While I have other projects in mind this is fresh and hot from the Tenbones thread that I'm too lazy/incompetent to link to.  Keeping in mind that I've been a Fading Suns booster around here, and one of many claiming that it would make a good Dune Rpg, I figured I'd do some grunt work adapting. Mind you, I'm a little out of practice in thinking of the Dune Setting... I haven't read the Herbert books in at least ten years, and my long standing hate for KJA is well established.

Seeing as this is free on the internet, I'm not going to do too much deep lore research, so I may need some gentle nudges if I step on any fan-wank toes.  If you want to use it at your table, with more, or better, details... add them yourself!

I'll be using my Second Edition Fading Suns Books for this, so if you're redbricking it, or whomever... I got nothin'?

Setting:

This is the big question. Clearly the Dune Setting, but what does that mean?  Well, I'm all for avoiding stepping on too many toes in the book/lore department, while also not planning on getting too deep into the future history weeds, so I'm just as happy to keep it to stuff that would be familiar from only the first book... as we really do have three settings in Frank Herbert's take: The Atredies/Harkonnen slapfight, the God-Emperor period, and the Chapterhouse/post Scattering era.  While in theory the Honored Matres and stuff would make for a more complex and broad setting, it wouldn't feel much like Dune to people who mostly saw the movie(s).

On the other hand, I don't want to be tripping over Paul Atredies and ilk, but since the setting seems to be pretty damn stable for a long damn time between the ascention of House Corrino to the Padasha Emperorship all the way to the rise of Maud'ib, that gives me several thousand years to play in relatively safely. Lets back off a full thousand or so years.  A quick glance at the Dune Timeline Wiki shows that almost no history is recorded for Dune around this time, so boom, the year is Nine thousand, One Ninety One, and we don't have to worry about tripping balls over 'screwing up the setting'. There a Corrino on Kaitan, Salusa Secudus is a wasteland prison planet producing Sadukar, the Atredies and Harkonnen hate each other as they have since the Butlerian Jihad, nine thousand years ago.

What about Arrakis? Its there, producing Spice as always. Some random House (Tantor) runs the place, have for the past few decades, will for perhaps a few more until the Emperor deposes them in favor of a different house, seeing as it is the biggest political hot potatoe in the damn galaxy.  Fremen are problems, but not a notable one.  

Ok, so we have some ten thousand worlds to play around with, and literally thousands of Houses in teh Landsraad, how does this work out?

Well, Houses are defined by two seperate things: Stock Shares in the CHOAM corporation, which largely focuses on Spice trade, but dabbles in pretty much everything. The Emperor is the biggest shareholder, and secondly by a stockpile of Atomic Weapons, of which Stoneburners are but one example, and we can probably include more old fashioned nuclear bombs in that arsenal.  These are technically illegal to produce and buy/sell... not that anyone with Atomics would sell them, as that would weaken them politically, just as using them threatens retaliation in kind from 'everyone'.   So, Houses don't measure their power in worlds.  Most Houses will have at least one world they directly control, but that's more a status symbol and a form of security than political power in and of itself.  Corrino, the house of the Emperor, only really controls Kaitan and Salusa Secudus directly, and Arrakis indirectly.  We can presume entire worlds with minimal Noble influence.

Nobles titles are not entirely a big deal. Baron Harkonnen is not subordinate to Duke Atredies, despite Dukes being traditionally the noble title second only to kings and emperors (and we can assume no "kings", aside from a few self titled minor lords ruling whole planets, but without much, if any, say in the Landsraad...).  That's not to say there is NO difference. We know for a fact that Atredies is very influential in the Landsraad, while the Harkonnen are not. Aside from personality, the noble titles reflect comparative shares in CHOAM, and therefore power in the Landsraad, if nothing else.  While we don't see a lot of vassalage and use of titles in Dune, we can assume it does exist, so Duke Leto Atredies may have a number of Barony's who are vassals and members of his House, and who Vote their shares in the Landsraad according to their House (and may, in fact, hold those shares entirely in proxy to the Duke Atredies!).

[Note that I'm beginning to see the framework of a subsystem for political manuevering, a balancing act of atomics, CHOAM shares and Wealth/Spice Holding... but that isn't very FS, so I'm going to speed past it for the moment... maybe a later post.]

Technical Specialists... that is to say people without (necessarily) advantageous birth but great skill with machines etc (the Guilder in FS), fall under the aegis of the Spacing Guild and CHOAM. Many minor nobles and second (or third) sons may find their own paths here, and many are born to it, but anyone with ambition or talent may find a place in these organizations, and grow.

Religious groups: This is where the various Bene organizations fall (the Bene Gesserit and the often illegal, or at least suspicious Bene Tlielaxu) fall here. Actual belief in god isn't really necessary, we are looking at the form of the group.  Fremen Fedakin would be analogus to Brother Battle (without the cool armor) as is... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

What else do we need? Mentats?  Certainly. What are Mentats exactly? Men trained to think like machines? We see Thufir Hawat serving as a spy master and trainer to Paul Atredies, and Piotr is similar on the other side. Frankly, I think Mentats don't need special rules so much as just recognition in the setting. If you've got X abilities and take the Mentat perk, you be a Mentat. Boom.  Same with Duncan and sword masters. Duncan is just a really well trained fighter guy with a perk that lets him claim to be awesome officially, and so forth.  We've also got the teeming masses, the smugglers and criminals, along with military forces.  The Sadukar are well trained, well equipped military forces with some special gear and a penchant for Turkish titles.

This is an overview. In later posts I can/will do things like give a roster of big important names that people are likely to care about, but I want to go over the framework of rules so that I won't be just skinning up Dune as a blank setting 'like' Dune.

Rulez:

One big one I'm going to need to hash out along the way is Spice.  I'm going to posit that it is like a 'zero point' perk, neither an advantage nor disadvantage. You are addicted to a super expensive substance and will DIE without it (and assume all Nobles/people of importance are addicts...), but on the other hand you'll live for two to three hundred years, may gain psychic powers and so forth.  So despite the downside, its so damn good that EVERYONE WHO CAN takes the stuff.  Now, we can also assume LEVELS of addiction, with many people just taking a reasonable amount once a month or week or what have you, and just getting the health benefits, and blue within blue eyes daily constant need where you are damn near a superman, but without Spice near constantly, you shrivel up and die (which is why the Fremen weren't terribly eager to do more than live in their desert... They probably were well aware that their utility in space, without massive stores of Spice (making tehm a target for everyone with half a brain) was highly limited!).

For now, we'll treat it like the books/movies do: As a background detail.  Spice is VALUABLE. Its the basis of currency and one of the legs of political power, beyond that we don't care much just yet.

First, let me pare down my FS books a bit.

Lifeweb: Unnecessary except maybe to design space monsters to fight.  May be useful for discussing Honored Matres and their forces later, but we're not going there.  Next.
Children of the Gods: No aliens, though we might draw Ukar details for the Fremen, we don't really need it right now. Next.
Sinners and Saints: A collection of NPCs, useful at the table, useless for parsing rulesets. Next.
Byzantium Secundus: Makes a good standin for Kaitan, but more than that discusses the Imperial Eye (spymastering!), so we'll put it in the useful later pile.
Into the Dark: Adventures involving dark demons. NOt really appropriate, but might be mined later for NPCs and ideas. Next.
Lords of the Known Worlds: Nobles. Yes, we are keeping this more or less intact. Useful "Now" pile.
Aliens and Deviltry: Well, half of this is Children of the Gods, but the other half includes various psychic and 'magic' rules, so I'm going to keep it for adaption purposes.  useful 'now'.
Players Companion:  Skipping all the aliens that takes up a good third of the book, its pretty much all gold for us. Useful Now pile.
Noble Armada: Ship Fighting Game. Potentially useful, but adds nothing to 'adaption', so Next.
Orphaned Races: More aliens, Next
Forbidden Lore, Techology: Useful Now
Star Crusade, Lost Worlds: A collection of planets. Useful in game, but much like Sinners and Saints offers nothing for adaption, Next.
Star Crusade: This one covers to alternate human cultures in Fading Suns. Plenty of things to adapt, but also somewhat unique. I'm gonna put that with Byzantium Secundus, to be dealt with case by case.
*I'm sure I'm missing a book on priestly sorts, but I can't recall if I misplaced it or never bought it, so we'll have to do without.


So, to process the Rulez I'm going to go in reverse order from detailing the setting. Now I"m going to look at what Fading Suns provides, and putting a Dune Spin on it.  As I drill down later, I will be more syncretic, but first I have to have my frameworks. I've got the setting framework (up above) so now for the rule framework.  I'm going to go over the rules as they exist in the book. This might get tedious, but I'm adapting an entire setting to another entire, but similar setting, so details do matter. I get that my first pass will be primarily reductive, I won't be adding shit to the game at this point.

First up the book talks about nobles. We've got Five major Noble houses and a dozen or so Minor Houses (taken from Lords and the PC).
So first glance, mechanically there isn't much difference in characters between the two 'sizes', its mostly roleplaying. Characters from minor houses tend to have lesser titles and wealth, etc.
So, first up is to state, catagorically, that the names of the noble houses are irrelevant, its what they represent. We don't know all the noble houses of Dune, only a tiny handful of mostly Major houses.

So pick a House whose flavor fits your idea of a NOble House. Atredies is a good match for Hawkwood, etc... but other houses may look like Hawkwood too (or take after Hawkwood in other ways). Ideally we can come up with a list of Dune Houses matched to the flavor of various Fading Suns Houses, but really that's an exercise for later.  If we stick to the LIfepath creation system in Second Edition (Printed in 1999) then the Lords of the Known Worlds (printed in 1996, so first ed) is less useful to us, but if we use point creation we should be good.  Either way, anyone playing a member of a noble house can make a noble without too much change At This Stage.

Maybe we can even steal House Names to bulk up our Roster of Noble Houses of the Landsraad.

The second up on the block is the Church.  Obviously we have a major issue here, as Dune doesn't posit a universal church, or at least not one with extreme politcal power and divine miracles backing them up. So we're gonna have to do some shaping. A LOT of shaping, so much so that I don't want to jump right in just yet. Notably, however, we can adapt certain elements to the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tlielaxu later.   From Fading Suns, however, we have an issue of sorts, as none of the factions really stand 'as is' for Dune. We can, with squinting, take a largely martial 'religion'... and squeeze it with difficulty into the Brother Battle, with a LOT of skin changes, and the same with Temple Avesti (Fire using inquisition/fanatics), and possibly the Amaltheans (healers), but right now its just not worth it. Lets shelve this section entirely until we get to mystic powers, and suggest that Point Buy may be necessary to make your Bene characters, though I think House Decados does have psychic shapeshifter spy/assassins that would be a decent 'skin' for Facedancers but that is for when we dive into Lords I believe.

The Guilds: As noted earlier, any technical specialists and a great number of civilians will fall in around here. Charioteers make a good skin for Spacing Guild members, I'm going on a limb to say here and now that Navigators ARE NOT suitable for player charaters, and leave it at that.  Engineers may be members of the GUild or of CHOAM, while Reeves will be mostly CHOAM members.  Scravers and Muster (merc/slavers) are independents. Mind you, this will have little bearing on the setting, this is just providing the framework for character creation AT THIS STAGE.  Militant members of CHOAM and/or the Spacing Guild would still exist, and Muster characters would be a good fit to make those sorts, but we are not suggesting an organization of Muster or Scravvers (scavenger/scrappers) is canon Dune, just that people would develop those skill sets.  

Now we skip the rules chapter entirely and look at the life paths in a much quicker gloss.

Questing Knights? Nothing says that Corrino, or other Great Houses may not find use for 'second sons' of nobility doing random shit.  What was Sting doing before he was tasked to take over Dune? Fighting in gladatorial duels for his amusement.   So the Noble LifePaths can remain more or less the same.

Priestly Lifepaths: Well, an 'Imperial Priest' makes a good match for a Bene Gesserit assigned a Noble House, and Mendicant Monk could match a Missionaria Gesserit, but again, we're stuck trying to fit a canonball through a square hole. God that sucked. Forget I tried it. Please.

Those Who Trade Lifepath: Pretty much can remain intact I think, though of course you have to adapt to the setting along the way. Find a close fit and go with it.

Those who Differ (aliens): Scrapped, though you MIGHT borrow it for human savages, such as the Fremen.  Lets do that now: Ur-Ukar represent Fremen. Ignore the Blessing and Curse, adn the changes to attribute max and min, change Speak Ukarish to Speak Zensunni. We'll have to do more work, but this is just a starting point.  This works pretty good for any non-civilized bunch in the setting, not just the Fremen.

Extra Stages, Tour of Duty:  Largely unchanged, though we'll deal with psychic, theurgic and cybernetics as we go, likewise the Questing Knight and Cohort rules.  Cohort simply reflects a non-noble serving in the upper eschelons of a Noble House, with implied Patronage, rather than a specific Imperial blessing.  We can argue the same for Questing Knights, they've got noble privilege, but won't be voting in the Landsraad any time soon, but they can still call on family and title.  Again, we'll deal with that later.

In the Custom Creation gloss we can again ignore most of the Alien stuff. The Kurgan and Vuldrok are good starting points for relatively backwards cultures, and the Kurgan can be tweaked to be Zensunni very easily, though they'd be less desert dwelling savages and the more erudite city dwellers. I'll note for the records that the Kurgan and Zensunni Fremen share an origin culture (arabic), but have been diverged in different directions by different authors.  The Vuldrok are space vikings.

So we delve deeper into character creation.   First up, as usual, is attributes.  Obviously we won't be changing anything here, as there is no real need, but lets talk about them briefly.
Three groups: Physical Mental and Spirit
Physical requires no real notes
Mental: Clearly someone playing a Mentat requires high mental stats. Fading Suns is relatively unique for providing a "tech" stat and no 'INt'. It is Wits, Perception and Tech. I'd say a Mentat requires all three to be high, and we may use the other parts of teh system to drive one or more higher than 10 (which is the normal human max) to reflect the accepted fluff that Mentats are somehow smarter than normal people.
Spirit Stats: This is unique to Fading Suns, in that you have a number of opposed Pair stats that don't work much like other stats. You have Introvert/Extrovert, Passion/calm, Faith/Ego and Human/Alien... though that last one seems to have dropped from Second Edition.  With the exception of Faith/Ego, we can safely ignore these, leaving them to define personality and function as is.  Faith/Ego will come into play when we start delving into the supernatural aspects of Dune.  In truth, we don't need to change it, merely to note how it interfaces with Dune powers vs FS powers, as the fundamental personality types remain more or less universal.  Let me know if you need me to expand on that statement in the comments.

Natural Skills: Fight, shoot, fuck... no, that last one isn't in there. Unchanged expressions of human adventuring behavior. Next.
Learned Skills:  This is the more refined skills that not everyone has, and we have a few worth noting and/or removing.  First of all, Dune is more openly technical than Fading Suns, so these skills maybe generally easier to get, with less religious hokey-pokey along the way. Lots of flavor text may be excised if someone wanted to re-write the rulebook.  So lets take a sampling: Alchemy? May remain. Poison use is highly refined in Dune. Archery and Crossbow: We don't see these weapons in use in Dune, but primatives may have them, and Crossbows may provide a skill for 'slow firing' dart weapons.  Focus is meditation, and we know that plays a role, so it stays (and yes, I'm skipping a whole bunch of generic skills like drive and academic and shit).  Read: This may be pulled if we assume literacy is the norm, or we can leave it in for learning to read other languages. Obviously the language list here and in Speak, need setting updates.  I don't think Herbert got into the weeds of language, but we know the Fremen speak a Zensunni Dialect, as to the Bene Tlielaxu (though a different one, and only in private amonst themselves), and we can mockingly assume English is the default for everyone (though I believe Herbert DID proclaim a universal language for the Empire... I can't for the life of me recall).  Stoic Body and Stoic Mind will be among skills taught to Bene Gesserit, among others, tech redemption is just a fancy name for fixing shit, so remains.  Think Machine might exist, but it would be pretty much illegal, unless you want to adapt it for use by Mentats reading Shigawire reels at high speed or some crazy shit.  Xeno-Empathy is gone, no aliens.

So, we can mostly keep the entire skill list, with one certain exception and one maybe/caveat exception. It will be more important to note who/how the skills exist in a different setting, but that was a given.

