From: daniel.macch@mms.raleigh.nc.us Subject: BALTEREX: PART 1 Date: Sun Jun 26 17:03:03 EST 1994 BALTEREX: Where Reality is Nicely Ordered Balterex is an invading realm designed to land in Pakistan and Afghanistan, with plans to expand to India. It's history follows. Balterex has always been ordered and broken down into identifiable castes. Everyone had a function and did it to the best of their ability. The four castes, Technologist, Magist, Spirtualist and Psientologist each did their part in society while fighting the others for dominance. At one point it was discovered hat the Psientologist were secretly mind controlling the leaders of the other castes and they were virtually destroyed. Then the Darkness Device came. He chose the leader of the Magists to be its High Lord, who convinced many follwers of all the castes to follow him on a crusade to bring the structure of Balterex to the rest of the Cosmverse. For two centuries nothing was heard from them. Balterex soon began to die. Advancements in the powers of the castes stopped and the planet began to change. Food was difficult to grow by any means and good water was hard to find. It became obvious to the Spiritualists that the Trinity of gods, the god of Technology, Magic and Psi had abandoned the world. Then a miracle occured. The Darkness Device and its current High Lord, a Technologist returned to the cosm to see how it had changed and to gather new troops for their depleted army. When the High Lord, Ferric so the fate that had befallen the world he decided to act. He ordered Zorrem, the Darkness Device, to refill the world withpossibilities and to raise its axioms to match the Devices. Needing soldiers to continue to raid cosms, Zorrem did so. The result was a world that struggled to understand its new order. Many still refuse to follow Ferric, even though he saved their world from death. AXIOMS Tech 27: Balterex was a 19 until the surge. Even the Possibility Raiding party had never achieved much in the advance of technology. When Ferric came to power a century ago he ordered the Tech axiom raised. The end result was a technologicly confused world Their weapons still look like those of our 19th century. Powerful energy cannons look like Long Toms and hand held energyweapons look like colt revolvers. This can provide quite a shock whensomeone points a Blunderbuss at you and it fires a plasma beam. Balterex has mastered their higher axiom levels. Everything available in Tharkold and the Cyberpapacy is available inBalterex in a more evolved form. Magic 20: When Zorrem chose his original High Lord they quickly raised the Magic axiom to support wishes. Until then they had been equal to Aysle at an 18. They have a complete understanding of their axiom. Spiritual: 20 Religion has always been a driving force on Balterex. Communities of laity can gather and create a miracle. There are four religions on Balterex. Technologist, Magist, Psientologist and Trinty. The first three relate to one of the castes while the last one refers to the full trinity that the members of the Spiritualist caste worship. Every priest believes in the power of the trinity. They specialize in one of the other three powers however. Social 20 Even though Balterex is highly ordered, they still function somewhat primitively. The castes interact through frequently hostile means and would not tolerate each other if their religion did not say that tolerance is necessary. WORLD LAWS: The Law of Castes: (You knew this was coming) The Law of Castes defines each member of society as belonging to one of the four castes. They have no choice in what caste they are born into, though genetics does play a part. The four castes are: Technologist: The technologists are the only ones who can take full advantage of the high tech axiom. All other castes are limited to tech 23. Magist: Only the magists can use magic. The other castes cannot even learn any magic skills. Spiritualist: The only ones who can use focus. Depending on which god they specialize in they can simulate the abilities of one of the other three castes through the use of special miracles. Psientologists: They have access to psionics. The Law of Castes makes any attempt to use a tool outside of those allowed by the caste impossible for ords and always a 4 case contridiction for P-rateds. If the use is already 