Pink Petal Games
Game Discussion => General Discussion & Download => Topic started by: Lorde on June 18, 2010, 08:36:40 PM
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Hijacked another thread talking about this last night but It got me curious about how everyone perceives the Home city of our whoremaster avatar.
From the brief description I got the following 2 points.
- Crossgate is a city where multiple dimensions meet.
- The catacombs under your home is Honeycombed with dimensional portals.
Well this had me thinking about just what the difference between the 2 parts where. Is there a difference or is it basically 2 different ways to say the same thing.
Personally I think Of Crossgate much like Cynosure. Which is the City from the GrimJack universe. Basically dimensions phase in and phase out at random. Sometimes a dimension Stays for millennia. Other times for mere moments. Sometimes when they Phase out, they will leave part of whatever they brought with them. Even if that is just one person. Other times. Entire Sections of the city disappear. Never to be seen again. Sometimes the connection is so strong you can walk into the other dimension. Other times it's so weak, That it's like having ghosts move in to your neighborhood.
The catacombs themselves I akin more to Sigil. The city from Planescape. There, dimensions are more stable and are connected by way of portal. You need a specific way (keys, though never actually a physical key.) to open the portals, making "planewalking" a 2 step process, find the door, discover the key. The portal is usually in an archway or similar "door" like structure. The key can be something as mundane as a lock of hair. Or As Spectacular as 2 mortal enemies forgiving each others transgressions in the archway.
And that's my take on Crossgate. :D
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I pretty much just see it as occasionally on the surface the veil between realities weakens a bit and things wander through, while it happens 1000x more often in the catacombs.
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Basically the way i see it is reality is broken on a hourly basis in the catacombs while on the surface it only happens 1-2 times a week. :D
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I thought of the catacombs like L-space in Terry Pratchett books. Whereas there are portals that allow passage between dimension, essentially the catacombs are a... shared... dimension that connects all others and you could find your way to and from certain dimensions if you knew your way around well enough.
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To me, Crossgate is like the retention pond of the multiverse. Stuff keeps popping up in the city, but you never hear about people LEAVING the place. The monster girls you capture in the catacombs are more or less creatures who accidentally slipped through a portal (doorway, rift, what have you) into crossgate and are basically trapped and wandering aimlessly around.
Besides, with roving slave catchers and gang violence being commonplace, I can't imagine anyone actually wanting to go there in the first place. It's a cesspool where the trapped inhabitants fight to survive off of whatever pops in.
Another guess about the backstory of the catacombs, the stuff you come across is pretty consistent, which leads me to believe that the people who originally made it had some level of control over the spatial distortions, a secret that was lost in time. When the character's father came across this place, he was able to exploit its secrets and which is why he rose to power in the first place.
But what do I know?
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Or it could be a porno version of cross edge ::) any play that game here
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As I see it...
Mundiga (the WM world) is generally prone to portals and dimensional instability. For some reason, the effect is more pronounced in the area where Crossgate now stands. That's something of a mixed blessing. The area is dangerous, getting more than its fair share of extradimensional nasties, but there's also some unique items come through the warp. There's profit to be made there. Which is how Crossgate came to be founded.
The trouble is that those portals make Crossgate a dangerous, unpleasant place to live. Added to that, the place is right out in the sticks. Over time this has meant that the post of Governor of Crossgate has come to be seen as a punishment posting, which has seen a succession of governors who hated the place and wanted as little to do with it as possible.
This in turn allowed widespread corruption and the emergence of the gangs as the de facto rules of the city. Of course, this made the city even less appealing to outsiders, creating something of a vicious circle.
Crossgate itself, I see as something like a provincial city from the Roman Empire with a light dusting of Stalker anomalies that occasionally swallow citizens or spit out newcomers. You can find these anywhere in the city, but for some reason they tend to be drawn to the marketplace and the sewers. No one is sure why this is so - the market has been moved, and the anomalies tend to follow it, suggesting that some magical doctrine of similarities is at work, somewhere. Crossgate's traders are known throughout the land as being hard to impress. They really have seen it all.
There's still a fair number of of extradimensional artifacts that end up in the market too, often without much understanding of their function. Just one more reason why Crossgate Market can be unexpectedly exciting.
