are to be believed, it was the first and greatest of the Darkness Devices, brought by random chance to the one cosm that is the antithesis of everything it stood for. It holds the other Darkness Devices accountable for it's abandonment and humiliation, and has no problems invading their realms. It still reveres The Nameless One, which alternates in it's addled mind from a brother to a father figure to something it read in a fortune cookie somewhere. It cares not for power, and has not even related the Torg myth to it's High Lord. It wants only destruction, the more the merrier. The Ideal invasion usually consists of three stages: First The Man Who Draws Things comes up with a new idea, and sets about formulating a new World Law to capture it's essence using The Other Nameless One to physically transform the Ideal cosm to match his vision. Then when everything is ready, The Other Nameless One sends the entire cosm, lock stock and barrel, to the chosen invasion site in what amounts to a widespread dimthread. Due to the energy requirements in moving an entire cosm, the invaded area is usually very small, rarely more than a few city blocks, though The Man Who Draws Things has sometimes been able to "ride piggyback" on the stelae of other Darkness Devices to increase this to an area roughly the size of Tokyo. (As a side effect of the transportation, the invaded zone is only dominant. If another reality's stelae are used, the zone becomes mixed.) Once there, The Other Nameless One works desperately to drain more possibilities than it spent getting there before The Man Who Draws Things grows bored with it all, takes his toys, and goes home. The aftermath of such a quick and dirty invasion is devastating, with twice transformed Ords exploding all over, physically transformed Prateds dying through disconnection, and physical objects that were a contradiction under the new axioms suddenly just disappearing without the Ideal reality to give them form. Luckily, such invasions are rare. It is usually ninety days or more before The Other Nameless One has enough energy to support another one, and even longer before The Man Who Draws Things can come up with a new concept to try out. Additionally, the invasions usually don't take in as much possibility energy as they cost, and The Other Nameless One has to sacrifice parts of the Ideal cosm just to keep going. Soon there may be nothing left but a very bitter young man too self-involved to notice, and an even more bitter lump of darkness to insane to care. But such is Art...