Crafting Life
[Life Crafting, pt. 3]

In the Living Land, everything is alive (even the ground, the waters, and the winds). Yet growing things — plants and animals — are imbued with Life far beyond that of anything else. And specially trained natives (Jakatts and Rek Jakutta) can Speak with Life, communing with each other, plants, and animals without using words. More, they also have the ability to Craft Life: to alter its essence, via spiritual communion.

Those with a scientific bent may draw certain conclusions based on this, but whatever a Core Earth biologist might think, the edeinos know nothing of DNA, nor does the Crafting itself work according to scientific principles. According to Jakatts, they commune with the Life of an organism, and that Life shapes itself to their will, to conform to the image they have in their minds.

The hrockt spear isn't the product of a miracle, it's a plant shoot that has been Crafted to grow in a certain form (that of a spear), to live without needing roots or much water (like a desert plant), and to sprout thorns in response to a specific physical stimulus. No miracle is required to make one — Crafters work to create them.

In other respects the plant is like other plants. It does require water, just not much, and nutrients of some sort. (Edeinos have Crafted certain animals so they secrete a substance that can serve this function, and most plants they Craft are changed so they can thrive on the stuff. In extremis, so can an edeinos.) Once the thorns have budded, the plant has to be fed again, and several days have to pass, before it can bud again.

These plants and animals are not magical or mystical. They live, they eat, they grow. They don't get to break natural laws. The physical form of a Hrockt spear is based on natural laws, as such it requires a Tech of 3. (The Tech for spears.)

Life Crafting, and the ability to commune with Life, is a special ability granted by Lanala, powered by Lanala's Love of Life (the World Law). It is a contradiction in all other Realities (though, like Weird Science, the organisms it produces are not).

Like all natural phenomena, Crafting certain characteristics has consequences. It always involves trade-offs, like all design processes (ask a programmer or materials engineer). By Crafting certain characteristics, the organisms have been optimized for certain functions, but this may leave them vulnerable in other ways.

For example, Hrockt spears don't produce seeds or fruit, and cannot reproduce from cuttings. They have to be Crafted from Hrockt shoots, one by one. Each Crafted organism is unique.

Even given these limitations, Crafted organisms are far more useful than those organisms that have evolved naturally. They form the primary basis of edeinos civilization: shelter, food, methods to plant and harvest, weapons and armor, transportation, communication, and many other functions are all provided by Crafted organisms.

Life Crafting Already Exists
[Lifecrafting, pt. 4]

A short while ago, I did a complete read through of the Living Land Sourcebook. Much to my surprise, I found copious evidence that Life Crafting already exists in the cosm. It's literally pervasive. Here are some quotes:

"During their war with the ustanahs, the edeinos saw that the tools the ustanahs used could be advantageous. But they were forbidden from creating such things as the ustanah had created them, for such creation involved using items that were dead. They asked Lanala for guidance, and through prayer the goddess granted them living plants that would grow in useful ways, thus simulating dead tools." (pg. 11)

"Every camp has 'houses' in it. The houses have hrockt shoots for frames and are covered with the leaves that Lanala causes to grow. In this way we can move from one site to the next but still live within something that is living." (pg. 18)

"Others would prepare living plant sculptures for the rituals for that night." (pg. 19)

"A typical shelter in a wooded area is simply a lean-to built of hrockt shoots covered with vines blessed with miraculous growth. The vines blend in with the natural green of the area and are difficult to spot except when an observer is very close (by which time the Jakatts are aware of him)." (pg. 24)

"Because of their taboo against using dead items, the Jakatts (specifically the edeinos) have devised ways of making living spears. The spears are a type of bamboo shoot that can be uprooted and re-planted again and again. The Jakatts pray to Lanala to take this living thing and make it a weapon to use against those who would use dead tools." (pg. 73)

"Simple spear allows a Jakatt to take a hrockt shoot and pray to Lanala to turn it into a weapon. The tip becomes sharp, the shaft strong." (pg. 78)

Many other "miracles" are, in fact, Life Crafting at work. Pain Sacks, for example, are thorned plants altered using this ability. Several of the miracles from Central Valley Gate (pg. 9-10) are examples of Crafting Life.

Life Crafting already exists in the cosm, though in a rudimentary form. My suggestion, to make the Living Land more interesting, is that the ability to Craft Life be made more versatile, and the living tools created by Crafters be made more ubiquitous. (In part, that means that Simple Spear, Pain Sacks, Blossom Spear, and similar miracles are no longer miracles, but applications of the Crafting Life ability.)