Now we get to the Blessings and Curses, which are a form of Advantages and Disadvantages.
Most of these remain unchanges. Pious may not serve well in Dune, but then again, people may still respect a Pious man/woman, so a GM should really just guide his players here rather than have me declare that pretty people (for example) do or do not exist in Dune.

Benefices and Afflictions:
Yes, Virginia, Fading Suns DOES have two sets of advantages and disadvantages!   This is where we have to go a little slower, as these are more setting specific.  Lets do it by catagory. Upfront note: If a benefice doesn't quite fit in Dune's setting, but represents something possible (Vow of Silence, say), I'd rather leave it to the GM to sort it rather than waste time commenting to say the same.
Background:
Alien Upbringing can be reskinned (no Aliens) to represent someone from outside the Imperial culture (For example: Fremen!).
Lost Worlder: Doesn't really fit Dune, but we do know there are worlds outside the Imperium (Scattering), so 'maybe'. Again, GMs rather than random asshole on Forum.
Stigma: People in Dune generally don't seem overtly superstitous, and plenty of 'supernatural' abilites (Prana Bindu etc) don't seem to leave a mark, but there are still deformities in the setting, and people could well respond to them. Blue in Blue eyes are a stigma, right?
Community:
Nothing of note to change
Possessions:
Jump Key: No jump gates. Maybe a Reskin to represent a right to passage aboard a highliner?  
Advisor: This is a Think Machine, so its right out, but maybe could be salvaged as a reskin to some other form of 'high tech' knowledge device? Clearly they have some form of data storage instead of entirely relying on paper books, so it could represent a database of Shigawire reels (experts on the setting feel free to correct my heathen ass).
Flux Sword; Well, we never see a light saber, but that doesn't mean it can't exist? Nah, ditch it like a bad rash.
Mist Sword: Depends on if you leave in Flux Swords, as this is just a psychic version, innit?
Neural Disruptor: Seems right up the Dune Ally, so I'm all in for mind burning illegal guns.
Psi Cloak: Eh, I'm up there with the Neural Disruptor for this one.
Wireblade: Arguably a third light saber, but given the constant references to Shigawire in almost every role, I'm cool with a monowire sword in Dune.
Adept's Robes: Power armor. We don't see much armor in Dune, but then we don't get very clear depictions of many soldier types. Whose to say Sadukar aren't wearing heavy armor? GMs call.
Article of Faith/Saint's Lore/Vestments: Ditch entirely. Too religious themed with no clear analog in Dune even for our religious reskinning of the Benes.
Wyrd Tabernacle: Holds psychic/theurgic energy, doesn't really fit, but maybe with a reskin?
Riches:
All of these work fine on a character level.  Not sure, but it may be useful to add more for things like CHOAM shares or Spice stashes.  
Status:
Cohort Badge: represents a non-noble with noble patronage. May require GM adjudication to handle minor discrepencies between settings.  Alternatively, keep as same if Patron is House Corinno, lower cost and benefits for Major Houses, and again for Minor Houses.
Commission: Represents membership in either CHOAM or the SPacing Guild (or any other similar 'civilian' power... not that I can think of any, but whatever...) Minor tweaks for setting specifics.
Coven: May be reskinned to represent membership in a loose sense to Bene Gesserit or Bene Tlielaxu, at a local level.
Imperial Charter:  Could be removed, or it could remain to represent relatively minor nobles with powerful patronage with some tweaking. Think Count Fenrig, a man of small personal power, but carrying the weight of the Emperor in his duties.   This may require a lot of GM tweaking for each character/campaign... or we can assume the Padisha Emperor likes to send noble second sons on important public affairs missions as 'questing knights' and leave it entirely intact.
Nobility: Remains intact, but note that some measure of Title reflects power/voting rights in the Landsraad.   Detailing House status and vassalage may come into play. As presented we really only see one noble title for Atredies (duke), and one noble title in Harkonnen (Baron), with no real discussion of titles for Paul (heir apparent, so he may not require a title of his own), or Raban or Ruatha/Sting. (though I'm sure the books hint at least in this regard, I'll be damned if I remember!), so we have to either ignore, or expand the setting here. I'm in favor of expanding.  
Ordained:Just reskin, this reflects rank in the larger Bene Gesserit and Bene Tlielaxu organizations (compared to Coven, which would cover the Reverend Mother on Arrakis and her subordinates, say).
Professional Contract: As written I think this can be ditched. There is no indication that only CHOAM/Spacing Guild members can learn certain skills (aside from Navigation, which we are going to leave out of hard rules), so a benefice to learn guild skills, as a non-guild member can be ignored. However, this MAY allow non-bene members to learn prana bindu and so forth, as Paul was taught by Lady Jessica, so... hmm... tweak?
Branded/Escaped Slave/Escaped Serf: Branding might be a thing, but we don't have evidence. Escaped slaves exist (Gurney Halleck), but are not universally hunted. We don't know much of Serfdom, so GM
Excommunicated: I'd skip it entirely, but the possibility exists for people mucking about with Think Machines or what have you to fall into some sort of universal damnation in the public, so... maybe?
Fallen From Grace: Lady Jessica is a perfect example, still a member of the Bene Gesserit, but in deep caca for giving birth to a son instead of adaughter, and then more caca for teaching him Prana Bindu stuff (but not really), and then utterly condemned for giving birth to the Abomination, Alia. Yep, this one stays. With good reason.

So we can add a bunch of benefices after a final tweaking to more fully cover the various social benefits and ills. Swordmasters and Mentats probably need Beneficies to represent their official status in the 'rigid' society presented, and a sharper look at Bene Tlielaxu afflictions to cover their general bad rep.  I'm guessing a moderate expansion of groups in the 'technical' and Bene side of the house is in order as well.  Also: Spice. But this is a framework, not the total package, so we'll add that once we've pared down the rules to get the day to day out of the way.

Vitality/Healing/Wyrd: No need to change anything here so far. We can assume good, high tech, medical care is available. Spice may affect all three of these for the better.


It is at this point that Shit Gets Real.

Lets be honest, most of what I've just done has been to show how easily any generic RPG, and Fading Suns in particular can be adapted to handle Dune in the grossest sense of the term. However, I have been saving some Dune Specific stuff, the Supernatural elements if you like, of Dune until here and now. Mind you, I'm not going to lay out every fucking detail here, this is still Framework territory, but now we're starting to focus on teh harder work.

With the exception of Paul's Presicence, and the Ancestral Memory shit, Frank Herbert tries to leave actual psychic and space magic out of Dune. Its all super special training and so forth. Well, I'm not obliged to pay any attention to that when I've got perfectly suitable supernatural rules to play with that provide near perfect mirrors to much of what the various witches of Dune can do, so I'm gonna use them.

First, an overview of how this stuff works in Fading Suns, then a look at how I'll be using it as I go along.

True Occult power is generally divided into Theurgy and Psychic powers (with further 'sorts' of Diabolic magic and so forth), but what is important is that they use pretty much the exact same rule framework. There is no practical difference beyond some fluffy names and a the specific effects you create.  This is hugely useful to us here, as we can toss out all that fluff and steal the framework and put whatever Dune Flavored Fluff you like on it.  Since Frank never bothered to name it, we'll just call it Psychic for now.

So how do they work?  Well, for magnets you have to learn a bit of chemistry, focusing on electron orbits and their alignment, but for this its a lot simpler.

Essentially Psychics (most Bene Gesserit, some Bene Tlielaxu, some others, like the Kwisat Haderach...) have a Psi attribute (or theurgy, or antinomy, but lets keep it simple), which governs how powerful a power they can learn. Psychic powers tend to be grouped in paths, while Theurgy Rituals are merely grouped into schools, but all powers have a level that must be equaled by the Psi rating to be learned. Wyrd, mentioned earlier, is used to FUEL powers, and Spirt (Faith or Ego, usually) is used in conjunction with a skill (specific to each power) to activate it.

Relatively simple, though I'm sure my explanation made it seem a bit hard.  Given the relatively limited scope of most powers seen, we can largely ignore the rules for spending extra Wyrd to extend ranges and so forth.  Also, we'll avoid Maud'dib levels of god powers, no teleporting between planets or what have you.

Now, there is a flip side in Fading Suns, call Urge or Hubris, which is sort of an inverse psi rating, though independent of Psi, with its own list of Sins that cause it to rise. This isn't necessary for Dune, but it maybe useful to explain why Psi is only common among extremely disciplined and cloistered types... anyone else managing to start learning it on their own might be overwhelmed by their Urge before they got too powerful.  It is also a good balancing mechanic, so we'll leave it in, though it does mean a bit more work as we'll have to actually create proper sin lists and urge penalties.

Now the next real step is to list out some basic powers per potential groups of psychics.  

Lets start with the Bene Gesserit.

They have The Voice, which is a form of mind control
They have a truth telling power
They have some bad-ass physical arts they call Prana Bindu
They can inflict diseases on people on physical contact
They can cloak themselves from human sight

That may not be all, but those are the ones I remember specfically. THey can do other crap like ensuring pregancy and gendering their infants, but that's not really helpful in game normally... let's just chalk that up as low level crap.

Now, we might construct a power list, but those aren't terribly well connected. Lets look at what is available to us.  Now, I am VERY STRONGLY tempted to just make Prana Bindu a 'martial art', rather than a set of powers, certainly it tends to play that way in the books, as it is almost always mentioned alongside using it to kick someone to death. However, for right now lets assume there is a psychic component, and a Bene Gesserit Kung Fu both.

I can steal the entire Soma path of psychic powers and rename it Prana Bindu and call it a day.  Is it a perfect match? Probably not, but I'm not enough of a fan-wanker to notice any serious differences, and so it is more than good enough for me. Boom, headshot and DONE!

The Omen psychic path has some potential, so lets look at teh four powers it has.
Shadows Gone By: Psychometry. Not in theme of what we've seen so far, so we can discard it... or simply cripple it by insisting that it only works with the ancestral memories.
Shadows To Come: Future Psychometry. Well we have a LOT of precognition in Dune, but they usually aren't item focused.
Voice from the Past: A Dune Skin allows the Bene Gesserit to summon up the ghosts of her long dead ancestors, not quite what the power says here, but close enough. Note that Bene Gesserit cannot call up male ancestors, but Abominations (and possibly male psychics) can.  However, I'm not sure if I really want to deal with Abominations just yet. Lets leave that to a very specific sort of Urge, maybe?
Oracle: This is simple precognition, in a suitably weak and cryptic form (remember: what makes the Kwisat Haderach special really comes down to how clear his vision of hte future is, and we're staying out of god territory here...).  So two decent powers to reskin, and two questionable powers to ditch.

Note: I'm skipping over telekinesis, but let me know if I"m in error.  I'll probably skip over other paths (vis craft, Sympathy (psychic bonding)) as well.

Our next 'Path' is Psyche, which is telepathy. I'll keep it simple, most of it can remain intact, reskinned as 'The voice', and allowing I think for a Truth Telling power in there somewhere.

Then we've got Sixth Sense, which is basic ESP. This one gets hit with a weed whacker possibly. We can easily pull some powers as clearly Bene Gesserit, while others are more questionable. Hell, we can simply expand the canon and keep the whole damn thing,and I'm cool with that...

So you can see we have a framework in place.  Hammering out the exact powers available is going to be the hard part. I could go over the Theurgy Rites and look for thematically appropriate powers for Bene Gesserit, but honestly we pretty much covered most of the big ones right there, except disease infliction (antinomy maybe?), which might go in hand with some theurgic healing rituals, if we assume teh Bene Gesserit have such fine control over their bodies that they can do weird crap like that to people they touch.

So lets talk Urge. Now the only real downsides we see to the Bene Gesserit is when they awaken the voices within in a child, and thus create Abominations... which doesn't really work for a game, and in fact being an Abomination is not, of itself, a crippling problem... though it often becomes one (see God Emperor of Dune... Alia is Abomination and goes mad/possessed by Baron Harkonen (her ancestor, recall), but the children of Paul and Chani are also abominations through Paul, and neither (or at least one?) doesn't go mad/get possessed.  We can debate the sanity of the God Emperor (of Dune, anyway) if you like.

Now, absolutely the Taboos of Fading Suns are not thematically useful for the Bene Gesserit, but they do provide a framework.  Obeying orders from the Order is a thing, disobeying is Taboo, and thus Jessica has a small Urge Problem.  I actually don't have a problem with the actual Urge levels, given that we're working 'whole cloth' here.  Freudian slips and dark voices in one's mind are no inconceivable, and certainly Reverend Mother Mohaim may have had problems with dark urges (negative emotions caused by bad psychic juju), which put her in opposition to Maud'dib unnecessarily, to her detriment, so I'm pretty cool with them in the main.  So for now I'm happy to leave Urge powers alone, but I'll have to work out the Taboo lists at some point. I'm pretty happy with the powers as is, but we'll go on later.

Now, At the moment we're ignoring the Tlielaxu face dancers and gholas and shit.  I'm moderately sure there is a shape changing psychic power in another book, but actually I have another plan. Like so much else the Tlielaxu are largely a marginalia, so we have a fairly open hand to develop them in ways that don't necessarily support, or contradict, canon.  Lets argue for now that non-face dancers have some psychic gifts, but not to the extent the Bene Gesserit do. We can also posit wild nature shamen (using the rules extant for that elsewhere), and as I go through my books I'm sure I'll find useful shit to pull for the Gesserit.  We can also assume some people just have small gifts with precognition, as the books demonstrate MANY 'almost' Kwisat Haderachs are floating around.

The next chapter, after occult shit, is functionally Martial Arts.  Now, I'm too damn lazy to look up the funny names Herbert uses, but right here we have all we need for Swordmasters and so forth. This covers pretty much everything, from kung fu, to fencing to gun-fu, so I'ma leave it as is.  People learn this shit, and we can put together specific schools from the peices we have if we need to, but I gather Frank Herbert didn't care much for the details of fighting, so all we get are abstracts in the books, so its wide open as far as I'm concerned.

I'll talk about weapons and shields in a little bit (these are covered here, but I'm working on something here, so I'm trying to move ahead...)

Now, a bit later int eh book it gives us a generic set of rules for cybernetics, and breaking with form, in the Players Handbook we have rules for "The Changed", which are genetically modified 'mutants'.

Fading Suns does not posit a cybernetics heavy setting. In First Edition (I'm using second, recall), being any sort of cyborg at all required taking the Alien spirit trait as your primary over Humanity, as did being a member of the Changed.  Second doesn't have that, but it was worth mentioning.  Dune is mixed. Herbert's book doesn't talk much about cybernetics but may (dimly recalled, but possibly a file error from a non-dune inspired by Dune setting?) have an injunction about making men into machines?  the Lynch movie, on the other hand, clearly has no problems with cybernetics, at least among the Spacing Guild, or heart plugs in the Harkonnen.

So, in the front of it, we could simply leave Cybernetics in place and leave it well enough alone, or cut them entirely to avoid canon-corruption (which, I clearly give no fucks at all about, but I'm upfront about it...). However, consider the possibility of using Cybernetics for example, to cover teh changes to Mentats.  You can buy up your Wits and Perception attributes, taking them above Ten, or into 'superhuman' territory.  Its possible the Sadukar, or other legendary warrior types use cybernetics to achieve similarly superhuman levels of greatness.  I believe we see some sort of implants in Tlielaxu products (facedancers and Ghola-Duncan's eyes?).  Mind you that FS cybernetics are primarily effect based, you buy up the effect you want, then modify it for appearance and quality, rather than buying a specific implant (though a few 'pre-made' implants are given as examples), which fits just fine with our Dune needs... even if individuals disagree on the exact canonity of cybernetics, there is enough room to make a Lynch grotesquery and a subtle 'enhanced human' using the same rules.

This leads me to the Changed.  This is clearly the bread and butter of the Tlielaxu, and we can assume that variations on this theme exist throughout the Imperium in the form of spin-off groups (splinter factions) and simply people who use the same basic technology in vastly different (and probably less ethically challenged....) ways.  This includes the Metonym power/race, which are basically Facedancers with the serial numbers filed off.  All of these 'powers' are based in the Blessing/Curses catagory, and while many are thematically Not Dune, this is a good place to start building, well, Dune.  For those of you playing at home, being a Facedancer is a Seven Point Blessing. They don't really have a lot of rules beyond that, which is one thing to like about pre-3E rule-sets.  Boom, shapechange. GM tells people when to roll to detect you based on judgement. Simple!