4 case, a magist using a Living Land miracle in Balterex, it becomes a 9 case. The LoC also effects wishes and invocations. Wishes are made with the Wish skill. They must be structured to include exactly what the player wants, i.e. level that mountain, and the minimum effect that they will accept, i.e. or allow me to find a smooth and easy pass through it. The most powerful effect becomes the result of a spectacular success. If the minimum desired effect is greater than what the GM decides would be a minimal success, then the invocation or wish will fail unless it achieves the success level that the GM assigns the minimal effect. Since even I don't understand that, let me clear it up with an example. A magist wants to sink an island. He states his wish as follows: I want that Island sunk, or, at least, the water to cover the bottom 100 feet. The GM asigns a minimal difficulty of 40 for there to be some minor coastal flooding, to cover 100 feet he decides is a Good success. A spectacular success will cover the island in water. The player has the Wish skill at 21. He rolls a bonus of 21. A total of 42 is an Average success. The player gets nothing. When a wish fails it cannot be repeated for 1 week. The Law of Psionic Surpression: Ever since the Psientologist caste was nearly destroyed the few remaining psientologists have had to work very hard to get even a minor effect, but attempts to use Psionics are less painful. There is a +15 to the difficulty of any attempt to use Psionic Manipulation and a -10 to the DN for psionic resistance. The Law of Shifting Possibilities: When Zorrem flooded Balterex with possibility energy the cosm was unable to properly store all of it. The world is a again generating new P's and spending them immdiately. This makes life very unpredicatble. GM's should feel free to throw in an unexpected but minor changes while in Balterex. A damaged wall could be repaired by the constantly shifting possibilities This law has 2 game effects. The first is that all attempts at divining the future, by any method, have their difficulty increased by 10. There is also a chance that the characters can gain extra P's at the end of an adventure. While they are recieving their reward for their deeds, the LoSP may try to shove a few extra in, or cancel those that they are getting to reduce its excess of P energy. To determine what happens roll a die and consult the following table: 1 -2 Possibilities 2-5 -1 Possibility 6-15 no change 16-19 +1 Possibility 20 +2 Possibilities From: daniel.macch@mms.raleigh.nc.us Subject: BALTEREX: PART 2 Date: Sun Jun 26 17:03:03 EST 1994 HIGH LORD AND DARKNESS DEVICE: Ferric, High Lord of Balterex Caste: Technologist DEX 17: Acrobatics 19, Dodge 30, Maneuver 23, Melee Weapons 22, Unarmed Combat 25, Energy Weapons 30, Fire Combat 25 STR 21: Climbing 24 TOU 30: PER 14: Find 17, Trick 19 MIN 15: Survival 19, Test if Wills 18, Willpower 30 CHA 12: Taunt 20 SPI 20: Reality 33, Fiath (Technologist) 24, Intimidation 25 Possibilites: 70 Equipment: Cyberware: Interdermal Plate +7 Exodermal Plate +6 (Total TOU 43) CyberValue 2 (reduced through CyberPsychosis checks) Photon Rifle DV: 35, Plasma pistol DV 30 Ket Armor TOU+12(35 Max) Can fly at mach 1 Ferric fought under Morric, the first HL of Balterex. He quickly rose to the head of the Technologist caste. He looked with envy at the growing power of the Magist HL and decided to try and sieze power rom him. 100 years to the day after Morric became HL Ferric assassinated him. Ferric attacked Morric at a feast celebrating 100 years of success. Ferric stabbed him in the back while he ate. It was enough to kill him with one blow. Zorrem immediately chose Ferric as his new High Lord. The first thing Ferric did was to raise his tech axiom by 7 points. The axioms have been stable since then. Spritualists have recently begun asking Ferric to raise their power. After seeing the power of the Living Land, Ferric just might agree. ZORREM DEX 0 STR 0 TOU 200 PER 22: Alteration Magic 37, Divination Magic 30, Find 30, Language 35, Trick 30 MIN 48 Conjuration Magic 50, Apportation Magic 55, Science 55, Science(Computer) 58, Test of wills 51, Willpower 55 CHA 20 Charm 22, Persuasion 25, Taunt 28 SPI 45 Faith(Nameless One) 50, Focus 46, Intimidation 50, Reality 60 Possibilities: 12,387 before the invasion of Core Earth