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;664439Most of Storm Knights isn't a radical change to the game. (It started out radical, but didn't end up there.) Instead, I've taken the already-existing elements and amped them up. Lifecrafting is living technology, which is what edeinos (implicitly) had already.

Nippon Tech is the Wuxia Technothriller Reality. Fabulous martial arts, intrigue, and espionage: all elements that were already present, "turned up to 11".

Of course, the background of the cosms have changed, in some cases pretty radically. But the same play-style elements are (for the most part) present in all the same cosms. It's a better Torg, not a wholly new Torg. (IMHO.)

Oh and by the way, thanks for calling it Storm Knights.  I always thought that half the problem with TORG is that the name, like GURPS, sounds like an unfortunate digestive noise.

JG

Rules for Crafting Life
[Lifecrafting, pt. 5]

Here is the first draft of the Lifecrafting rules. They take the form of a new skill, lifecrafting.

Life Crafting
Reality: Living Land

Lifecrafting is a Spirit-based skill available only to those with adds in faith (Keta Kalles) or faith (Rek Stalek). It allows the user to Speak with other life forms, such as animals, plants, and other sentients. It also allows them take already existing plants and animals, and Craft them to be useful tools.

This skill is powered by the World Law “Lanala’s Love of Life”. Its use is a contradiction in any other Reality.

To lifecraft, the character must first start with a non-sentient creature or plant (not a human, edeinos, or other sentient creature) that has the desired natural characteristics. If it exists as a natural characteristic, a Lifecrafter can enhance it, alter it, or add it to a creature lacking it. (Abilities based on psionics, magic, Pulp Powers, or other such sources cannot be affected.)

They then must define how they want to Craft the creature. By default, any characteristics the Lifecrafter doesn’t change, stay exactly the same.

The Base DN of this check is the highest EV or statistic (original or Crafted) of the resulting, Lifecrafted creature. This Base DN is modified as follows:

DN Modifier: Situation
+3: The creature is native to another cosm.
+3: Per each additional enhancement.
+5: Enhancement greatly changes the innate characteristics of the creature (making a plant that walks, allowing a fish to actually fly, making an animal that bears fruit.)

Any given organism can only be Crafted once: you can't stack multiple Craftings. However, any desired characteristic can be modified or added. Common enhancements include: Adding bony plates to a mount, to serve as armor. Adding poison to a creature’s bite. Making a “gun” out of a plant that shoots thorns. Creating a Hrockt spear. Enhancing the senses of a hunting animal.

(One Lifecrafting that John Condon came up with involves a benthok, a more primitive relative of the benthe (being related to benthe the same way chimpanzees are to humans). He modified the benthok to emit pheromones that pacified onlookers. People could see him, but his alien nature was no longer alarming. This wouldn’t affect people far away, those in powered armor or other airtight suits, or those looking through cameras, but for people within the 100m range of the pheromones, it is very effective.)

Once the final DN is set, the character must meditate in the edeinos manner (see pg. 16 of the Living Land Sourcebook), communing with the Life essence of the creature or plant to be Crafted. This takes approximately an hour.

If the character succeeds, the creature is Crafted as they desired, by the end of the communion. If they fail, they lose the ability to Craft for 24 hours or until they have undergone a Ritual of Life's Renewal (next post).

Lifecrafting materially alters the nature of the creature, hence changes made by Lifecrafting are permanent — for that creature. However, such changes are not inherited. Lifecrafting is a gift of Lanala, and She wants the edeinos to commune with each individual creature Crafted.

[Notes: I haven't written any rules for Speaking with others using this skill. It's on the pile. Also, there are a few rules changes which need to be implemented, like “standard” Craftings (which make commonly used Craftings, like hrockt spears, easier than spontaneous Craftings).]

Quote from: James Gillen;664676Oh and by the way, thanks for calling it Storm Knights.  I always thought that half the problem with TORG is that the name, like GURPS, sounds like an unfortunate digestive noise.

I completely agree.

Sample Craftings & Ritual of Life's Renewal
[Lifecrafting, pt. 6]

Sample Craftings

The Kralect is a large, furred dinosaur, much like a lizardish wooly mammoth. It has a Toughness of 16 (its highest statistic) and a Perception of 3. Adding 3 points of armor has a DN of 19 (the modified Toughness of the Crafted creature). Raising its Perception at the same time has an additional cost of +3 DN, for a total of 22. Just raising its Perception has a DN of 16, as that's the value of the creature's highest statistic.