The other thing Crossgate is known for is the slave trade, which also grew out of the unstable nature of the city. The anomalies brought not only artifacts, but also unique beings, any of them with useful
talents or knowledge, and not all of them interested in co-operating. Over time Crossgate became a hub for slaver caravans.
As for the catacombs, I believe they are a special case. I think the catacombs are the result of a long dead mage trying to create his own extradimensional space. He probably hoped that the precarious nature of Crossgate spacetime would make it easier to establish such a space, possibly because he otherwise lacked the skill or power for such a project . Certainly he made a right pigs ear of the project; the catacombs floorplan is different each time the door is opened, and portals can open and close with little warning.
It's possible that the PC's dungeon is a stabilised manifestation of the same enchantment, which would explain why it seems to have infinite capacity, and how the same dungeon can apparently be attached to multiple brothels. It also could explain why the dungeon escaped notice when the PC's father was killed. Deactivate the spell that binds the dungeon to a building and there's nothing to find, unless you know the cantrip to reattach it, of course.
Anyway, that's more or less how I see Crossgate.
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So it seems like I got it back to front.
Most people believe that Crossgate is Stable while the catacombs are unstable.
I figured it was the other way around. Crossgate unstable, Catacombs stable. So randomness on the streets, more controlled in the catacombs. I liked the idea of a sigil under Crossgate though. Makes for more Gang play options in the future. (Goons: we found a portal sir. You: Good how do we get in. Goons: Lock of hair from a virgin sir. You: <looks around at all his whores.> Are you kidding me?!)
To me, Crossgate is like the retention pond of the multiverse. Stuff keeps popping up in the city, but you never hear about people LEAVING the place. The monster girls you capture in the catacombs are more or less creatures who accidentally slipped through a portal (doorway, rift, what have you) into crossgate and are basically trapped and wandering aimlessly around.
I personally want to flesh out the idea of how people get to crossgate in the first place. (Obviously the whole multi-dimension thing is a way to explain how all these girls from different time periods| universes end up in your brothel.)
So far I'm picturing Girls "Phasing in" and getting trapped. They then need to survive. (crossgate isn't "user Friendly") So thye use the tried and true method of girls getting money. (Becoming whores.) And thats how you run into them.
But what do I know?
About as much as we do :D
Or it could be a porno version of cross edge ::) any play that game here
Never heard of it, give us a brief summary? (to lazy to wiki it)
It's possible that the PC's dungeon is a stabilised manifestation of the same enchantment, which would explain why it seems to have infinite capacity, and how the same dungeon can apparently be attached to multiple brothels. It also could explain why the dungeon escaped notice when the PC's father was killed. Deactivate the spell that binds the dungeon to a building and there's nothing to find, unless you know the cantrip to reattach it, of course.
I like this, it makes me think of the player carrying around a portable hole that connects to the dungeon. And he just merrily chucks girls in when they misbehave. Also gives out these Portable Holes To capture girls | Monster girls through Kidnapping | catacombs.
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ps:t had a serious, well thought-out universe, with a genius idea of planes, and planeswalking had serious, often terrifying consequences
crossgate is more in the "magic lol" category
try as I might, I cannot draw a parallel between crossgate and sigil
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ps:t had a serious, well thought-out universe, with a genius idea of planes, and planeswalking had serious, often terrifying consequences
crossgate is more in the "magic lol" category
try as I might, I cannot draw a parallel between crossgate and sigil
Wow Everyone references Torment and never references the D&D boxed sets. I'd probably make a ton of people happy here if I posted PDF's of those books. On second thought, since wizards of the coast has a conniption fit if you so much as draw a monster that might look like a beholder, I'm not really sure how they would react if I posted links to there old IP's. Guess I'll need a Mod to get back to me on that.
Also, On the basis that planescape was a master work, yeah can't draw parallels. but I used to play the tabletop version when I was a wee rpg nerd so It's one of the things I have in the back of my mind whenever I think of dimensional travel :D
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I have been debating with myself on whether I should join a DND group next year in collage
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hehe, just like to add that the world is pretty unstable.... perhaps a RPG is in order for some brave heroes to correct the instability and rescue the whores of crossgate.
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I have been debating with myself on whether I should join a DND group next year in collage
I recommend it, if for no other reason then the hilarity that ensues when you gather up 6-9 people willing to spend an evening killing imaginary dragons with pencils and dice. You will always have that one player who is just...... out there. And if you have 2, and one of them is the Game Master. Well that's when the fun really starts. :D
hehe, just like to add that the world is pretty unstable.... perhaps a RPG is in order for some brave heroes to correct the instability and rescue the whores of crossgate.