TECHNOLOGY: I'll keep this brief. They have All the cyberware that CP and Thark have. Reduce the CyberRating by 1 to reflect advances in technology. If the adjusted rating is 0, the item is no longer considered invasive and has no effect on the Cyber Rating. Thay have weapons directly equivalent to those of Tharkold. Increase the damage value by 2. If anyone has the time to post some real weapons, like my Photon Rifle, I would appreciate it. I'll probably get around to making my own in a week or so. MAGIC: Most mages use spells highly similar to those of Aysle. Wish is a Mind skill that is used to shape ones desires into a wish that is acceptible. RELIGION Each member of the Spiritualist caste has Faith(Trinity/XXXXX) where XXXXX is one of the three primal faiths, Technologist, Magist, and Psientologist. Everyone on Balterex must have 1 add in Faith. I'll come up with an exact list of miracles allowed in the near future. They also have a special class of miracles called Simulation miracles. These miracles simulate the powers of the other castes. Simulation miracles for spells and psionic powers have a difficulty equal to the DN+5 of the spell or power. Miracles that simulate the effects of Cyberware have a difficulty double the operation difficulty for that piece of cyberware. Members of the Spiritualist caste recieve a number of Simulation miracles equal to their Faith. They only get the simulation miracles for their faith. A priest with Faith(Trinity/Magist) could only simulate magic. PSIONICS Same as those of Akasha. Remember to adjust the difficulty for the Law of Psionic Supression. I stronlgy reccommend that you use Kansas Jim's Psi rewrite rules. COSM ATTRIBUTE LIMITS: 13 in all. However, each caste can raise one attribute by 1 to a max of 14. Technologist : DEX, STR or TOU Magist : MIN or PER Spritualist: SPI Psientologist : MIN or PER RELATIONS WITH OTHER REALMS: Aysle: The Warrior of the Dark would be interested in gaining some of the more powerful spells that Balterex has. They will probably have a cordial relationship as Aysle has nothing to offer in return. But Ferric does not want to make too many enemies. Cyberpapacy: Malraux will not like the appearance of such a powerful realm. He will especially hate the relationship they form with Mobius and his Nile Empire. There should be some hostilities here. The Living Land: They won't really care about each other. There will be some attempts by Ferric to discover whethe or not he should raise the Spritual axiom a few points. The Nile Empire: As the nearest realm to Balterex, Ferric has to deal with Mobius. As Mobius is not interested in expanding towards Pakistan and India at the moment, the two realms are not in conflict. Ferric will immediately agree to aid Mobius against Malraux. This alliance should spell doom for the Cyberpapacy in France. Nippon Tech: 3327 will be intrigued by the social order and advanced technology. It is too far beyond his Tech axiom though and he will be frustrated in his attempts to understand it. Niether HL is very interested in an open or secret war with the other. Orrorsh: The Gaunt Man won't like this new hitch in his plan. He will take immediate steps to remove this threat. Ferric will take a natural dislike to the chaos that fear causes and will retaliate strongly for any actions taken against his realm. Space Gods: The Akashans won't like the Law of Psionic Surpressionand will probably send Monitors armed with Biotech and some Tech 27energy weapons to help fight this realm. Ferric will be extremely intrigued by Biotech. If the invasion does not go well, he may burn out all of his stelae and abandon this invasion, using the burnt out stelae to raise his tech axiom and spiritual axiom. Tharkold: It is apparent that Zorrem knows Malgest. Zorrem has instructed Ferric to have nothing to do with Malgest and his Technodemons. Zorrem now favors abandoning this invasion and moving on to new targets, possibly the Star Sphere. What he is not telling Ferric is that he knows the translation of the runes on Malgest. They say that Malgest will someday destroy his brother. Zorrem fears that this brother will be him as they were made at the same time. That's all for now. I'll work on a miracle list and a list of weapons and equipment when I get a chance. Suggestions for these lists are welcome. Daniel