A unmodified hrockt shoot has a Dam of +1 and a max. damage of 15 (its highest statistic). Raising the damage by +2 raises the max. damage to 17, the DN for the Crafting. (Under normal circumstances. In fact, the simple spear Crafting is one of the most common, and has an associated Method, with a DN of 10.)

Crafting a fruit so that it causes uncontrollable rage in anyone who eats it requires defining an Effect Value (to be compared to the target’s Mind or willpower). If the Effect Value is 15, that's the DN of the Crafting check.

Ritual of Life's Renewal

Failure at a lifecrafting check results in the character losing the ability to Craft Life for 24 hours or until they undergo this miracle. They can perform the miracle themselves, assuming they have the faith and focus skills.

Ritual of Life's Renewal
Spiritual Rating: 24
Community Rating: 10
Difficulty: 8
Range: voice
Duration: NA
Ritual Length: 17 (30 minutes)
Effect: restores lost lifecrafting

The ceremony of life's renewal heightens the character’s awareness of the energies of Life in himself and others. If successful, the target regains the use of his Lifecrafting ability.

Conclusion
[Lifecrafting, pt. 7]

How does Lifecrafting affect the cosm? For one, it adds something else for edeinos to do, besides just miracles. Hurray, hurray.

Second, it expands the range of their possible tools. This means GMs can (and will, if they want such tools to exist) come up with equipment lists for the cosm. Thorn guns, benthok maskers, rage grenades, sensory explosion grenades, all kinds of Lifecrafted goodies. ("West of Eden" and its sequels offer a lot of fodder for this.)

Lastly, in combination with the Rek Jakutta, it offers a break from the “big dumb creature” monster template.

Lanalans can only shape non-sentient animals and plants. The skill description even says so.

This doesn't hold for Gotaks.

(The Sourcebook says gotaks call upon the Darkness Device for miracles. In the re-written Living Land gotaks are priests of Stalek, pure and simple, and Stalek powers their miracles. They don't live in or with Jakatt tribes.)

The restriction of “don’t Life Shape sapient species” is one of Lanala’s. She doesn’t want edeinos shaping each other, or the species they conquer.

Worshippers of Stalek have no such restrictions, and can Lifecraft too, though they require adds in faith (Rek Stalek). They can Craft sentient species, such as edeinos or humans, and can even add sentience to non-sentient species.

You think a 20 foot tall spider is a problem? Now imagine one with the mind of a genius and abilities enhanced by Rek Jakutta Lifecrafters. Now imagine a dozen of them, invading a town.

This approach adds even more variety, and a new kind of threat. Bands of Rek Jakutta, serving Kaah’s will, Lifecraft monsters to use against the human armies, Storm Knights, and cities.

That’s a Living Land filled with opportunities for adventure. That's what Lifecrafting can add.

[Note: I need to do a more in-depth writeup of the rewritten Living Land's gotaks and Rek Jakutta. Something else that’s on the pile.]

The next series is about the Lost Worlds of the Living Land.

Lost World AND Empire of the Ants!

Forgot this, from the last post:

Also, Rek Jakutta get to cheat. They are not subject to the limitations imposed by Lanala: they can stack multiple Craftings onto a single creature. More, in some cases their Crafted creatures can breed and pass on their new characteristics. (Though Rek Jakutta cannot Speak without words. They don't commune with Life, they impose their will on the target.)

Lost Worlds of the Living Land [pt. 1]

I'm really not sure how to introduce this next series. All of the ideas presented thus far pretty obviously fit the Canon Living Land. This one does as well, but not so obviously. Let's start with the most basic question: What is the Living Land?

The Living Land is a Lost World reality. From the Adventure Book in the Torg boxed set: "The Living Land is our 'Lost World' genre". Can't get more definitive than that.

In "Lost World" stories, hostile natives inhabit the jungle, among which are ruins of past civilizations. In the Living Land as it exists, the ruins are our own: buildings, streets, and monuments overgrown by verdant plant life and inhabited by primitives and gigantic creatures.