To an extent, you can use the Blessings 'rules' to make a smarter than normal human (Mentat), and even use part of the Changed rule set to support it, so we have options.

So, we can gloss Starships. FS uses Jump Gates to do FTL, Dune uses Fold Space Highliners, but that's a fluff reskin. Players should not have absolute control over either. Dune doesn't put much emphasis on starships, but they are clearly a part of the setting, and an important one even without discussing the... prequels.   Without more information on Starships in Dune, I think it is safe to use the Starships of Fading Suns as written.

Which essentially leaves me with 'basic gear'. Guns and sheilds and shit.

Melee Weapons (to include 'frap sticks'), unchanged. Popular due to shields.

Armor: Unchanged, except perhaps at the high end. Depends on if modest Power Armor is too far out of bounds for your taste.

Common guns? Unchanged.

Lasers....


Now we talk shields.   The FS rules for shields are basically teh same as Dune, only a bit more simplified. No slipping and sliding on your shield (a la Lynch movie, and supported vaguely in books...), its just a 'slow blade penetrates' sort of defense, but one that can be overwhelmed by normal firepower... which makes sense and is balanced.  SHields are not OMGZOG powerfull, but they do a good job stopping bullets and hasty melee attacks.

Now...  I know the intraction between lasers and sheilds in Dune is Nuclear. And it is stupid as shit. Its unscientific, to begin with... unless you suppose every laser gun and every shield generator is powered by a full sized nuclear reactor... never mind how stupid it is for the effect to propagate backwards through a laser beam.  Frankly, I think Herbert did it because he didn't want to address how fast as light attacks couldn't be 'sensed' by a shield that was 'speed driven', or something to that effect. IT IS DUMB.

That said: It is canon. So we have to add some sort of back ass effect to the game to account for it. However, I'm not nearly stupid enough to put players into pocket-nuke territory. This isn't a novel, and PCs are notoriously dastardly when you give them a fucked up tool like 'nuclear bombs', so fuck canon. If you absolutely MUST use this idiotic bit of canon in your game, simply treat it like a simple explosion with a power equal to the number of shots in the magazine, or hte number of Hits left on the shield. that should be plenty deadly.  

Alternatively: Have it be a fucking lie that everyone believes. Don't tell the players that, just have it be some ancient propaganda the shield wearing Nobles put out eons ago to keep assassins from sniping them with lasers all the damn time (in FS lasers 'bleed' through shields, imperfect, but better than guns!), that everyone buys (except maybe a few scientists who know better than to blab), so no one has used a laser on a sheild in living memory... and if anyone does, no one talks about it to keep the myth going.   Because, and I can't stress this enough, it is fucking stupid and bad, and a very bad idea to let players actually use.

Okay, now that I got that out of my system...

Ok, so Lasers stay in teh system, and sheilds work as advertised. Lets remove Blasters and Light Sabers and we're pretty much done.  We'll need to add 'slow guns' or something... though honestly, how shit a warrior was Duncan to be killed by a gun/bolt slow enough to pass through a shield when a fast swing won't?  I mean: You gotta be god damn slow is what I'm saying. A baseball pitch is too fucking fast.  Duncan fails at motherfucking dodgeball!  

We'll also need to spend some energy on assassin drone/needles and crap like that.


Ok, so later (tomorrow? A few hours? Same diff if I'm honest) I'll look in detail in my 'must use' books, but to close out I'm going to look at some of the more esoteric groups in Dune with 'solutions'.

Suk Doctors: Curse of pacifism, combined with a Blessing similar to the Cohort Badge or something.
Mentats: Frequently mentioned here. Some form of intelligence enhancement, possibly Cybernetic or a Blessing, again, combined with a Status Blessing to identify themselves (and a low levels Stigma to represent their stained lips).
Bene Gesserit: Psychics with some religious trappings, will require extensive work to build a full faction, but could be done simply with points buy and creativity.
Facedancers: Metonyms
Swordmasters: Various, mostly martial artists with lots of sword techniques. May include some cybernetics at GMs discretion
Fremen: Use modified Ukari or Kurgans as a basis for 'savages'
Twisted Mentats: See Mentats, but include a curse for some form of sociopathy?
Sadukar:  Could use 'Grimsons' genetically enhanced soldiers as a base. Could use Cybernetics. COuld just be soldiers with a rep, really.
CHOAM: Reeves mostly. These are businessmen and accountants for the Great Houses.
Spacing Guild: Engineers and Charioteers. Only an idiot asks to play a guild navigator. Assumption that many in the guild are working their way to Navigator status, however.
Spice:  Fuck you, Spice.  Just kidding, I'll work something up later.
Honored Matres: Not used in this setting. May get a notional workup later.  Note that in canon they come across as non-psychic bene gesserits, having developed physical powers to make up for the loss of psychic gifts. May be done using Changed rules for superior physical abilities and 'sexual control'?
Ghola: Dear god... no, just kidding: Changed Clones with minor alterations. Not really worth it, eh?

Who/what am I forgetting?


Edit: Bah. I still need to work on the Wierding Way/Techniques based on Sound. OF course I may wish to go back ot the book to make sure I'm not stealing TOO MUCH Lynch, though honestly most casual players would likely not notice.   Also, Shai Halud, but honestly I'm not sure how relevant that may be to your random Dune game... but then again, a Dune Game without trips to Dune (for Spice if nothing else) is probably cripple ware, so...  yeah.  Big fuckoff worms are coming, you damn betcha!

I'm gonna burn some stray thoughts off before I dig in for some deeper work. I've been idea mining the various wiki pages.

First, I have NO intention of treating anything from the pen of Anderson as canon, per se.  I'm not sure how much is Frank Herbert's notes, and how much is bullshittium, but i'm pretty damn sure they ran out of notes around the time they hit the Butlerian Jihad series. Maybe Frank layed out a crude sketch of ideas, maybe he didn't but the final product had so much ass in it that I though my face was a toilet.  That said, trying to parse out Frank-canon from Anderson Bullshit may be a bit too much work, so undoubtedly I'll let some stuff slide, and some stuff will deliberately slide as its simply easier and better to just use the houses that have been identified already 'as is', rather than make due with a much smaller list then bulk it up with my own bullshit.   Some things I am burning with fire: Ultraspice (That name alone justifies burning it as pure asspull bullshit, never mind the story behind it...), and the Think Machines being the threat pushing the honored Matres back from teh Scattering.  I'd rather have plain old aliens than a rehash of the Butlerian Jihad, not that it should matter, but just in case you were asking.

One thing I mostly ignored in my previous musings, though it was on my mind, was how essential Spice is to any Psychic powers.  By default any noble, bene gesserit or other serious 'notable' will be automatically addicted at some level. That said, my reading is that I'll have to work out levels of addiction.  

One thing to keep in mind is that we are taking, for all its breadth of time, a very very narrow view of a very big star empire very far into the future, all written by one guy.  So a lot of things simply aren't shown to us, and some of the things that ARE shown fall apart if you look too closely (look at all the narcotics in the setting. Every single one comes from Ecaz, two come from the exact same plant!!!. Look at Shigawire, its used in almost every single data storage mechanism in space, but it comes from a ground vine that only grows on one (two) planets?  That is some serious cultivation given the size of the Empire! Never mind its really bizzare secondary use as a weapon.   Certainly I'll try to detail Semuta and stuff like that, but a lot of things have to be taken on faith. Regular Guns exist and are useful, but shields make it possible to arm forces for close action against gun wielders...  a 'straight' dune, allowing no deviance from what is shown, would have to presume that the only guns are lasguns that go nuclear against shields and some form of slow-dart thrower, and everyone else is swording each other all day, every day.  In a setting with space ships. With Space Guns that presumably don't worry about Lasgun nuclear explosions.  Details? Unknown.  But we know they exist, as the Harkonen shot down a ship in a heighliner with a no-ship (in teh Anderson books, but the event was mentioned in passing by Frank I believe... and this was early enough that undoubtedly there were Frank-canon notes about it still).

Fraufreleches:  Undoubtedly this exists, and is a sort of strict caste system in place. I know I've sort of glossed over it, as I did with a thousand other things like Kanly, but I want to make a point clear: from reading the books it seems obvious that the Nobles use Fraufreleches as a system of control, but that it is not an absolute straight jacket. People do change classes all the damn time, usually at the behest of a noble patron (Gurney Halleck for example, and we can presume some sort of movement of Duncan Idaho in his first life...). We know the Bene Gesserit have their own class outside the usual, and what do the Fremen care about the Imperial Fraufreleches system? None at all. Ditto: Smugglers. Do you think there is an official 'caste' of smugglers? Of criminals?  We also know there is a vast middle class hidden in there, because we know how they consume spice (in small sprinkles, like a seasoning, with their food).   All of this is to say that Fraufreleches is an ideal, more than a straight jacket.  If someone gets too rich or two uppity, the system is used to put them back in their place and preserve the status quo... but beyond that the exact level of social control varies wildly based more on local rule. Geidi-Prime is a slave and serf world, where only the Harkonen and their favorites have any freedom. Caliban is much more egalitarian and laid back, with locals greeting the Duke by name in the streets (when he puts in an appearance), and presumably very little social control. Don't want to farm Pundi Rice? Become a fisherman instead... whatever. Just don't try to out monetize the Atredies or some other social coup.  

Money: Honestly, I have no idea what the normal Currency is in Dune, I don't think Frank Herbert does either, since no one he was writing about ever had any NEED of money, given that they measured their wealth and power in terms of Spice Stockpiles.  This puts me in a sweet spot in Fading Suns adaptions, as I have no reason to try and change the Fading Suns economic system by very much. On the other hand I DO have to work out a value to Spice that somehow reconciles three hundred liters of Spice buying half a world, yet also allows middle class folks to afford ANY of it. What is the value of an entire (or half) a planet?  Tough question.  How much to normal people consume in a day (a dram, more or less...actually a lot less than a dram, maybe a quarter of a dram?) and how many drams in a liter (270).... meaning that the annual consumption of 1000 odd people, rounding a bit, is equal to half the value of a planet?  Seems... very low for a planet.  Never mind that elsewhere we hear a 'handful' of Spice can buy a world... though that is clearly poetic license, but we haven't even talked dosages yet.  If the lowest economic rung of everyday users is going through something less than a gram a day (a dram is almost two grams), well and good, but the nobles are putting away several grams, and people like the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild are consuming decagrams? Handfuls? I mean: In the Lynch movie (not canon, not not-canon), a noble sized 'dose', sufficient to put Paul into a brief prescient trance is the size of a small cigar! That's like... two ounces of the shit, and contrary to the movie we KNOW this isn't Pauls first rodeo with Spice, just a bigger and purer dose than he's used before.  But that does give us SOME sense of how much spice the average Noble uses per day. Call it an ounce and be done with it (discussions of purity aside....).  For practicing Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers (not including lesser members like Lady Jessica in her Calaban days), the average daily useage is probably a half dozen of those fat doses, and even for lesser members (sayaddina, in the Fremen way) we can say its probably twice the usual at a minimum, simply to fuel their superhuman powers.  See: Working up a playable setting is a vastly different beast than simply writing a series of novels. Frank Herbert NEVER had to think of the logistics of Spice, and the price. He could simply declare it was 'expensive' and move on with the story, and it was probably better that way for everyone.  But if you want to INTERACT with the setting you need a bit more details.  Though, I'll be honest, I probably will gloss over it a bit better than this deep analysis.  I could see tying 'doses per day' to Psi rating for the hard core... but then Bene Gesserit don't buy the stuff, the Sisterhood does.  There may be politics involved with being allowed sufficient doses to advance... who knows?

I CAN see linking the cost of a dose of spice to the main currency for flavor, though that may make Spice seem too damn cheap.  Minding that I will change the names, to put it into perspective, a Single Beer costs one eighth of a "Firebird", so would be one eighth of a dose of Spice.  Seems pretty cheap, right? On the other hand: Once you are addicted to SPice you can't quit, or you die.  So the annual outlay for a minimal user is 365 Firebirds.  Now, if we suggest that is the dose for middle class sprinkles, and nobles start with higher doses? Well... maybe I can get it to work, and still use Psi as a multiplier (the 1 firebird would be a zero Psi dose? Probably... maybe start at ten times that (ten firebirds is a PSI 1 dose, adn equal to the average Noble user.  Natives of Arrakis would be at teh Ten Psi dose, psychic or not, simply due to environmental exposure! See why Fremen don't travel until they become the arm of the Emperor of Dune?)

So, with some misgivings, I'm liking this framework, though it does imply that people need to have serious income to pay for spice addictions.  I'll probably provide a simple Asset Benefice system to cover a usual supply, with the normal caveats... stay in good graces, stay in contact for resupply, etc.  Getting cut loose would be very, very bad.  But that is Dune, right? The Spice MUST Flow.


Anyway: I've been going over the Must Use books. I'm thinking I can quickly gloss them rather than drill down as I did to create framework. They're still useful, but typing out all the steps will be too tedious for teh payoff. You'd all (my still silent readers) rather see a more finished product than the musings of an idiot with too much time on his hands.  It might be a bit of a go, I haven't touched the FS books for two years, at least... and thought seriously about a game with them for maybe... five?   So I'm a bit rusty. Heck, I didn't even remember I had the Star Crusade books until I dug them out of storage for this project!

Going to formally jettison the Lifepath system. It really only works for maybe half the character concepts people who want to play Dune will have, and that only loosely. Better to just use the freeform point buy system (same final result, a bit more flexible) and let people make characters they think FIT.  Given that I wasn't about to create all new lifepaths for Bene Gesserit and so forth, its for the best.  I be a lazy fuck, i know...

Okay, so I'm going to formally build the Spice aspect of the game based on my previous post.

As a default asumption  EVERY player character (unless they are explicitly members of the slave or serf social castes) is addicted in some fashion, at some level to Spice. The player can define HOW addicted within certain limits.  First: There is a certain level of social signalling involved here, so many people consume much more spice daily than they actually need or can benefit from, simply to prove they can.  This is less punitive than I originally imagined.

Anyone with any Psychic ability can only use Psi powers/level equal to his average daily dose... if they've cut back to a lower dose, they lose power until they take a more massive dose. MOST psychics will habitually take at least one dose daily MORE than they need, giving them room to grow.

For middle class characters (anyone not part of a larger faction, no nobles, no bene gesserit, no CHOAM or Spacing Guild) the cost per dose is a single Firebird (to be renamed later). This provides no real mechanical benefits, but also few penalties for missed doses. Any day with No Spice will cause a penality to any health and endurance checks (-1 or -2... not too severe, but they will get sick easier and so forth). That and they will be generally miserable. Food doesn't taste as good espeically (since it is most commonly used as a seasoning).  

For everyone else the minimum Dose, used from here on out as One Unit, costs Ten Firebirds.  For Nobles, the expectation is that they will take Doses equivalent to their rank (Knights are One, Dukes are 6, the Emperor is a Seven).  Heirs and non-inheriting nobles can take much less without too much social difficulty.   A supply of Spice (a stockpile for nobles, or the order/organization for everyone else) is an asset with a cost equal to the doses a day available.  It is possible to gain more spice a day than necessary this way, but if its not a personal stockpile (nobles) there may be penalties for misuse.  

CHOAM personnel will generally consume doses roughly equal to nobles, using their CHOAM Rank instead of noble title, but also cannot stockpile it, as they are drawing CHOAM assets. Spacing Guild members tend to consume twice as much as their rank, but also gain twice as much from their asset (with the same caveat)... note that especially for Spacing Guild members that any disruption in the supply will result in immediate rationing (for any non-navigators).

The Upside of Spice Addiction is a general boost in health and well being, along with mental acuity.  Heavy users live up to four times as long.

[I'm torn on mechanics. The simplest and most 'Setting faithful' mechanic I can think of is to simply give a +1 boost to every physical and mental attribute. That seems... powerful?]  Any doses above the user's daily average will immediately refresh the Wyrd Pool, making it a common boost for psychics.

Heavy use (ten doses) a day for extended periods (up to a year) will result in the development of Stigma, Blue in Blue eyes. This is NOT appreciated off of Arrakis, and most such users (including most Reverend Mothers, almost anyone of note in the Spacing Guild, and a few gluttons among the nobility) use contacts to hide this.  A single massive exposure (toxic levels, such as teh Water of LIfe) produces the same result instantly.  