A whoremaster sequel in the distant future?
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hehe, just like to add that the world is pretty unstable.... perhaps a RPG is in order for some brave heroes to correct the instability and rescue the whores of crossgate.
fable/overlord reference
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I've always had Crossgate pegged in my mind as a city of magic-gone-wrong on a giant scale, with it focused in the Catacombs. Honestly if I think about it to much my subconscious desire to be the good guy kicks in, and that just does not work out when I throw a girl into the dungeon and stop feeding her 'cause she won't sleep with me.
hehe, just like to add that the world is pretty unstable.... perhaps a RPG is in order for some brave heroes to correct the instability and rescue the whores of crossgate.
Of course, the valiant heroes would be justly 'rewarded.' Unless they save that one snobby princess, 'cause you know, she was all hot for the first Knight in Shining Armor, but you're like... the 7th or 8th...
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Wow Everyone references Torment and never references the D&D boxed sets.
Yeah, the Planescape books were about the time that TSR were releasing themed rulebooks every six months or so in the hopes of making us buy essentially the same material over and over. I got a bit fed with them, migrated to running a Champions game, and probably didn't give planescape the attention it deserved. PS:T on the other hand I did play, and I can certainly see the appeal of sigil as a setting.
ps:t had a serious, well thought-out universe, with a genius idea of planes, and planeswalking had serious, often terrifying consequences
crossgate is more in the "magic lol" category
Not the most flattering comparison I ever read, but I tend to agree. There's a formality and a sense of ritual and interconnectedness to Sigil that I don't get at all from Crossgate. Mundiga, in some ways reminds me of the Discworld which Terry Pratchet once described as only existing because "every probability curve has to have a far end". He also said something along the lines of the Discworld's creators having bags of style and flair, but not much in the way of technical know-how.
I think Mudiga is a bit like that. It's a dimension where the builders didn't bother laying foundations, and now the whole edifice is on the verge of collapse.
hehe, just like to add that the world is pretty unstable.... perhaps a RPG is in order for some brave heroes to correct the instability and rescue the whores of crossgate.
Oh, don't let's fix it! It's much more fun to imagine the place as permanently teetering on the lip of a catastrophe curve.
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On the other hand, I could see some mileage though in a campaign where the task was to constantly keep shoring up Mundiga's metaphysical underpinnings. "OK, so what's about to destroy the universe this week?"
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I didn't mean to say it's stupid or anything
just that it's more of a means to an end, than a foundation
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Yeah, the Planescape books were about the time that TSR were releasing themed rulebooks every six months or so in the hopes of making us buy essentially the same material over and over. I got a bit fed with them, migrated to running a Champions game, and probably didn't give planescape the attention it deserved. PS:T on the other hand I did play, and I can certainly see the appeal of sigil as a setting.
Oh, don't let's fix it! It's much more fun to imagine the place as permanently teetering on the lip of a catastrophe curve.
It's funny you should mention these 2 things in the same post Doc. Cause that's exactly what killed TSR to begin with. Not the initial "let's make a hundred new worlds", Darksun and Planescape where 2 of my favorite settings ever, but the need to make novelizations of those settings.
It was their way, I guess, of cashing in on the Dragonlance craze. At it's height, TSR had what amounted to the spiritual successor of LOTR. Instead of trying to push it mainstream however, they went the "Lets make a book every month that has surprisingly less to do with Dragonlance each release." They where just passing notes on important points to new authors (Weiss and Hickman already moved on long ago) who knew next to nothing about the work they where adding to and the "changes" that inevitably came where pissing fans off.
Then TSR developed a release formula that went like this. Release a new game world, release 5-6 novels to go with it, release game expansions to the worlds while the novels where being written and released. Problems arouse when the novels actually contradicted or outright destroyed parts of the game world the Expansion sets where trying to flesh out. Planescape got butchered in it's novelizations. But not as badly as darksun. I already Ranted enough, so I won't devote keystrokes to why Troy Denning Needs to have his nuts stapled to his forehead. Lets leave it at, You aren't the only fan who got fed up. Why buy Expansion material that Denning is Gonna destroy in his next novel.