Which is fine, as far as it goes. But I wanted more. From the original series on revamping the Living Land's World Laws:

The Relics of Lost Worlds

[T]he Living Land is filled with ruins and relics from [conquered Realities], including Core Earth. Here and there, Storm Knights will stumble across a strange building, obviously alien in origin, that has been engulfed by this reality. In such buildings they may find tools, pieces of artwork, or other remnants of the forgotten past.

The first civilization destroyed by the eidenos was the Ustanah, and Ustanah ruins dot Takta Ker. Due to this World Law, they can be found on Core Earth as well. As can buildings from the world of the Benthe, and many other cosms.

Part of the Lost World genre is discovering and plundering the ruins of ancient and forgotten civilizations. That includes scavenging Core Earth buildings that have been swallowed by the verdant plant growth of the Living Land. But it also includes ruins of the Ustanah, the Benthe, and many other cosms.

That's the purpose behind this World Law: no longer are the ruins just those of Earth, but those of every single cosm the Living Land has conquered.

In the middle of Ohio, surrounded by jungles, is a small clutch of the hulking, vitreous organic buildings once inhabited by the ustanah. The local, Core Earth buildings have been transformed to match these alien ruins. Players can stumble across them, and in them find records of that ancient war, and maybe some of the tools of the ustanah.

Taking It Even Further

Alien ruins are colorful, unique (both in the cosm and in the Possibility Wars as a whole), and fulfill one of the tropes of the reality: ruins of the past. They are necessary, and interesting and hence the World Law.

But I want to go further.

I want Lost Worlds that are more than just physical remnants of the alien Reality, but are actually pieces of foreign cosms. Fringe Realities, pocket dimensions that were once part of other cosms, that are now part of the Living Land. Remnants of Realities lost to the cosmverse.

They are literally Worlds that have been Lost.

How do we justify it? One sentence:

Takta Ker is very old.

Takta Ker is Very Old
[Lost Worlds, pt. 2]

Takta Ker is very old.

It is a world inundated with history. Once-great civilizations, now destroyed, have left behind only ruins.

Where once were cities, vast and dense, are now ruins, overgrown in jungle. Factories, warehouses, docks, houses: all once existed, all now gone.

What is left are a few, scattered remnants that hint at an ancient and forgotten truth: the edeinos were once masters of the stars.

Once, they too mined deep for ores, dug coal from the hills, and drilled oil from the ground. They, too built metal swords, printing presses, internal combustion engines. They, too built electronic circuits, computers, and artificial intelligences. They, too once reached for the stars. In massive and powerful spaceships, they traveled the hyper-dimensional star lanes.

They traveled their alien galaxy, fighting wars and making alliances. They brought back aliens to live among them: the ustanah, the benthe, the stalenger. They reached the pinnacle of society and technology.

In a single, great Cataclysm it was all wiped away. Their cities were destroyed, their technologies lost, their civilization torn apart. They were thrown back into barbarism.

But the ruins remained, hidden in the jungle. And the machines that caused the Cataclysm still function. And it is these machines that made the Lost Worlds.

A Star is Slain
[Lost Worlds, pt. 3]

What was the Cataclysm?

The edeinos mastered technology. They built great cities, and explored the stars, building hyper-dimensional star lanes to link far removed places.

But their star was dying. The edeinos had developed the technology to sap energy directly from their stellar primary, using it to fuel their vast civilization and its immense energy needs. But the dimensional portal had unexpected consequences: it disrupted the core of the sun itself. Within a few decades, it would explode as a nova, destroying the inner planets of their system, and throwing the outer planet off into deep space.

The edeinos conceived of a great plan. They could evacuate their homeworld easily, relocating their whole populace to other worlds. But Takta Ker was their home. And they were masters of dimensional technologies.

They would not evacuate from their homeworld. They would evacuate their homeworld itself.

Using powerful dimensional machines, they would remove Takta Ker from its orbit around the dying star, into orbit around a different sun altogether. As their ships moved through the hyperdimensional star lanes, their entire homeworld would do so as well.

It was ambitious, a massive undertaking. Their entire society, and those of their subject species, organized around the immense task. They stabilized their star, harvested and stored the immense amount of energy required, and built great dimensional warping machines on the surface of Takta Ker, these machines becoming whole cities in and of themselves.

It took a hundred years of frantic construction under the light of an unstable star. And it almost worked.

Something went wrong. Some physical law overlooked, an energy budget not quite large enough, or perhaps an unexpected aspect of the hyper-dimensional space. Whatever the reason, the process went badly awry.