Cutting Back: If you aren't at the Blue-with-blue eyes stage of addiction it is possible to cut back to a single dose daily, though the heavier the user the more miserable they will be during the process.  For every dose cut back they suffer (stacking) the health penalty noted above, and loose all benefits for a full month, until the new, lower, normal is achieved.  For those who are Stigma level users, they can never cut back to less than ten safely, and will complain bitterly (though not mechanically) if that is all they can take in a day. Junkies, man...

For normal users, even modestly heavy users, missing a single dose is not fatal, but it is unpleasant.  Every day without a full dose inflicts a wound on the user, which only begins healing when normal consumption is resumed.  For Stigmatic users, the minimum Safe dose is about five doses, and they suffer the 'cut back' penalties cumulative for every dose less than ten they take, and can never stabilize lower than Ten.  Every dose less than five in a day inflicts a wound, so its rare a stigmatic user can go more than a few days without some Spice.

Arrakis: Just being on Arrakis, except in sealed environments, is worth a single full dose a day. The Deep Desert is at least two, while Sietch life is an average of ten.  Most Natives are fully stigmatic, but simply living on Arrakis they have access to all the spice they want, and its rare for a Native to stock pile more than a few days worth... a bit like grocery shopping, really.  Most non-natives, even the Spice Miners, are not quite as exposed and rarely develop Stigma levels of addiction except deliberately. It is unavoidable in the Sietch, however.   Note that most regular users on Arrakis still take a dose daily, as they aren't quiet comfortable with 'environmental' Spice exposure.  For Fremen and other natives, taking Spice, as Spice... rather than just breathing/eating/drinking it constantly is something of a religious rite, done only deliberately and for good reasons.

Availability: For Nobles and others, Spice is readily and legally available for the price listed, and most people do keep a decent supply on hand. CHOAM members can buy it the same, and are expected to as a status symbol above their allotted dose, but they buy from the CHOAM company (as do most Nobles, actually...). The supply is always a bit lower than the demand, so buying large quantities is difficult (most Stockpiles are assembled very slowly and with great deliberation, as most are aware of how vulnerable addiction makes them).  Spacing Guild Members aren't expected to need to buy it... the Guild sees to their needs, but they have been known to cut private deals with nobles and smugglers to boost their personal supply.

The Black Market, smugglers, are a major source of stockpile quantities. The CHOAM corporation carefully monitors the spice availability to the competing members of the Board (That is to say; Nobles of the Landsraad)... and has a vested interest in keeping stockpiles low, especially among the less powerful nobles and houses.  Smugglers cut deals with teh Spacing Guild to ship out on Heighliners without question, which may be a trivial amount of spice compared to the Guild's CHOAM supply, but the Guild is a bit more desperate than anyone else, so tends to hoard more than anyone else. Nobles tend to build up their supply from these Smugglers, but anyone with coin can make deals the same as they would for any illegal goods.  Once bought it is impossible to tell illegal spice from legal spice.  The law cracks down on Smugglers, which helps House Corrino maintain their monopoly, but quite a bit of the confisticated Spice winds up in the hands of whichever power caught the smugglers.

One thing to keep in mind is that almost everyone who matters has more than enough spice to see them through any short term interruption in the supply, though not happily. Enough 'short term interruptions' can severely deplete stockpiles built up over years, decades... even centuries of careful hoarding and illegal dealings.   Major interruptions should not happen in the game unless the Players are responsible (or conversely, failed to prevent it..) and a galaxy shaking events that can unseat emperors (though this has not happened even once in the time frame of the game... not for another thousand years, bub!).

In short, if a player wants to buy extra Spice to bulk up their emergency supply (and that supply will depend on the source and the shape of the campaign!), they can probably get it unless there is a shortage... GM determines if there is.  IF there is a shortage, then being a Noble helps, add their rank to their Beauracracy Check, with successes being the number of doses available for purchase. Depending on the source of the shortage, smugglers may not be affected, but there is no bonus except being willing to pay extra. Make a streetwise check to acquire doses (on the personal level. To build Noble House sized stockpiles will have to be done a bit more involved than simple dice rolls. Streetwise to find a smuggler willing to deal, of course, then you're talking about moving massive amounts of assets around...).



Its a bit crude and wordy, but I think its fully functional.  I may need to double check for any rules for acquisition, etc.  I should note that I don't think that officially the Bene Gesserit or the Spacing Guild would deal with money on an individual level. You aren't paid, but you ARE fully cared for. Clearly the Guild itself (or the Sisterhood) takes in vast amounts of money, much of which is spent on Spice and the rest on other necessities. That's not to say they can't have money... just that nominally speaking they won't get it from their organization.  Clearly, however, if they've taken an asset benefice they will have a source of income, so my opinion means jack and squat...

Gonna take a quick crack at Playing Politics. Note that this isn't really detailed in any way in Fading Suns, and even if it were, the Dune Setting would put paid to much of it.

First a quick take on the political structure of the Imperium of Dune.

You have the Padisha Emperor who is functionally the Head of the Board of Directors of CHOAM... but probably isn't the acting CEO. He has the power to assign and remove Directorships in CHOAM to anyone he wants, one of those is essentially the Directorship of Arrakis/Spice Production...which is usually rotated out at least once a century (so less than the average noble lifespan), to prevent any given house from taking control of the Empire.  This is Serious Business.

The Landsraad is roughly two thousand Noble Houses, and functions as a sort of weak Parlimentary body. We don't have a lot of information about it, so I'm gonna spitball. There probably aren't formal parties, but looser voting blocs. We know that Duke Leto was very popular in the Landsraad, which gave him enough power to threaten the Padisha Emperor, which he failed to use costing him is life on Arrakis.  Voting Blocs are probably a combination of ancient alliances and personal popularity.  House Richese undoubtedly voted with Atredies due to Leto's mother being a Richese... and could count on Leto's vote for Richese as well.

But how many votes? Well nobility includes 'shares' of CHOAM. I'm not going to try and work out exactly how many shares, but at a minimum a 'block' of shares for one 'vote' unit is equal to the asset point for a noble title... so even a lowly Knight commands three personal shares, while a Duke commands.. eleven?  And the head of the House undoubtedly not only commands his personal shares (eleven for Duke Leto) bu all the subordinate shares of his own house (Unknown for Atredies. It is possible that the House was so attenuated that all shares devolved to him personally. We understand there are no other Atredies other than Leto and Paul at the start of Dune.  In 9,191, our putative starting point there may be significantly more. Of course, there may be 'distant' atredies not directly affected by the plot of Dune we simply never see).  All Houses hold at least one Directorship in CHOAM as well, which is not a given due to Imperial Meddling.  We also know that the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild hold shares in CHOAM, but probably only have trivial, and possibly non-voting, voices in the Landsraad itself... perhaps a potential tie breaking vote?   We can presume they do not have formal directorships of their own, nor can they... as a group... be assigned a directorship by the Emperor, though perhaps individuals from them can.

I have no intention of trying to draw up two thousand members of the Landsraad (that is two thousand Houses, which tend to vote as blocs, the actual seats would be much greater due to junior members of the houses holding seats and titles!), much less their relationships, but we should discuss the Greater and Lesser houses.  As it stands, if you know their name from any Dune work, assume they are a Major House. Noble Titles do count for voting, but not so much for status of House, note the Baron Harkonnen outranks his 'Count' nephew, Raban. Technically Raban holds more votes in the Landsraad, but Raban doesn't hold the House Atomics, and thus is the lesser noble in actual power (and the House presumably takes the lion's share of the CHOAM payout that forms the main source of wealth, and spice, for the House. Raban probably gets more money from CHOAM than Baron Harkonen at the end of the day, but he doesn't control the House finances, which tips the balance back the other way. Note too, after deposing Duke Leto on Arrakis, Raban is the one with the Directorship of Arrakis, as the Baron is setting up his nephew to take a fall for him, to replace him with Feyd Ruatha/Sting.... and to keep the Emperor from destroying House Harkonen in turn!).

We can presume a full spread of titles across the spectrum of Great and Minor Houses, but Minor Houses would have fewer collective shares. Presumptively there is no formal divide between the two 'ranks' of Houses, but everyone would know which was which.  

The second leg of the political tripod is the House Atomics.  Presumably it is well nigh on impossible to replace these, and any use is deemed 'unthinkable'. This isn't so much a lost technology as it is a fixed detente.. anyone trying to make more, openly, invites immediate retaliation from just about everyone, any use invites retaliation in kind.  The only Atomic we know much about is the Stone Burner used in Children of Dune (though the Lynch Movie almost accidentally suggests more conventional nukes are used to take out the shield wall mountains).  What we know of the Stone Burner is that it doesn't use conventional nuclear power as we understand it (J-radiation equals what?), and that it can be configured in such a way that it can crack a planet... so every stockpile of House Atomics can obliterate an arbitrary number of worlds.  For the sake of argument this is a binary factor: Your House has Atomics, or your house is absorbed by a House that DOES have Atomics. Actual numbers and power become irrelevant except for dick measuring contests.  

The third leg of the Political Tripod is Raw Wealth... which is measured in Capital, Spice Stockpiles and Military Might. Here things get tricky.

So, lets turn to how to use this raw framework to a political system worthy of the name.  We'll focus on the voting blocs and the wealth, leaving Atomics as background (presumably only the head of hte HOuse has the keys to the arsenal, and we know they are hidden very well... presumably there is a great story about how Maud'dib left arrakis, retrieved his house Atomics and brought at least one to Dune...but it was probably also pretty boring, so wasn't shown...).

On thing to keep in mind is that getting anything done in the Landsraad will involve swaying a whole lot of people.  But what can the Landsraad do? Well, among other things they appoint judges from amonst themselves to oversee Kanly Disputes and other things. This may seem minor, but an offical judge is able to reap a small personal fortune in bribes.  This is a good baby step for a would be player politician, by the way... and undoubtedly getting appointed doesn't require any massive voting bloc, you just have to beat the other candidates for total votes... and be neutral to the dispute in question.  Similarly, some minor directorships can be similarly voted in.

A bigger deal is opposing the Emperor on just about anything, or similarly levelling some official censure against another Noble House.  This presumably requires, in not a majority vote per se, at least a significant aye vote and a trivial or non-existant Nay vote to pull off.  This actually does happen to Shaddam the Fourth at the end of Children of Dune (I think?), to force him to recognize that he's no longer Emperor in fact, despite still controlling CHOAM officially. (or, it happens earlier in response to the Adjimal fake spice, in 10175 and the Great Spice War. I'm using fucking wiki, what do you expect?).  

Note that Houses opposing each other in the Landsraad, and votes about the conflict, do NOT automatically resolve any conflicts. See the ten thousand year hatred between Atredies and Harkonen, or the Ecaz-Moritani war that sees Moritani decimated and destroyed (for certain values of destroyed, presumably) that helps earn Leto his good reputation in the Landsraad.  We might assume (since I don't feel like reading KJA books to find more details) that Leto may have served as a Judge of the Change in that conflict, which would endear him especially to House Ecaz, the victors.  Even if he merely helped elect the Judge Ecaz would owe him at least a political favor, as would Ecaz's major allies.

So, a major vote of the Landsraad can pretty much do almost anything you can imagine. Great, how do we 'DO' that?

Well, the simplest starting point is to have an actual Seat in the Landsraad itself, which means a Noble Title.   This isn't absolutely necessary, the Bene Gesserit prefer to directly influence the Houses personally (through sex and producing Heirs), and as an organization can pretty much pull everyone's string at least once... but the harder they pull the more backlash they risk.  They are potentially the strongest player (in terms of actual influence) and the weakest, having no real monopoly or power to fall back on. THE Spacing Guild can get its way through brute force, embargoes and the like, but they can only embargo so many nobles at a time without breaking themselves. CHOAM IS, for all intents and purposes, the Landsraad, so is irrelevant here.

The best starting point is as the Head of a House, particularly a Greater House.  To spitball, lets assume a Greater House has More than 20 total Votes, as determined earlier, which maybe formally divided any way the House pleases... the Head of the House is the guy with the Nukes, not the guy with the prettiest hat.   A Minor House then has Less than Twenty Votes, also divided up however they like.  This really will come down to GM's setting their campaign to whatever size house they think is most fitting, I'm going with the absurdly small numbers of titled nobles in clearly Greater Houses here that we actually see (One Duke for Atredies, a Baron and a Count for Harkonnen...).  Since the actual number of shares is likely much greater, we can assume any house to have any number of shares necessary... we merely deliniate voting blocks by rank so that Title actually has some value.

As a general rule, a House will vote as a bloc, regardless of who called the vote, as a matter of honor. Internal intruiges are preferred to sort out who stands for a specific position... influencing the Head of the House, who will generally be too busy/important to take a personal posting in MOST cases... obviously Dune Director, by Imperial Appointment, is a special case!

So, lets assume that there is a Benefice... worth five points... for 'keys to the house atomics', which establishes any noble (Baron and above only) as the Head of their House, and a 3 point benefice that difinitively establishes a House as Greater, rather than Minor. Only one person in a House can have teh Keys to the Nukes, but any titled noble who intends to muck about in the Landsraad can take Greater House (outside the Landsraad voting system its not really that important?).... provided their house is in fact Greater in size (that is... technically ALL nobles of the HOuse.. at least Titled Nobles... have the same advantage).

So now we have a rough idea of your starting number of votes on any topic.  How many votes are possible? Well, two thousand members... lets say a hundred of which are Greater Houses (thus averaging thirty or so votes), and the rest are Minor Houses (averaging say... 15 votes. Less is than that is simply impractical with our current system...).  That gives us a rough total (33,000 votes!), which also shows that any given house is, by itself, a trivial power.  I'll note that you don't technically need a title to be a Noble, plenty of untitled Nobles abound... but presumably after a few generations they start slipping down to 'noble servants' or some such. Seeing as non-titled Nobles don't get votes, they aren't out of the political game per se, but they do have an additional step: COnvincing the House Head to call for a vote on X...

Our next step is to find out how many Houses will simply vote your way out of tradition or habit.  Presumably Greater Houses spend more energy on cultivation of allies by default, and most Minor Houses will vote alongside certain Greater Houses almost without fail.  Obviously the specific vote may influence this, so if for example a Richese and an Atredies were both up for a Judge position, then clearly they would not vote as allies in that one specific case... but that would also represent a failure of politics, as House Heads (and interested members) should be making private negotiations to prevent that sort of public showdown... unless its all for show in a greater game! Wheels within Wheels, mofo!

Lets argue that any Greater House can call upon, without thinking, up to d6 Greater House Allies at any given time, and 4d6 Minor House allies.  This can be rolled once, or per vote.  Minor Houses can call upon 1d6 minor house allies (that should remained more or less fixed except in exceptional cases) and may be able to trade upon past votes for support from a Greater House (and their Greater Allies!), which is why they so reliably support the Great Houses in most votes!  Note that these random rolls, especially for the greater houses, represents the entire network of traditional allies.  Any given minor house might reliably vote for Greater House Richese... except when Richese is supporting Atredies, because that Minor House also has an alliance with Harkonnen.... and all of these relationships are presumed Baked Into the Cake, so to speak.   As you can see, Minor Houses can only reliably get things done with patronage, while Major Houses have sturdy enough blocs to get most minor votes without much else.

Now, personality and persuasion matter.  The Landsraad probably doesn't meet in full very often due to the expense of travel, Kanly (security concerns), and the sheer scope of a Noble's duties. Simply packing up Paul, Leto and Jessica to decamp from Calaban to Arrakis took weeks of moving pieces around and preparations, time enough for teh Reverend Mother to make a special trip to Gom Jabbar Paul without actually disrupting the move.  But since we don't see much FTL phone calls, we can assume that personal attendance and voting does matter.  Leto's personal magnetism mattered, as does Baron Harkonen's lack of magnetism.  So a good orator can pull in votes from the undecideds and univolved... and over time can forge a larger bloc of reliable votes with less need to persuade.  Mind you, he's not too likely to pull entire blocs this way, but rather personal seats. Only a critical success would net him an entire Greater House 'bloc' vote (treat it like his own house network, with allies and such), otherwise he sways a number of seats equal to his success (not votes, seats. Actual Votes are d6+2 per seat).