And to make it even stupider. TSR Would release new expansions to try and incorporate TD's Butcher jobs of the source material. Yeah, no one bought those. And the Authors of the source material where leaving in droves thanks to their work being destroyed by a "serial killer of fiction"
Well that's a bit of a TL;DR way of saying if you are going to "Let's fix it!" Then let the players do it. You will be surprised how many fans you lose when you change things like that as back story. If however you set the players up to do it, You retain them as fans since they felt they had a hand in changing the world. (Quick look back at the above. Dragonlance was popular because all of it's world changing event's where done by way of adventure module first, then novels.)
Of course, the valiant heroes would be justly 'rewarded.' Unless they save that one snobby princess, 'cause you know, she was all hot for the first Knight in Shining Armor, but you're like... the 7th or 8th...
Congratulations! but the princess is in another Brothel!
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not to spit in a kettle (or possibly resurect a dead thread) but this sounds kind of like what blizzard is doing to warcraft....am i off on that? the 'letting authors write the fiction in strange new directions that contradict known lore' part is what I mean...still not sure how i feel about the war of the ancients books.
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not to spit in a kettle (or possibly resurect a dead thread) but this sounds kind of like what blizzard is doing to warcraft....am i off on that? the 'letting authors write the fiction in strange new directions that contradict known lore' part is what I mean...still not sure how i feel about the war of the ancients books.
The Warcraft franchise started going to shit when they decided to release a crappy toolkit MMO (Yes, it's a toolkit MMO, don't kid yourself.)
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never claimed it wasn't ;D , just that they seemed to be doing the same thing. (edit)
tho if you take a look at how blizzard got started, and the way they've continue to run their business...
you can only fly by the seat of your pants for so long before you crash.
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Looking back on the franchise as a whole was the plot ever really good? Warcraft 3 was pretty good but can 1 & 2 be considered anything other than generic? Don't get me wrong they were great RTS games but the plot felt like an afterthought especially in the original Warcraft.
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Looking back on the franchise as a whole was the plot ever really good? Warcraft 3 was pretty good but can 1 & 2 be considered anything other than generic? Don't get me wrong they were great RTS games but the plot felt like an afterthought especially in the original Warcraft.
There was a plot?
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sorta, kind of, maybe a plot, but like this thread (sorry!) it was hijacked from the warhammer tabletop game (edit) just checked, the first game seems to have started as a warhammer game that got dropped halfway thru production
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it was hijacked from the warhammer tabletop game
I say this about everything. >.>
Then again, I was a die hard Warhammer 40k fan so I'm heavily biased.
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it was hijacked from the warhammer tabletop game (edit) just checked, the first game seems to have started as a warhammer game that got dropped halfway thru production
well that would explain the elves/human vs orc premise
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On the other hand, I could see some mileage though in a campaign where the task was to constantly keep shoring up Mundiga's metaphysical underpinnings. "OK, so what's about to destroy the universe this week?"
You know, I think that would be AWESOME.
Like a passive thing going on that is visible and gives you a bonus to something, like +10% probability of running into constructs this week because a dimension to an undead robot race (lolnecron) has been opened up.
Maybe you can have access to a mage council that you can attempt to influence to keep that setting for another week. Maybe sacrifice girls, or donate money to them for a chance at this. These anomalies could last several weeks at a time, or only one... Maybe have several different kinds, with week long extremes being uncommon and then have month long ones...
Some of the extremes will be like +10% customers/tips for a week due to exotic traders coming in through another dimension.
+5% chance of tentacle raep due to Cthulhu invading.... things like that. Perhaps the "month long" ones could be like 5% less injuries or tiredness from alien medicine, or even a moon phasing into existence that shined a healing light. If there were negative effects, I wouldn't make them devastating, and I wouldn't make too many positive ones either. Mostly just "different" occurrences to give the world a more interesting approach.
Perhaps there would be a 15% chance of an extreme event happening for a week, 25% chance of a "Different but not better/worse" event happening for a week, ect.
Some of the "different but not better/worse" ones could be like mostly finding girls that are small chested or have strange eyes for that week, maybe one week could be girls with more mana then others... things like that.
Of course i'm just talking out my ass since I let my imagination get me carried away... but I do think it would be cool.
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Hmmm those are some really good ideas but the current engine wouldn't incorporate them very well.