The dimensional warping machines tore themselves from this space, instantly forming a score of pocket dimensions, taking with them whole chunks of space. Not chunks of the planet, chunks of the spatial continuum itself. Pieces of land that had been separated by hundreds of miles, suddenly collided together, now being separated by inches. All over the surface of the planet, the machines, and the great cities surrounding them, suddenly vanished.

The effect of this was... cataclysmic. Seismic events of world shaking proportions, quite literally. Continents torn apart or crushed together. The whole face of the planet was changed in an instant. And only the beneficence of Lanala allowed the edeinos to survive.

This cataclysmic event disrupted or destroyed the star lanes. No longer could any ship of any size or description travel trough conduits leading to other suns. Each planet was cut off from every other, and has remained so to this day.

The dimensional machines are still active. Within a score of pocket dimensions, machines that can warp the dimensional structure of the cosm still operate. It is these machines which, as a side effect of their malfunctioning existence, cause Takta Ker to form Lost Worlds: they tear off chunks of another cosm, as they once tore off chunks of their own.

And what of those vast cities, built around the dimensional machines? Laid to waste. Oh, they still exist, but as uninhabited ruins. Whether the cataclysm itself killed them off, or the harsh difficulties of living in a tiny fragment of dimensional space without a star or a source of air and water, the edeinos who had the knowledge of the machines, how to build them and how to turn them off, have all died.

(And if any have survived, surely they must have devolved into tribes of ignorant primitives, lacking even the most basic knowledge of how to control the machines amongst which they live. Surely. How could it be otherwise? The rumors of edeinos scientists and technicians, armed with advanced technology, who make expeditions into the primitive jungles of Takta Ker must just be rumors.)

Last, what of the edeinos? Even with the beneficence of Lanala, surely they could not survive the nova scouring the face of their planet?

That, at least, is the one triumph of the edeinos. Though the process of moving their world went terribly wrong, still it moved. The planet of Takta Ker moved, from the orbit of one star to the orbit of another, a young, yellow star rich with energy and light.

And around this yellow sun, the edeinos have survived (through the beneficence of Lanala) and thrived. And rebuilt their society, though in ways their forefathers could never have forseen.

Wait... What?
[Lost Worlds, pt. 4]

"A science fiction Livng Land... are you kidding? Doesn't that radically change the Living Land? And doesn't that destroy the uniqueness of the Space Gods?"

"No.", to both. Let me explain why.

This past, this background, changes nothing about the Living Land's present. It could be the background of the canon, and it would change nothing. (The concept of Lost Worlds does change the Living Land, but the notion of a highly advanced past doesn't.)

A massive Cataclysm, and two thousand years of history, separates the past from the present. Two millennia ago, the Living Land was a highly advanced cosm. Then came a Cataclysm that destroyed it, and today it's the primitive reality we are all familiar with.

Doesn't change anything.

As for the Space Gods, again we're dealing with the (very) distant past and the present. Whatever the Living Land was, it is no longer.

As an analogy, take Tharkold. As a near-Earth cosm, at one point it had men in plate armor, magical beasts, miracles, and spells. You know, just like Aysle.

Does the medieval magic past of Tharkold mean it somehow diminishes the cosm of magic? No. No more than the pre-Cataclysm Living Land diminishes the Space Gods.

What this past does, is make the cosm more interesting. The contrast between a secular, highly technological (Torg Tech 31) past and the primitive, religious present adds some texture to an otherwise one-note Reality.

"This cosm is primitive and religious. This cosm has always been primitive and religious." That's kind of boring.

"This cosm was scientifically advanced, but the civilization was destroyed in a Cataclysm. The survivors were on the verge of extinction, and were saved by Lanala."

It makes sense, why the edeinos became so rabidly religious: if a God saved your entire race from extinction, and continues to do so on a daily basis, you might be moved to religious fervor as well.

So, even though this past was devised to explain a fairly radical cosmology (more about that, in a couple of posts), it is a nice addition to even the canon. It explains why the Living Land, even after thousands of years, is still a primitive, but highly religious Reality.

Not "just because", but "because the past made it this way." That is, in my mind, far more satisfying.

The Cataclysm in Keta Kalles
[Lost Worlds, pt. 5]

Keta Kalles is the edeinos religion, the worship of Lanala and Life. The origins of the religion, and the details of the Cataclysm, are lost to time. Nevertheless, the Cataclysm is the second most important religious myth of Keta Kalles, second only to the tale of how Lanala created the world.