Of course, if a non-head of House is calling a vote for his personal gain, or personal politics, he may not be supported by house at all, which may gut his support from his House Allies. In this case, he should individually test his own other House Seats (assume the Head is not going to vote in his favor at all in this case), and the GM determines if any allies vote for this upstart. His personal title matters a great deal in that determination, few people will throw even a minor house behind a mere Knight, but a Count?... and possibly the second most important man in the House? Well, that's worth hedging a few bets.  Charm may matter here more than oratory, if you want a skill test.

The third method of gaining votes is personal glad handing. Presumably there is a fair amount of communication between Nobles at all times, and there may be a few days before/between votes in the Landsraad, where a young ambitious noble can go around to non-traditional allies (or if he's particularly bold/foolish, traditional enemies) and attempt to sway them to support him personally. Clearly Heads of Houses are best here, gaining entire blocs of votes (but sometimes/often not their networks of allies...) for a single effort.  This is not something that can be handled by a single skill test, but requires Roleplaying (and this could involve efforts of other PCs!).   Many such contacts will fail to pay off (and you never know exactly until the votes are cast), others will demand prices, services. Rarely will they ask for money/spice... and only the most foolish Nobles would entertain trading CHOAM shares for votes... or the most desperate.   This sort of back room dealing is the meat and bread of Politics, and this is how networks of allies and rivals shift over long periods of time, so only a fool doesn't at least make some effort, even if only in traditional correspondence.  The Simplest of deals involve trading a vote for a vote, and sometimes a Head of House might want to avoid obviously throwing behind someone, but might be convinced to sway some of his allies.  The GM and the Player have to negotiate, though skill checks can influence these sorts of deals, they can't replace them entirely.  

It is common to trade directorships or seats on councils in the Landsraad for 'important' votes.  Directorships tend to equate to money, while Seats on Councils (often held by junior nobles of a house) are a matter of prestige more than anything else. Less commonly swapped are entire planetary bodies... and almost Never a major world, much less a homeworld.  If someone asks for your homeworld its seen more as a sarcastic dismissal than an honest offer... which is one reason Noble Houses take relatively extreme measures to ensure their heirs are not complete idiots...  though this doesn't apply to Corrino (who, to be fair, doesn't actually get too directly involved with Landsraad politics... he's rather at the other end of the stick.)

That more or less covers the basic form of Landsraad politics, if only because this is 'Free on the Internets' level work. Maybe I should set up a patreon? Nah...


So lets talk the other side of power... raw wealth.

There are three main aspects here, discussed earlier: Cash Money, Spice Stockpiles, and Military might.  These don't shift very much on a day to day basis, but a clever Noble can shift assets from one pile to another to take advantage of circumstances to grow the total pile.  For example, Duke Leto spends a lot of cash one a new technology developed in house and manages to start building a 'new army'... growing his military might far faster than normal. This, combined with his popularity in the Landsraad leads to Shaddam the IV to fear him and conspire against him. For all we know, Leto may have planned on doing something with all that power, but he was cut down before it was ready. Smart nobles play their cards very close to their chests and keep their options open.

Lets look at Cash Money: Most Houses, even minor ones, have a source of income from any planets they hold.  This is taxed by the House, or is in fact a House operation.  This income is not trivial (it does vary from house to house), but it pales in comparison to the payoff of their CHOAM shares.  There are trillions of people in the Empire, and a vast swath of their economic actions go through CHOAM in some way, not least of which is the vast income from Spice. Some tiny portion of that incalcuable wealth is paid out regularly to the Share Holders... the Nobility.  Some of that payment is in Spice, but the rest is in Cash Money!

Needless to Say, a Noble House, even a minor one, has more money than can realistically be spend on a character level. Members of the House generally get some portion of either income source through their Assets benefice, which is to say their walking around money.  Most of this money is 'spoken for', and doesn't really interact with the character rules.  Even a small family tends to have a large number of householders...each of whom is 'paid' in one form or another.  Bequests to the Bene Gesserit, to the Mentat schools and other minor organizations are very common, far greater than the cost of actually employing a Mentat or Swordmaster or Suk Doctor (Bene Gesserit are not paid directly. THat would be prostituition in many cases...).  Likewise, while a Titled Noble may be entitled to a small number of Free Heighliner trips (such as to and from the Landsraad), most Houses pay a significant fortune to allow their Nobles to travel without having to pay directly... and they pay again to move goods and services to and from their worlds.

In short, the amount of money being tossed around by even a minor house is somewhat game breaking from the character standpoint.

Spice is much the same in too many ways. It can be treated a bit like a second pile of money. Hoble Houses are voracious users of Spice. Every Noble will consume a fair amount on his own... but so does every single Householder... and all of it is generally supplied by the House itself!  Failure to supply Householders with Spice isn't really an option, since it virtually garauntees disloyalty in a very paranoid galaxy. Even bastards like Harkonen supply their Householders with Spice, and don't just cut it off because of a tight supply.  Anybody worth employing is worth Spice.  The CHOAM shares more or less garauntee a certain amount of spice, and most Houses use almost every gram of it in Households automatically, rather dynamically.  A Stockpile represents the freedom to say 'fuck you' to any of the major powers that can threaten that supply, from the Emperor, to the Spacing Guild, to whomever is currently running Dune.  This is a rather big deal, as the longer you can hold out, the stronger you are when dealing with major opposition. Most Houses can, with a bit of belt tightening, hold out for a few years, and being willing to trade a small pile of spice for a favor is worth more than the cash it represents, simply due to the difficulty in acquiring 'stockpile' amounts of Spice, even for Nobles.   Having enough Spice to trade some, and knowning when and to whom to offer it is almost better than being cash rich.

Lastly, military might. Note that there is no such thing as an Imperial Army or Navy.  Each House has its own House Guards, and these are massive forces.  To give you an idea, The Emperor loans Harkonen Ten Legions of Sadukar, which are House Carino troops. Each Legion is 30,000 men. This is only an overwhelming force when bolstering the House Harkonen troops being used AND because Arrakis is not the seat of House Atredies. Had they assaulted Calaban it would not have been a win, or at least not an easy win.  Mind you, this also required Yueh to sabotage the Shield Generators.

In short, Houses are tough nuts to crack!

There is an interesting downside to this structure: Few, if any, House guards have much in teh way of non-infantry based forces.  You don't see Armor formations or mobile artillery. They use the same transport space ships as fire support in the Lynch Movie.  Its a given that heavy artillery style weapons are in the arsenal, but predominantly as DEFENSIVE weapons.  Houses have a Seige Mentality about them.  What armor exists is largely light-multipurpose vehicles, gun-trucks and APCs rather than tanks, with Ornithopters as a local air-wing (combined transport/scout/ground support general purpose air wings).   We can guess at the levels of complexity, that aren't revealed, or rely on the dubious Movie... my inclination is to make up less rather than more, so at least we see SOME heavy weapon ground teams and some vehicles.

The only real way to handle this sanely is in a sort of abstract. So each House will have a rating from one to ten in all three area. Greater Houses will have greater overall ratings... presumably Minor Houses that get enough Money/Spice buy more CHOAM Shares, and with a strong enough military may go to war with a weaker House to take their assets (EG, force them to give up CHOAM Shares or be wiped out... the stronger the attacker, the more shares they can squeeze, up to the point where their opponent goes Atomic just to save themselves or at least get revenge from the grave...).  Due to the presence of Atomics, 'wars' tend to be short, shocking affairs, at least against other Noble Houses.   Using Atomics against the Fremen is a bad idea... less Atomics for your house, plus any use is a 'bad' use, inviting people to use atomics against you. Atomics are Deterent weapons, therefore primarily defensive, rather like a Fleet in Being.   Just having them is more useful than employing them.

So, ratings from one to ten.  Ratings can be shifted from each column to the other, but this is a risk. If being done 'blindly' in hopes of some advantage (often this is just buying Spice with Cash Money when it comes available) roll a die. On an even number you get an extra point of rating in the new column, on an odd, you just lose the point you tried to shift.  Clearly, in the long run blindly moving stuff around represents a zero sum game... in the long run you are back where you started eventually. If any column hits zero your house is effectively done for... except for Spice, where you can limp on for a while and hope no one realizes how desperate you are.  If its military, congrats, your worst rival just absorbed your defenseless family. You can go out with a bang and be reviled by history as a monster, or trade the keys to the nukes to some noble somewhere in exchange for a comfortable retirement in their territory. You probably took off with a big pile of spice and a fat wad of cash... and legally you might even retain your personal shares in CHOAM... in which case its nukes and a membership in the new house for you! If you run out of cash, you had to sell off all your assets, including CHOAM Shares as you go broke.

To guarantee advantages moves requires a lot of adventure/political stuff to find a good deal. This isn't quick and dirty moves, this stuff takes years per 'action', though the PC Adventure portion may be shorter. This might involve setting up your own personal, deniable smuggling operation, or cutting a deal with a network of smugglers. It could mean taking 'house troops' and loaning them to a rival for a deniable action in return for a share of the proceeds (Money or spice)... this is a crude framework, and I'm reluctant to turn it into mere dicing.  When dicing is called for, however, the current rating of the 'spent' point is the target on the D20 roll, perhaps modified by a relavent skill (such as building wierding modules would be an academic/science check... made by whichever householder is researching this new tech!.

As a matter of fluff, most Houses will be most reluctant to dip into their Spice Stockpiles. Sometimes 'spending' spice represents instead going head to head with someone who can hurt your spice flow temporarily, which is more common.  Clearly a winning move here represents outlasting the bastard and gaining whatever you were trying to gain.

These ratings are more or less absolute. House Corinno defaults to all tens, and the lowest, meanest noble house (or even a non-atomic non-noble organization trying to play on this field...) would be all ones. A seven is better than a six.  While Greater Houses generally have better ratings than Minor Houses, this is not absolute. A remarkably poor Greater House might have less cash available than a fairly rich Minor House... remember the big determinant of Greater/Minor is Landsraad votes.  A minor House with a lot of wealth might not get much from CHOAM but could very well have an extraordinarily wealthy homeworld... or has simply manuevered for a lot of minor, but lucrative directorships and judges of change (or even a long running Judge of Change, say between Atredies and Harkonen... who may have generations long Kanly Feuds between them... maybe even one single feud going back to the Jihad, meaning some lucky house has been taking bribes from both sides for ten thousand years! Potentially.

If I need to expand this I might pull down Traveller's Dynasty supplement (Mongoose). This would cover thirty year cycles, which may be a bit long (or not: Spice LIfespans are potentially four hundred years and change!), and would provide a long deep game... but would also be outside the scope of PC actions, I think.  Most campaigns would be inside a single Cycle by default.

Anyway, thats enough brainstorming for one night!

Wall o' Text Crush!

I'm tryin', workin' hard through your ideas. Love the effort BTW! Outside of starting House Harkonnen off a Decados plate I was nowhere as prepared to run with this idea.

Keep 'em comin'!

I only have time to read the first post right now, but just wanted to say this is good stuff. Priests of the Celestial Sun is the priest book you are missing, along with Merchants of the Jumpweb, the guild book. There was also a military faction book called Legions of the Empire which wasn't bad, but certainly the least essential.

Thanks!  What's funny is that a couple of the middle posts were meant to be quick dashed off notes, adn when I hit post I'd see BOOM! Another wall of text... even my quick notes are faaking huge!

I'm going to revisit SPice Addiction.

First, after sleeping on it I realize that it is better NOT to buff everyone addicted to Spice, but assume that Character creation ASSUMES Spice Addiction.  ON the off chance someone wants to play a Non-Addict, they get penalized one point off of every attribute, but they aren't using spice (more on that in a moment).

Given that everyone of note is addicted to spice, we can assume a vast hidden mechanism for getting spice to the right people, moving spice around and all that exists. Rather than buying a Spice asset, assume instead that a minimum daily dose is provided according to rank as already noted.  A player can chose to use less than their normal dose, in which case they can (and WILL, if they are normal poeple) be able to save up a small amount of extra doses.  Does every Duke take six doses of spice every day? Almost assuredly not. He'll tell EVERYONE that he does, but he may only take three or four, and he'll save the rest. This is how stockpiles get started.

While most people will carry a small lock box of SPice with them when they travel, ranging from a pocket snuff box taken for a night on the town (two or three doses), to a bread/cigar box shaped travel box (see LYnch Dune) carried by high ranking nobles and Gesserit witches for travels, to several liter 'Family Vaults' used when doing anything remotely risky and long term, everyone carries Spice. More than that CHOAM is literally everywhere, and if you've got a right (nobles with shares, CHOAM agents etc...) you can go to the local CHOAM facility and draw an allotment of Spice, ranging from Daily value (For the NOble and any HOuseholders.... recall that Noble Shares are worth a lot more spice than One Person needs), to weekly or monthly supplies.   If you paid assets for a Householder (or... for PCs, if another PC is offiically a Householder of yours) a Cohort or any other 'dependent' you, as a NOble can officially draw their daily need of Spice without question or repercussion.   Denying a Spice Ration is the ultimate form of dismissal from service.

That said, Players may still buy extra spice rations with assets (1 point of asset is worth one daily dose), or they can buy a stockpile they personally control (Every point represents A month for the player and any dependents at minimal use (normally 1 per person per day).... though this should be adjusted upwards for high point value stockpiles. Logarithmically? I'll compare it other assets and see what the usual pattern is... later).

What about players deliberately using less, or no, SPice?  Well, they have excess, congratulations!  Keep track of it, and see how they store it. Too much personal reserve at one time makes you a target. No, dismissing a householder and claiming their share is generally not a good idea. That sort of thing is Head of House political manuevering, not personal stores level tracking.  Mind you, the official value of a dose and its actual "street" value are not the same at all. One dose is worth ten firebirds pretty much all the time (except if the other person is in withdrawl... then its worth whatever you can squeeze out of them!), but a hundred doses?  

My main point is that the GM and players don't have to track any of this if they don't want to... so long as teh players stick to civilization.  Billions, perhaps Trillions of addicts means that there is an awful lot of support to get them their fix.  For short excursions out and back... so long as they were planned (or are on Arrakis!)... shouldn't be a problem any more than water would be.


Edit:

I want to revisit dosages a little. Consider that House Corrino can loan out 300,000 Sadukar, and barely have enough men to overwhelm House Atredies (due to their recent move and the presence of a Black Swan event traitor), we can assume that the DAILY consumption of the Imperial House is upwards of a million doses A DAY.  That is literally a metric Ton of Spice used by ONE house... if the dose is a single Gram.  That would suggest the daily sprinkles consumption of a middle class salaryman is a tenth of a gram.... spread out over two or three meal and accompanying drinks? Hard to imagine working with such tiny amounts, equally hard to imagine two thousand noble houses each pulling in similar daily amounts. Not counting CHOAM agents and the Spacing Guild, we're already looking at 1500 metric tons of Spice leaving Arrakis Every Single Day. For Ten Thousand Years. By that measure (and still counting the trillions of lesser users...) Arrakis should have a hole in it the size of a small moon!  

Consider also that our only real grasp of dosage sizes comes from the Lynch movie, where Paul pops a fat tablet the size of his thumb into his mouth like its nothing. He's wrong, in that case, but still.

What does that tell us?

Well, it tells us our doses are too damn high.  We know purity of Spice is a thing, and we know from the modern Drug trade that cutting pure drugs is a common thing.  And we know that Spice is fucking potent as hell.

So, what we are missing is the 'cutting' stage.   Most Spice consumers are taking it mere grains of spice per dose, maybe a few hundreths of a Gram, and 'middle class' users are probably getting even less that that, just heavily cut with other nootropics (even one of the many failed varieties of 'fake spice' invented over the eons to break the monopoly). They still pop a fat tablet for a dose.  Most people, even NObles, may be unaware of just how diluted their drug of choice is, unless they work for CHOAM or the Spacing Guild (or smugglers....).   Maybe the difference in Doses per Day consumed isn't measured in how many pills you're popping, but how pure those pills are?

Which brings me to my other point: Paul, exposed to Pure Arrakis Spice, a hundred times more pure than he is used to, takes it and immediately has a Precognitive flash that incidentally saves both his life, adn the life of Shadat Mapes, but its still not a 'toxic' dose... most people probably assume there IS no toxic dose... since almost no one could afford to take such a massive amount of Spice at once (unless they lived on Dune, of course).  

So, I'll need a rule.  Off the Cuff, if a person consumes a 'massive' dose of spice (at least a ten dose shot, but probably much higher... thirty dose shot?....)... for every Ten Doses consumed at one time, roll a D20. If it is under the number of 'ten' doses consumed the user has an immediate precognitive flash about something important to their life in the very near future.  The greater the margin of success (the Victory Points if you are playign Fading Suns straight... this is a dead easy 'hack' for people who hate the VP system, by the way. Just reverse the way you count success.), the easier it will be to understand the vision and the more detailed the vision will be.


EDIT, again::::  For the curious, Gurney Halleck, apparently, does not do Spice Addiction.  Its in the Wiki, where it comments that he is a traditionalist and avoids life extension techniques, such as Spice Addiction.  Undoubtely he's tried it, but didn't go addiction with it, so there is a precedent for this.  Mind you, this is the only man who got out of the Sadukar assault alive, and is at least equal to Duncan Idaho in a fight (17 Sadukar kills, DvG fights are 6 out of 10 splits).  This may cause me to rethink my no-spice take? At least have some sort of points break or something?  Hmm...

Having gone through all the books in my 'need to use' pile last night, I started to realize something: There was nothing I really need in any of them, but there is an awful lot in them that is useful to players and GMs.  Sure, if I ever sit down and try to type it up as an actual ruleset document I'll want those resources, but for this level of project none of it really matters.

That leads me to my second point:

Don't believe the hype.  We are told frequently how much Mentats are smarter than normal people, but we never really see that. Nothing Thufir and Piter do is any different than a modern consiglieri, really.  We hear how bad ass the Sadukar are, and we hear how bad ass the Fremen are, but what do they actually do? They fight and win, or lose, battles. So what? Humanity has been doing that for forever.

Swordmaster of Ginaz? Duncan Idaho fights off a bunch of sadukar like a boss, then dies like a little bitch to a nameless Sadukar. Suk Doctors are unbreakable? Yueh goes down to the most obvious subversion technique ever tried... like ANYONE else would.  Its all hype.  The only thing we see that is special is Paul's Precognition (and even there that doesn't really work out well for him, does it? Can't save your child... oh, its the Golden Path. Can't save your eyesight? Golden Path again. Sure it is, Paul. Sure it is.), and the Bene Gesserit psychic stuff.  We even learn that there isn't much special to their Prana Bindu, as the Honored Matres, with no Spice and no Psychic powers are actually BETTER at kicking ass than the Bene Gesserit. It's just kung fu with some mystic bullshit attached to it.

My point is that a great number of Dune specific honorifics are mostly just that, Honorifics.  We meet a number of people who are Mentat Trained (Fenring among them, Ghola Duncan, I believe is another) who don't use the Juice of Sapho (should be Saphoo? or Saphu?... wiki spells it with the one O, which makes me think.... Lesbians!).  That sort of implies that being Mentat trained is a bit like getting a PHD in "Smart".  We can say the same of Bene Gesserit training. Lots of non-bene Gesserit seem to have been trained by them, men and women both, and not all of them are psychic.  

Think about it this way: Would an Noble ever admit to employing a 'second rate' or even 'Average' Mentat? Of course not: They will ALL claim their Mentat is teh bestest Evah.  Ginaz is a Noble House, of course they will claim their House Guard (swordmasters) are superlative!  To do otherwise is to show weakness and invite attack.  Suk doctors work at the highest level, and certainly they are very well vetted to avoid suspicion... but are they REALLY conditioned to never betray?  Seriously: All Harkonen does is kidnap his wife and boom, Yueh's famous conditioning breaks. It was really that easy.

So what am I saying? Well, I'm saying a lot of the mystique of Dune comes from the attitudes of the CHARACTERS of Dune, not some objective facts. These people really BELIEVE what they are saying about themselves, all the time.  THat's not really something I can capture in a rule set, it has to come from players and GMs.  So, if you think I'm giving short shrift to any given bunch of yahoos.... consider how badly almost everyone (including Maud'dib!!!!) actually does in the Dune Books.  They all fail, miserably, at one point or another.   A Crysknife doesn't get special rules for being a crysknife... it pokes small holes in people, like any knife.... it is special because of the attitudes people have towards them.

That said, I have a LOT of work to do making those factions and groups that really do need my attention... particularly the Bene Gesserit.   If you're disappointed that I don't make them godlike... well, this entire post was Just For You, you special guy you.

Ok, I'm going to start putting away various Dune Specific 'factions', working my way up to the big ones.
One thing I've thought of is that the closer you get to the Books/Movies in tone, the more creation points/experience you need to start with. Something to keep in mind when you start creating your campaign.

Sadukar, and other Equivalent House Guards:
Straight up, I'm going to use the House Decados Kossacks for Sadukar.  being 'Changed' is not a stigma in Dune, so we can ignore that.  If you don't have the rules handy, the Kossacks are known fearless, relentless (but not mindless) Killers. They are genetically and/or surgically enhanced to make them extra strong and extra tough. They've got a similar reputation to Sadukar in Fading Suns.

Mentats.
We technically have three seperate things to deal with here. Mentats, Twisted Mentats (Tlielaxu Trained), and Mentat Training (For non-mentats, like Fenring).
To be a Mentat you need to make sure ALL of your mental stats are higher than ALL of your Physical stats, and have Calm as your primary Spirit. Twisted Mentats take Passion as their primary and may have other 'Curses' to represent mental instability.  
Mentat Trained people just need a high (7 at least) Wits.

THEN: Take Enhanced Attribute Wits and Perception Blessings (this is true for all three).
Actual Mentats/Twisted Mentats also take the Benefice; Mentat (3), which means they are legally considered Mentats and may legally acquire and use the Juice of Sapho.  

Mentats are a lot more common that you might think. We only see Mentats who are trained to serve in Noble Houses, but Mentats can find work anywhere that 'calculation' is required, anything with lots of thinking involved.  Mentats therefor don't have a specific set of skills they are taught, the emphasis is on improved thinking ability (which is probably more than just training, but if Herb didn't expand on it, I won't either!).

Swordmaster of Whomever (Ginaz and others...)
This is primarily another form of House Guard.  The Sadukar are primarily a military shock troop force (disregarding the KJA ideas that they fight in groups of three and throw cybernetic toes at people....), while the Swordmasters represent, generally, a smaller more elite force of warriors, focusing on training and swordsmanship over brute force.  THis is proven to be less effective as House Ginaz is 'destroyed' by House Grumman before the start of Dune, but warriors trained in those schools still have a very fine reputation indeed.
To be considered a Swordmaster you have to have the relevant combat skill (melee) at 8 and have at least 8 points of Sword Combat Arts trained. You also take the Asset Swordmaster (1), which allows you to declare your training and seek work (or duels of honor if you are a noble....) using your skills.  Usually you will already have employment in a Noble House, often the one that trained you, but that's not 'rulez'.

Note that this can be adapted to Gunmasters of Grumman (or whomever) using the same format, or Fist-Masters of Beezlebub.  The taking of the Asset is, however, mandatory. Otherwise you are just a well trained sword guy, but otherwise nothing special.

Suk Doctor
To qualify as a Suk Doctor you need a Wits and Tech of at least 6, with one (your choice) at 7 or higher. You also need 8 points in Physic, specializing in either Surgery or Tech Medicine, and need to be trained (at least one point) in Remedy and Science. Also take the Asset: Suk Doctor (2).  Suk Doctors receive one dose of SPice daily from teh Suk School, and usually another from an employer (nobles, up to an including the Imperial Family), to help ensure they are not easily bribeable. Any Suk Doctor who demonstrates the slightest hint of greed or other obvious signs of treachery is usually pro-actively stripped of their Suk status, or denied it in the first place (so... no obvious Curses or Afflictions that would indicate probable future treachery).

Face Dancers
Face Dancers are always members of the Bene Tlielaxu.  All Face Dancers have the Metonym trait (7 point Blessing), most have a curse of mental conditioning or other loyalty traits as well, but this is not required.

Ghola
Honestly? No special rules are required. A Ghola is a clone of a dead person (though nothing is really stopping them form cloning the living...), and starts out functionally identical to the living person, but without their memories (unless Awakened).  All Ghola have ties to, but not necessarily 'membership' in the Bene Tlielaxu.  Make a normal character, take a reputation based Curse to reflect the poor attitudes people have towards Ghola, or not, and call it a day.  

Fremen and Feydakeen:
No special rules required. They are likely to have Faith as a primary, and many Fremen may develop some low level psychic abilities (particularly Soma). You can treat Feydakeen as Dervishes if you really want, but its not really required.  From a game standpoint its more necessary to understand teh culture you are representing rather than rules being written for them.

Bene Gesserit
This is a big one, so I'll do a whole post on it... eventually.  My plan is to put together not just a working template for the Bene Gesserit as a whole, but to demonstrate how to use the tool in Fading Suns to create your own factions (if, like me, you want to see Ten Thousand Worlds actually FEEL like ten thousand world!).

However, for the moment I'll detail a little of Bene Gesserit Trained, which represents women (like Irulan perhaps) who have some training but are not true members of the sisterhood.
All Bene Gesserit, and Bene Gesserit Trained are equivalent to titled Nobility, regardless of background or actual titles.   A young (given Spice consumption, this could mean 'less than fifty or sixty years old) Bene Gesserit will always be attractive (Beauty Blessing), smart (Wits of at least 6), and skilled at Ettiqute, Charm and Empathy. (for Etiquette and Empathy this means at least one rank, for Charm, at least 3).  They take the Asset Bene Gesserit Training (3), which grants them status equal to a Knight, and also means they can control pregnancy. This is for women only.

Men who are Bene Gesserit Trained generally refers to having learned either the psychic gifts of the Bene Gesserit or the Prana Bindu Martial art... or both, but gain no official status, and in fact are generally disdained by the Order.

Okay, so my Posting Plan is this:

Religion in Dune
House Guards Overview
Bene Gesserit.

Yeah, yeah. I'm stalling on the fucking Bene Gesserit. I already did the fun part of the job, working out their psychic powers and whatnot... its the grunt work of putting it all together that I'm dreading.  Also, I've already decided that its a 'big job'... meaning I get to clean up their psychic rules, lay out the struture of the characters (sans Psychic stuff) AND do their Martial Arts, not to mention detailing the actual organization, number and structure. In my defense, a LOT of what I've been doing has been setting up ground game for the Big Bene Gesserit Post, brainstorming and what have you. Laying out the Spice rules is a big part of that.

Of course, at some  point I should put some more effort into explaining how CHOAM and the Spacing Guild can/should play out in a game... which means a smaller 'Big Post' for each of them.... sigh. Mah werk ain't nev'ah doan.

So lets talk religion. I'm going to get into some serious Canon Weeds on this one, so again: I invite the Fan-Wank crowd to cite chapter and verse at me if they want me to correct anything. If they can't, then I'll assume its a personal interpretation and ignore them.  Also: Nothing from the Pen of KJA is remotely considered holy writ.  I'm not happy with the level of KJA Taint I'm going to use just by accident.... it is a bit like asking how much is too much dog shit in your ham sandwich.  ANY. Any is too much.  If I must, the less the better.  Since I've never heard anyone proclaim KJA fandom, I'm going to assume my attitude is universal. Good.

While we can assume that there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of minor faiths in the galaxy, we only know of two major movements for certain. The Orange Catholics (I'll assume that the Irish were NOT in Frank Herbert's mind here), and the Buddislamics.

We're on firmer ground with the Buddislamics, so lets start there.  THis is actually a minor sect in the main, the primary groups we see are the Bene Tlielaxu, and the splinter faction, the Zensunni wanderers, which includes (but we will assume is not entirely limited to...) the Fremen. Note that both of these are outgroups in the Empire.  The Bene Gesserit are very familiar with the Buddislamic faith... but then manipulating religions is sort of their bag but I'd like to suggest that in the earliest days of the Bene Gesserit they were strongly influenced by Buddislam.

Now, I'm not going to go too deep into the weeds of the tenets of Buddislam... we can see that peace isn't a big deal, jihad and mahdi (islamic concepts) are, but Allah is not.  Due to the name of the Butlerian Jihad, we can presume that Buddislam was a dominant faith among those fighting the Jihad.

I'm going to go on a limb here: due to a lack of religious overtones in the Fremen fight against the Empire (external... internally there was a lot), I'm going to say that Buddislamic faiths don't consider non-buddislamic faiths to be actual religions.  That is, the Orange Catholics of the Empire aren't viewed as members of a hostile faith, but rather as people of little or no faith at all.  On the other hand, they tend to consider all other Buddislamics to be some form of Heretic (this comes from the Tleilaxu attitude towards the Fremen/Fish Speakers, or I'm imagining it... either way).   Either way, all Buddislamics tend to be a lot more overtly spiritual, and 'exotic', with plenty of middle eastern color.

On the Zensunni Wanderers, they track the various stops along the way of their famous migration... which primarily ended prior to the Jihad... or at least prior to the end of the Jihad. This is Ancient History, almost to the point of being Mythic.  One thing to note, however, is every Zensunni Sect would consider their own group to be the final stop on their migration, the only True Zensunni Nomads. In fact, in the ancient days of yore, a bunch of Zensunni may have left Dune, deciding not to stay one a world that hostile AND addictive, and settled elsewhere. The Fremen wouldn't record them at all, and they would consider the Fremen pretenders who couldn't make the final step of the journey (which is, after all, a Holy Pilgrimage of sorts. Failure to complete it, to reach the Promised Land, is a sign of a lack of Faith, of worthiness.)

One more note of importance: the Buddislamics, to include especially the Zensunni, actually don't care much about the Butlerian Jihad.  The Tlielaxu are less despised for their religion (which is a secret) then their perceived lack of morals.  The Fremen are considered savage barbarians.  

One difference between the Zensunni and the baseline Buddislamics is the role of women.  The Bene Gesserit have spent ten thousand years shaping the faith of the Zensunni, placing themselves in positions of power and authority, so among the Zensunni women are considered Closer to God. There are no religious roles for men among most Zensunni groups, outside of tribal chieftans and paterfamilias duties, everything else is for the Sayadinna and the Reverend Mothers.

The Buddislamics are another story. The only group we SEE are the Bene Tlielaxu, over whom the Bene Gesserit have NO influence whatsoever.  The Bene Tlielaxu are relentlessly patriarchal, to the point of actual misogyny, on a level rarely seen in real life.  The Bene Tlielaxu actually turn women into living factories, churning out life on demand and to design, with literally no other role in society than Aoxotl Tank. (I may be exaggerating, but if so, only slightly).  We can assume many Buddislamics have similar, if less extreme, attitudes towards women in the faith, which would be one reason the Bene Gesserit never went Full Buddislamic.

So lets talk the Orange Catholics:
This is a misleading name. I'm going to go on a very sturdy limb and suggest that the term Catholic refers to Universal, rather than any relationship to old school christianity.  We see little to no signs of basic christian sentiments anywhere in Dune, in any version.  We know for a fact that the Orange Catholic Bible was written AFTER the Butlerian Jihad, and is the source of the injunctions against Machine Minds.  I'll suggest that the primary focus, the religious myths if you will, of the Orange Catholics, is in fact the Butlerian Jihad itself.  We can presume a lot of older faith elements were included as backdrop, but the focus is the Jihad, and probably a highly allegorical account of the last days prior to the Jihad up through its end.  Ten thousand years later, with little context, these stories are probably hard to understand directly, so only the sins and virtues, the morality provided, remains.

What is that morality? Well, it includes Kanly(revenge) and poisons, so clearly its not a morality we would be terribly comfortable with.  It also seems to suggest that perfecting humanity by any means necessary is ideal (Mentats, Bene Gesserit, even Navigators are all okay!).

I'm going to posit that Orange Catholicism isn't just the most common faith, it is the de facto state religion, with the Padisha Emperor serving more or less officially as the head of the Faith. We have absolutely zero evidence of a structured church, which either suggests it doesn't exist (hard to believe), or that its utterly subservient to the political powers (the Nobles).  Much of the Fraufreleches system is rooted in the Orange Catholic Bible almost by default.  

Note what is missing from all this?

God.  

The Orange Catholics aren't concerned with what is Divine so much as what is Right.  We could draw a parallel to Confusionism here... but I just did, so...