According to the religion, Lanala created Takta Ker and all Life in the cosm. As the edeinos grew in wealth and comfort, they embraced the use of iknal (implements made from metal, cut wood, and other "unliving" materials). The comfort and ease these brought allowed the edeinos to ignore their Goddess, turning a deaf ear to her voice. They began to suffer from takrekia, the erosion of their ability to love Life.

In this corrupted state, they caused the Cataclysm, and nearly destroyed all life on Takta Ker. Lanala intervened, however, preserving Life.

To ensure that her people live free of takrekia, Lanala forbid them the use of iknal. Instead, She taught Life Speaking and Life Crafting. The Cataclysm, in addition to being the key to the creation of the cosm’s Lost Worlds, also gave rise to the living technology of Life Crafting.

Even though the details of the Cataclysm, and life before it, are unknown, it has a profound effect on how Jakatts see the world. It underlies nearly all culture in the cosm and profoundly influenced the tenets of Keta Kalles.

Tenets of Keta Kalles

To simplify the religion immensely, its core tenets are:

• Life is sacred. It is to be savored and lived fully. The chief religious stricture of Keta Kalles is "tusakh tatak", which means "You must become one with Life". To be united with Life is to be united with Lanala. The state of being one with Life is referred to as tutatakia, and it is the highest moral state one can aspire to. Tutatakia is the polar opposite of takrekia.

• Iknal leads to moral rot and the inability to live and love Life. (Takrekia.) Takrekia lead to the destruction of the world. All iknal is therefore forbidden to Jakatts. It leads to unhappiness, spiritual rot, and, ultimately, the destruction of everything.

The Cataclysm is thus one of the central religious myths of the cosm. It is a symbol of all the evils of iknal. The use of iknal destroyed the world, and so they are forbidden.

(Not surprisingly, the Rek Jakutta believe just the opposite. Iknal allows people to lead better lives, and suffer less. Lanala is seen as a cruel and retributive Goddess, and her followers are hated for perpetuating her cruelty.)

[Note: The vocabulary in this writeup was developed by myself — aided by suggestions and comments — by reverse engineering words in the Living Land Sourcebook (including redefining some, to make the fit the rewritten religion). The still-in-progress writeup of Edeinal (the name of the language) can be found on Google Docs. Commentary is welcome. Link: http://goo.gl/q9VRq Note that some of the setting details in that writeup are from an earlier version of the cosm, and are not accurate.]

Next message: The Lost Worlds of the Living Land.

Lost Worlds World Law, Redux
[Lost Worlds, pt. 6]

For this version of the Living Land, the "Relics of Lost Worlds" World Law (from the first series) is should be replaced with the following.

The Lost Worlds of the Living Land

The Living Land is a cosm of Lost Worlds: remnants of places that used to exist, but don't anymore. Hidden in the jungle can be found portals to these Lost Worlds, or perhaps the Lost Worlds themselves.

These Lost Worlds are fragments of cosms the Living Land invaded. It's possible that every cosm the Living Land has invaded has its own Lost World; if not, the vast majority do.

Such places are very different from the Living Land. They are governed by entirely different Realities, with their own Axioms and World Laws. (See "The Cosmology of Lost Worlds" for details, next post.) They have their own climate, their own terrain, their own architecture, all alien to the Living Land. Some may have their own jungles, and plant life native to the Lost World may engulf the buildings there, but the Living Land's lush jungle does not. The Living Land's plants do not grow in Lost Worlds.

Some are inhabited by natives of those destroyed Realities, others are abandoned and empty. Most are filled with ruins, but some have been perfectly preserved, an eerie monument to a world long since vanished.

The inhabitants of these Lost Worlds retain the Reality of their former cosm, so long as they dwell in their Lost World. If they leave, they are as susceptible to transformation as any character in a foreign Reality.

Tools of the lost Reality can be found there. As the Lost World is a Dominant or Pure Zone of its Reality, they can be used with impunity in their originating Lost World. Used outside the Lost World, the user is subject to the normal chances of disconnection.

There is evidence that, at one time, the Living Land had very different Reality, with much higher axioms and different World Laws. There are rumors of a singular Lost World that reflects the ancient Reality of the cosm, though no one is known to have ever gone there.

If such a place exists, the secrets it no doubt holds may illuminate much of the forgotten history of the cosm. They may even prove the downfall of the heretofore undefeatable Baruk Kaah.