So you have a bible without a church, a faith without a God, and a culture that almost reflexively obeys their faith without ever thinking about it. Even the deeply cynical Bene Gesserit can't really beat or subvert it, so they don't even try.  A Bene Gesserit probably views reading the Bible with a sort of haughty disdain (being above all that), but nevertheless can recite without thinking the Catechism Against the Thinking Machine, or any number of other OC proverbs she absorbed all her life.  



Which brings me to a third faith, almost a fourth.

We have the philosophy of the Bene Gesserit (which is distinct from the OC faith), but more importantly we have the Cult of the Kwisatz Haderach.  Mind you, there are several competing programs to create, to breed, the Kwisatz Haderach, not just the Bene Gesserit program see so spectacularly in Dune. The Tlielaxu have their own program, and the Empire (particularly the Noble Class) is practically litered with KH failures or 'almosts' from a half dozen or so programs.

First of all, KH is a Buddislamic term, which lends addtional credence to the theory that the BG were orginally much more BI than in modern times... but given its popularity, we can guess that the idea/term was pretty widespread during the Jihad period.  For all we know, Judith Butler (or if you like... whomever Butler that the Jihad refers to. Judith works.) may have been considered, in popular opinion, a Mahdi/KH figure during the Crusade, a Natural KH, if you will. It certainly makes sense.  Given the general philosophy of human improvement through 'science', we can presume that the idea of creating (and controlling, paradoxically) a divine prophet is a natural outgrowth.

It might look a bit weird. Imagine if for the last two thousand years the Roman Catholic Church had been rounding up holy virgins and marching them off to bethleham in hopes of another immaculate conception....  but it is believable in Dune's conceits.

So, what is a Kwisatz Haderach?

Well, that does actually change depending on who you are asking, but fundamentally it refers to a male psychic, particularly a powerful (Psi 10) Male Psychic.

One thing to keep in mind: The Bene Gesserit aren't after any old Male Psychic... that's why all these failed psychics are all over the damn place. They are after one they can CONTROL. So a 'failed' KH from their perspective is a male psychic they don't believe they can control, so they refuse to train... and is thus NOT a KH in the BG mode of thinking.

The Bene Tlielaxu have pretty much the same definition, except that they can't actually train psychics (they themselves NOT having psychic disciplines and powers), so they need a powerful natural psychic who can train himself (Maud'dib!), and they aren't interested in breeding programs so much as genetically engineering one... I'm not sure, but I think Piter De Vries (the twisted Mentat) was considered a failed KH?

Other groups may be content with non-psychic 'ubermenchen', particularly the technologically minded Ix and Richese Houses, but their attempts to create a 'controllable' Hand of God are also a lot less notable.  

Pretty much everyone agrees that when a TRUE Kwisatz Haderach appears He (and yes, it is always male, which might be curious if we follow the Judith Butler was a KH thought...) will lead a great holy Jihad and pretty much re-order society... and presumably bring his creators to the top with him.  You can see why people don't openly brag about, or share details of, their KH programs, as its pretty much admitting to attempting to create a rebellion.   You can also see why CONTROLLING the KH is so damned important.

From a game play standpoint, if a male character develops a 10 PSI and a fully suite of psychic powers... and is openly using them, consider that they will be more or less drawing religious fanatics to them like flies... what happens next is the interesting question.


EDIT::: I am not at all ashamed that I misnamed Serena Butler as Judith Butler. To have felt that Shame would be to admit to preferring the Works of KJA to my own fevered imaginations, and I am not that low. However, IF you insist on SOME level of canoninity to such namings, you may prefer Serena. I won't shame you for it, but... well... KJA. Seriously. Notice I left out any mention of Manion Butler.... ah, crap!


Second Edit: We know for a fact (Chapterhouse: Dune) that some old earth religious sects exist even past the Golden Age of Leto II and the Scattering, specifically the Jews that have been in hiding on Gammu. Why in hiding? Anti-Semitism for a sect that pretty much everyone would have forgotten existed probably before the Butlerian Jihad was finished? Well, they are out there, and we can assume some sects exist for other old faiths, but after approxiamtely 20k years (or 15k for Dune) they may not be entirely recognizable.

Also, the Orange Catholic Bible (which does have a retcon excuse for the Orange part of the name, its a bastardized fureign word, look it up) in fact did draw upon.. zenchristianity, along with ALL other faiths of old Earth. Its the ultimate Mutt Religion, at least in part. I'm standing by what I wrote about the Butlerian Jihad, however, given the timing.

House Guards:

I'm not really going to put any rules in here, so you can skip it if that's all you want.

I'm going to retread a bit of ground here.  We know that House Corrino commmands Sadukar Legions, and Ten are sent to Dune to support House Harkonen against Atredies. We can presume that Shaddam would not send ALL his legions, or even a majority, so let's say that he has 30 legions of Sadukar. Each Legion is 30,000 men, which is convienent... that gives Corrino almost a Million soldiers.  We know the Sadukar are shock troop primarily, fanatically fearless fighters who rely on brute, overwhelming force in mass charges.  We can presume that many, if not all, are equipped with shields, enough to disuade casual laser use against them, and allowing them to get 'stuck in'. The proud tribal Fremen respect the Sadukar as fighting men, even if they despise their cruelty (Hypocritically, I might add...).

We also know that Ten Legions, along with whatever Harkonen brought to the table, was only enough because Atredies troops were trained for Caladan, were disorganized due to the move and the constant sabotage by Harkonen agents (not to mention the advantage Harkonnen had in knowning the ground better), and because Yueh took down the shield generator.  Due to being the Attackers, the Harkonnen/Sadukar forces had the advantage of air support from their transport ships.

WHich means that 300,000 Sadukar were not quiet the Game Changer they looked like. Look at every thing Harkonnen needed to pull this off.

Of course, we do know that Atredies had gotten some support from the nearby Fremen Tribes, and they had the normal defensive advantage (Strategists call for a 3:1 ratio of attackers to defenders to win, so we'll go with that.)

What does this tell us of House Guards?
They are fucking huge masses of men, that's what.  Sabotage, ground game, air support and Yueh together eliminate the Defensive Advantage, meaning that Sadukar and Harkonnen troops (and because this was a COVERT op for the Sadukar, we can presume at least an equal number of Harkonnen forces. Shaddam basically DOUBLED the Harkonnen army for this one fight), which means that House Guard forces tend to number around a quarter million men, and go up from there. Presumably the 30 legions we assigned House Corinno represents a top end, you get more than that and the Emperor has a vested interest in crushing you like a bug.  We can raise that top end by assuming even more Sadukar Legions exist... since we don't actually know.

We DO know that Millions of Fish Speaker/Fremen warriors left Dune under orders of Emperor Leto, which sounds just about right. The Fremen Jihad didn't win because they were better warriors, but because they had the numbers to overwhelm all opposition, even multiple houses combined, and it still took forever to secure final victory (for example: Shaddam was officially deposed in 10193, but wasn't ACTUALLY deposed for another year, when Kaitan was conquered and Shaddam was exiled to Salusa Secundus and reduced to a single Legion (implying possibly that the rest of the Legions had been more or less wiped out on Kaitan... how do you set about disbanding a million man army who are addicted to Spice, and thus require noble patronage???), and the Great Surrender wasn't held for 5 more years (though let's be honest: fuck the story of the ceremony. Swordmaster Bludd? Seriously? WHy not call him Swordmaster Awesomesauce while you're at it?!). We can presume that in the meantime the other Great Houses were jockeying to see how firm a grip the Atredies had on the Throne. This was the first Dynastic Change in Ten Thousand Years (which, honestly, is dumb. Even with long lives and a hydraulic despotism, that much stability is just bullshit...)

So that gives us a Size for House Guards. Any given noble may only command a tiny handful of trusted bodyguards, but the House as a pretty significant Army.

Now we have to consider how they are used.  House Guards may be used primarily in Static Defense, or in Fast Assaults. There is no need for holding open terrain, battles of manuever and all that jazz. Very little of importance comes from holding pieces of land, there are ten motherfucking thousand worlds to exploit... or rather ten thousand star systems, very few of which have any 'unique' economic value. House Guards defend the CHOAM Share holding Nobles who pay them, and wars are launched to take control of those very nobles and their shares, the true wealth of a House... and more rarely to actually KILL every member of a House.  

This seriously shapes the tenor of the military. A large, powerful, slow moving "manuever" army building and garrisoning Fire Bases in hostile, occupied territory is almost unthinkable (which, oddly, means that they are at a loss on how to deal with the Fremen, who ARE concerned with holding lands, and controlling territory!).  What the Fremen value in war isn't of value to the Nobles of the Empire... except for the fact that the land in question is also the source for their entire economy!  Its a singular, unique battlefield... and no house gets to control Dune long enough to figure out that they need to rethink how they fight wars on Dune.

What this means is that most military equipment we think of today... artillery, armor, air support... is used in ways that seem almost radical to us.  Anything that slows down a raiding force is relegated to defensive use only.

Further, we have to look at the role of technology in two specific fashions:

Space Ships

Shields.

Since an army fighting on their own ground will always be the defender, every attacking force arrives in a large number of space ships by default. Clearly one aspect of a successful defense is control over orbital space (Arrakis, being an Imperial Holding, does not allow a House mastery of Orbit... that privilege belongs to Corrino alone... not that the Spacing Guild would allow any real orbital defenses over Dune! They need that Spice, motherfucker!).

So the defenders don't go out in armor (tanks, man... TANKS...) to meet the enemy, nor can they call up any air support of note... since they already LOST that fight before the infantry even arrives.  So they rely on emplaced artillery and powerful shield generators (presumably large enough and complex enough to prevent Holtzmann bullshit from cracking the fucking planet? Seriously: Its a damn goofy conceit that pretty much renders use of shields pointless and suicidal.  Just send one drugged up fanatic assassin with a lasgun and the entire enemy palace becomes one big nuke. Instant win, no need for armies. I'm going to assume 'emplaced' Shield Generators have some sort of circuit breakers so I don't break canon. Happy?).  This means that attackers don't waste time on big, expensive tanks... space ship fire support is more powerful and useful, and once you get inside the enemy fortress/palace its all about fighting in corridors and halls and shit.

Which brings up shields.  We can presume that Shields make an excellent defense against high explosives. A direct hit might annihilate the guy and his shield, but that's just a really expensive way to kill one guy. The real value is large explosive shockwaves and flying debris (shrapnel, in the common misuse of the word), which sheilds are GREAT at stopping. Sure, the guy may get knocked off his feet, but other than that he's fit to fight.  This also reduces the value of machine guns at crowd control. Once again: On a single target a machine gun can overwhelm the shield (presumably... for game balance if nothing else.  Novel sheilds are impenentrable Magic Tech....)... which merely stresses the value of having lots of guys, on both sides.   Armor tends to be under developed because anything too big gets in teh way of the shield (exceptions are possible), and most of the time you only have to stop a slow knife or sword thrust, which is very easy.

Its not the use of shields so much as the nature of fights that leads to the development of House Guards as 'stab you in the face' guys. Where will they likely be fighting? Inside buildings, in hallways and rooms, often against overwhelming numbers (where one guy with a sword can tie up a large force in tight spaces).  This is what makes the Sadukar so famous: They are trained pimarily as OFFENSIVE troops, which isn't itself unique as it is uncommon... and even more uncommon, its something you don't usually brag about.  

So, House Guards maybe broken down into three 'types'.

Offensive Shock Troops (Sadukar)
Defensive Swordmasters (Ginaz and Ecaz, probably others)
and Balanced (Atredies normal house troops, probably Harkonnen as well).

Any given House Guard will probably have a mix of the three. Again, the Sadukar are unusual in that they are exclusively Shock Troops (Corinno may have other House Guards that are NOT Sadukar, but they've made their money with the Sad, so the Sad get the glory jobs...).  This makes the role of Duncan Idaho interesting. He's clearly from another House (Ginaz)... or is from Atredies but was sent to Ginaz to learn Swordsmanship and brought back to Caladan. Combine this with Shaddam's fear of Leto's "New Army" (in the books all we know is they are supposed to be 'equal' to the Sadukar.. the Movie adds weirding modules and shit), and we can determine that perhaps Leto was actually bolstering his DEFENSIVE forces!  In other words, Shaddam IV was simply being paranoid.  Alternatively, Leto was relying on Duncan to bolster/create a small defensive force while, in fact, the bulk of the Atredies (or the 'new' atredies) were being trained as offensive Shock Troops.  Leto wasn't just growing his House Guard, he was changing its tenor.

Mind you, Leto had in fact presided over Ecaz's destruction of Moritani just a decade or two prior... though Ecaz was a 'defensive' sword force. Maybe he saw the value in trained swordsmasters on the offense?

There are two other considerations: First is available transport ships.  Leto may not have had a big fleet available to him, but Ecaz certainly did.  Second, Shock Troops are usually enhanced in some way, due to the demands of running into enemy guns and the high casualty rate. Training is almost secondary (Sadukar are taken from condemned prisoners and their decendents on a hell-hole deathworld... anything is better than life of SS as chumps, we can assume. Similar to how the Ghurkas can take the cream of the crop out of Nepal... ten thousand potential recruits line up for one or two positions... and that's merely economic incentives). Ecaz produces drugs, including one used to condition Slave Gladiators.  You can see why people might assume, with an alliance between Atredies and Ecaz, and Atredies building up a new army, that they were making Shock Troops.

But lets pull back to generic House Guard organization.

I'm tempted to tie this to the previous bit on altering House 'wealth', and say that every point of Military Strength is Ten Legions, but that's.... not good. Numbers would be all wonky, and its too simple given the number of other factors (troopships, quality of training. Harkonnnen soldiers are probably not very good at the low ranks, but are brutally effective at the leadership level, as rising in Harkonnen society is a matter of ambition and ability... failure tends to equal death.) where Atredies troops are better trained overall, but may lack discipline due to the relaxed attitudes of the Nobles. Loyal, yes, but undisciplined.

Lets leave that be and focus on what we do have already and putting it together.

While any given House may organize their troops as they like (and probably do draw on different cultural biases.  The Sadukar use Turkish ranks, and that is likely to be imitated by those 'close' to Corrino, but there may be a House that uses more Japanese style organization, or british regiments... that sounds Caladan like to me...), but lets assume that a Legion is around 20k men, with SHock Troop legions being bigger (30k) and defensive, well trained legions being smaller (12-15k... or less).  They will all be considered roughly equal when used as intended... most Shock Troops will suffer heavy casualities before coming to grips with the enemy, while Defensive troops will be at full strength when they engage.

Most Houses will have at least a few Legions of all three, but will favor one sort more.  Normal Troops handle most of the tasks the house needs, including 'police' duties, generic garrison forces and public ceremonies (marches and parades), while Defensive Legions are a bit more elitist and tend to provide personal guards and handle more diplomatic force needs, as well as serving in a broader spectrum (Duncan's meeting with the Fremen and working as a sort of junior Spymaster...) of duties. Standing out in the Legion is much more important, and they tend to be flashier sorts.  Shock Troops tend to be less publicly displayed unless a show of absolute force is necessary, and their attitudes will be more gruff and cliquish. You don't prove yourself in a Shock Trooper legion, you Survive, and Survival tends to be what gets you noticed.  

That said, quality and personality (Flavor) will vary from house to house. Even the famed Sadukar proved to be a paper tiger when they started promoting too many leaders, leading to a top heavy force.

Many Nobles will spend time in the House Guard, both in a generic sense of getting trained, and in a more specific sense of taking on leadership duties. This includes Shock Troops. We can presume Rabban was 'enhanced' similarly (though with more care for the long term) to the Harkonnen shock troops he would prefer to serve with.  This is more common among minor nobles (without titles), who may spend their entire lives serving their House in the legions, but even titled Nobles, even Heirs to the House, can serve a span with the Guard.  They are more likely to seek the honors of a Swordmaster's Title if they have access to a famed school, but recall that once they've been properly Seated in the Landsraad, its very risky to put yourself in the hands of another Noble House, even an old Ally. A few more shares in CHOAM, and another Seat in the Landsraad is more than worth tossing aside a few centuries of friendship.

Now, a curious thing comes up: The bland and boring Normal Guard troops are actually the best trained as Soldiers. Shock Troops will rarely be trained in any weapon they can't carry, though some will have training with tripod mounted weapons, and Defensive troops will focus entirely on personal combat (swords and pistols). The guys with the dull job of marching in Parades learn to do jobs like man artillery, work sheild generators, even fly Ornithoper troop ships and a host of other military skills. They are the best rounded troops in a House arsenal.  Some may even make a name for themselves as investigators and police forces, so while if a random 'investigator' is choosen from teh Guard, it will probably be a Swordmaster, if anyone earns a rep randomly for solving criminal mysteries and uncovering enemy agents... its probably that boring guy with the boring job in that boring Guard legion who has been dealing with criminals and agents for most of his Guard Career.

How long does a random joe serve? Life. Some Houses may offer a retirement program, but consider the economic fact: You serve a House you get Spice.  Spice means you don't start getting 'Old' until after your century mark.  YOu don't stop needing Spice just because you are too old to do your job. So House Guards don't get a proper retirement unless they earn one through heroic service... and that usually means a promotion and more prestige, not a farm in the country.  Some Houses may simply dispose of Guards that get too old to serve well, others use them in less demanding positions... loyalty is important in Dune, if only because betrayal and plotting is so prevalent.    Still, Spice does mean that you can serve long and well before anyone has to worry about it, and medical care is top notch, so injuries aren't a concern.... if your House cares, and many do.

That said: Most Houses will have a large number of postings that might be viewed as 'retirement' postings. A handful of official presence guards at some remote village or factory, an honor guard for a guy like Abulard Harkonnen (Feyd's father, who renounced his title and took up farming on Lankiveil), and so forth.  Almost any Noble 'retinue' probably includes a handful of men and women too old and tired to really serve, who are rarely called upon except when their particular wisdom is called for, and mostly totter around the palace at odd hours, and swap stories with the servants about the good old days.  They generally don't decamp to places like Arrakis or follow young vigorous nobles on adventures, unless they pissed someone off, and quietly go about dying peacefully out of the way.  On the other hand, in two or three centuries of useful service, they will be exposed to a lot of lethal threats, from assassins to poison to out and out warfare.  How many Nobles in the Dune series do you know of who died in their beds? Even good old Abulard up there was eventually murdered by Glossu Rabban for 'reasons'. (that being Spice...).

Off the top of my head I can't think of a single one. So yeah, despite involving hundreds of thousands of people, undoubtedly there isn't too much concern for retirement among House Guards. You'll live a long and healthy life, get jiggy with ladies due to your sexy uniform and probably wind up dying violently in some noble spat...hopefully after a good hundred or two years.  Not a bad deal, really.  And your father probably did it, as did his father and so forth.


I was going to talk about Loyalty, Traitors and Agents... and further go one about the importance of being noticed, but I've still got a Bene Gesserit Monster Post to do, and I'm out of time for the night. Places to go, People to See, Songs to Sing and Woo to Pitch.

You're on a roll. Keep doin' that thing you're doin'.

Ok, after a brief night of wine women and song, I am at last ready to tackle the Bene Gesserit, for reals.

The Bene Gesserit is, of course, an All Woman order of concubine and wives and witches. That's what everyone really knows.  What is less obvious is that, despite being one of the smallest factions in the Dune Empire, they are, pound for pound, one of the most powerful.  Only the Bene Tlielaxu are smaller (by some measures), and the Power of the Bene Gesserit is roughly equal to the Emperor, the Entire Landsraad, and greater than the Spacing Guild.  

First lets look at the numbers.  The smallest power player in the Dune Empire is the Bene Tlielaxu. Prior to Ghola Awakening (in the Events of Children of Dune) the HUMAN membership of the Tlielaxu was numbered in the Hundreds, while Ghola slaves and Facedancers numbered in the thousands.  The smallest viable Minor House, by comparison, has a half dozen titled and untitled Noble family members, their spouses and concubines, dozens of elite retainers for each, hundreds of servants and two or three legions (tens of thousands) of House Guard, not to mention a small population of civilian/serf vassals occupying their home territory.  Added up, and the smallest Minor House still can reach something on the order of a hundred thousand loyal members of varying ability.

So how does the Bene Gesserit Order stack up?

Well, there are no more than a dozen or two Reverend Mothers (not counting Missionaria Protectivia offshots, like RM Ramalo among the Fremen), maybe a few hundred lesser Sisters of various ranks and duties, and not more than one full Fledged Bene Gesserit per Noble House... so another two thousand.   In terms of women who would call themselves Bene Gesserit openly?  Not more then three or four thousand... with at most another thousand or two MP sisters, many of whom have nothing to do with the Order during their entire lives.

It gets a little better when you add up all the women Trained by the Order, but who are not actual members. This includes virtually every woman of Noble Birth and a fair number of beautiful and talented women of common or even serf origin that the Order has adopted.  All told, perhaps twenty thousand women at any given time.  A pittance at best.  

So what about power?

Lets start in the Landsraad: Offically the Bene Gesserit have no voice, no Seats, despite the Order owning a fair number of CHOAM Shares.  Unofficially there are more than a few women of noble birth who were trained by the BG and would bring matters to vote if it didn't conflict with their House's alliances. More than that, almost Every Single House has a fully trained Bene Gesserit as an advisor or even wife (or Concubine. Lady Jessica is a Bene Gesserit, full fledged. The Princesses Irulan and Wenescia are merely Trained, as a comparison), who is fully capable of bending the ear of a Noble, even the Head of House. THis is a soft power, however, and rarely used on a wide basis.  Why? First because it is dangerous. The more the BG try to sway the Landsraad, the more the Nobles distrust them.

Secondly: its actually NOT the most powerful tool in their arsenal.  Just for example, it is MUCH easier to sway the Emperor directly than a voting bloc in the Landsraad, and if that backfires, it is simple enough to sacrifice the woman advising the Emperor and claim she acted alone for personal reasons.

Far more powerful is their silent partnership in CHOAM.  While the BG have no official voice in the Landsraad, they have a large number of CHOAM shares... a number that grows slowly as Noble Houses fall, and the BG are often well placed to pick up some of the Shares that are otherwise lost. They may have shares second only to the Emperor, certainly at least as much as any great house.  They also have a permanent Directorship, and unlike the Noble Houses, they are very willing to use it.

Consider: Helen Mohaim uses the threat of a CHOAM audit of Vladimir Harkonnen's Guild Bank account if he won't breed with her. THis works. Why don't Nobles use this against each other? Well... they do, but a LOT more carefully. If Duke Leto simply tries to order an Audit of Harkonnen's holdings it is in his power to do so... but its also in Harkonnen's power to return the favor, and for all his just and honorable nature, the House Atredies has just as much to hide.  The BG, on the other hand, not only have nothing to hide from a financial audit but they also have a much easier time hiding their actions, as their membership is mostly unknown.  The things that the Sisters hide are kept off the books through any number of tricks... not least of which is getting someone else to do the dirty work.

They also have all the nobles by the balls, literally. Noble houses require heirs, and BG trained wives and concubines, which are nigh universal, can control when they get pregnant and what the sex of the child is. While females can and do inherit noble titles, and there is no law preventing women from heading a noble house, there is a strong tradition of passing inheritance through the male line exclusively. Part of this is a lingering suspicion of Bene Gesserit manipulations, and part of it is simply how political marriages tend to work. A female noble cannot marry without taking her titles to her husband's House, and that is a problem.   The Bene Gesserit actually prefer it this way, as they see direct control as putting a big target on their backs, they much prefer being a power behind the throne.

Lastly, there is their training, which we call (But note that this is almost NEVER used in setting) Psychic powers.  They don't advertise what they can do, beyond truth telling and some fortune telling, but everyone suspects, and the nobles suspect even more.  

History:
The origins of the Bene Gesserit lie in the dark years before the Butlerian Jihad, though they didn't adopt their current name or mission until after it was over. Before the advent of Spice, a large number of cults and covens of primarily women had formed throughout the galaxy, each using whatever local nootropic drugs their environment produced to expand their minds and explore 'magic'.  How and why these groups began forming into one large, galaxy wide group is unknown, but the advent of the Spacing Guild and the discovery of Spice, considered still the ultimate Nootropic drug, must have played a serious part.  As House Corrino took the Throne of Empire, and the other Nobles forms the Landsraad to check his power and preserve their own, the Bene Gesserit announced themselves, demonstrating ownership of a large number of shares of CHOAM (which also predates Spice, but it did not rise in prominance until after the Jihad). Many of the early Sisters in that unveiling were members of various noble houses, some may have already possessed titles which they passed to the Sisters when they cloistered themselves, leading to a rough period in the Imperial History.  Already the BG were seeking the Kwisatz Haderach, which was something of a fad in those early days.

Eventually Seeking became Creating, and over the long centuries of the first Millenium, the Bene Gesserit began training women of noble birth in their social arts, opening schools for the wealthy and privileged, later this would become tutoring and cloistering for a time.  The Bene Gesserit often found their youngest Sisters in high demand as brides and concubines, for they were more often than not lovely and gracious, and so a tradition began to take form.  Well before the close of the second millenium the Bene Gesserit were very well ensconced as the masters of the Distaff branch of the Nobility, and not much has changed since.  

From the First Millennium the Bene Gesserit have implemented the practice of sending Missionaries out to the more primative, savage cultures, each with the aim of seeding certain tenants and dogmas into the local faiths (whatever they were) that the Bene Gesserit could manipulate for their own safety, or more, if the need ever arose.  The most famous example of this is the Fremen adopting Lady Jessica and Paul Atredies, and later accepting that Paul was their Mahdi, their Messiah, based on vague prophecies seeded again and again over thousands of years.

Life in the Order:

THe vast majority of Nobles in Dune, of either sex, are born to a Bene Gesserit trained mother. By habit, most women begin training their daughters in BG arts from infancy, and if the mother in question is a full fledged Sister, the training eventually grows more focused and intense. Either way, by around six or seven years of age the girl will be tested by a Reverend Mother, and if found suitable (most are), will be taken for more training to a local Chapterhouse, or cloister. Prior to the conquest of Kaitan in 10194, there are several small chapterhouses, but after this at some point the chapterhouse on Wenescia (named after the Princess) becomes the central chapterhouse, and eventually the BG consolidate down to a single, hidden Chapterhouse.  This may be viewed as a reaction to being removed from the seat of power by the ascension first of Paul Maud'dib, then later Emperor Leto II.  Having lost the ear of the Emperor, coupled with the loss of the CHOAM veto (as Leto II controlled the spice exporting directly, putting the throne firmly on Arrakis), and the loss of their Kwisatz Haderach program (as how can there be two active Hands of God?), the BG were somewhat at a loss.

But that is all 'after' the setting I'm presenting.  As of 9191, the BG have had a few 'close calls', but there were either too uncontrollable or were simply not as psychically gifted as expected, and the Sisters are not confident that they are all that close to success just yet.  They are worried, as ever, about losing access to genetic lines (and many houses would be SHOCKED to learn how many 'extinct' houses remain within the Bene Gesserit order!).

If a woman is of sufficiently Noble birth... or more importantly was born to a wife or concubine rather than a Bene Gesserit sister... normally she is simply returned to her family before she attains majority, usually with full knowledge of whom she is expected to marry already set.  Many of these women will turn, in later years, back to the Order.

Those bred specifically by the order (such as Lady Jessica), remain with the Order and are fully trained in the Bene Geserit way, learning Prana Bindu (though many fail to master it, all are trained), and Psychic gifts. If they can't master the latter they are generally not released from the order and serve as servants in lesser roles, with the sole exception of women who are vitally important to the breeding programs (and there are a lot more than one!), who are merely more highly trained than most 'trained' women... but not 'sisters'.

A woman will normally remain a Sister of the Order until she is fifty or sixty years old, when her Spice preserved looks begin to fade. They will not neglect their training, but being out in the world and focusing on their, frankly sexual, mission means that they often do not progress very far.  Once her looks fade, or her mission ends (or, as Jessica shows, she is forced to progress by circumstance) she becomes a Mother, a title almost never heard outside a Cloister or Chapterhouse.  Age is not enough, a Mother must master at least the basics of Prana Bindu AND be able to transmute poisons in her body.  Many sisters acheive that level of success, of course.  

To be a Reverend Mother is not only to demonstrate mastery (not just proficiency) with Prana Bindu, but also you must perform the Bene Gesserit version of the Water of Life ceremony, which awakens her Genetic Memories.  An Reverend Mother may seek to be acknowledge as Mother Superior, though this means either the old one is dying, or somewhat less commonly she disagrees with the way the current one is leading the Bene Gesserit.   Typically a challenge would require both political support within the Order AND surviving what amounts to a psychic challenge, with the winner gaining the Ancestral Memories of the now dead loser... including the loser's memories!  

Now a note on the Spice Agony/Water of Life ritual.  The official Canon states that ALL Reverend Mothers use the bile of a drowned worm, since this is the ritual we see on Dune. This must be an error, as at no point did the Imperium, including the Bene Gesserit, have any clue of the role Sandworms played in the life cycle of Spice, nor did they have any reliable access to sandworms to produce it. There is also a confusion about the term Water of Life, some use it for the Bile itself, others say is the product of the Spice Agony ritual, the transformation of the toxic bile into a non-toxic drug.  I'm laying this out so there will be no confusion as to why I am 'wandering' a bit off the reservation.

Spice is a byproduct of Sandworm biology, its exact role appears to be a part of their reproductive cycle. The Sandworms 'lay' a fugisoid Pre-Spice Mass underground, which is shockingly moist, where it 'ferments' and eventually explodes to the surface, where the sun dries the fermented spoor into Spice.  Presumably SandTrout (infant sandworm tadpoles) presumably grow from some portion of the mass, and it is known that the sandtrout sequester water out of the desert, which is necessary for the fermentation of the Pre-spice Mass (too wet an environment and it is rendered sterile), and also for the biology of the Sandworms (as the mass requires internal moisture to 'ferment' and blow).  We know, or can presume, that Sandworms and sandtrout are inedible, as the largest animal on Dune, and yet no mention is made by anyone of trying to eat them.  

Well, Sandworms produce the chemical compounds that make Spice what it is, in vast... toxic quantities, and with lots of toxic impurities to boot. Its happenstance that the drying powder after a Spice Blow (which is a vital part of Sandworm reproduction) happens to be dilute enough, and 'pure' enough to be safe for humans to consume... but Sandworms give of some Spice essence naturally in other ways, as Paul notes the first time he rides one. The blow is simply the largest concentration of 'safe' spice you can gather.  Presumably if someone really wanted to, and knew what the Fremen already know, you could render a dead sandworm down to a large mass of presumably safe Spice... but it would be a lot of work, even for something as valuable as Spice.

So Sandworm Bile, produced usually by drowning a small worm, is simply a very, very concentrated dose of Spice, combined with a bunch of toxic chemicals, in a solution of water.  The Fremen refer to this end of the Process as The Water of Life, as they don't save any of the other end, but they got the term, and mis-use it from the Bene Gesserit.

The Bene Gesserit process is to consume a lethal dose of Spice, usually combined with several ancient hallucinogenic alkaloids from their pre-spice days (and Alkaloids are toxic!).

In both cases the extreme agony of the ritual, requiring a powerful amount of self control to muster the psychic energies to transmute ALL of the poison into something safe (which any Mother can do... the 'test' is if they can do it while suffering a massive Overdose of mind expanding drugs, with multiple active toxins in their system).  The converted toxins, rendered safe, are expelled by the body and collected (the Bene Gesserit vomit it up as a liquid, the Fremen Reverend Mothers may, or may not, vomit, but most is taken from their sweat... and is not collected so much as Used in a massive Spice Orgy by the entire Sietch/Tribe), and the Bene Gesserit call this expelled, safe, drug The Water of Life.  As it is a powerful mind-expander, essentially a highly concentrated form of Spice, it is used to unlock the psychic potential of the Sisters.  In the Fremen system, its used to celebrate life and family in a massive orgy, where everyone loves everyone else, man... like they are all connected. Its a powerful spiritual moment. Usually new Sayadinna are chosen during the Ritual (which always sees the elevation of one Sayadina to Reverend Mother) from the women of the Sietch who responded most powerfully to the drug.  It is a very bad thing for a the ritual to fail for the Fremen, as it means the loss of a Sietch's Reverend Mother, and eventually the loss of that Sietch/tribe.

In the passage of a Mother Superior, the Water of Life is used, but not the full Spice Agony. Officially it is a contest of wills, and if the BG were more spiritual, they'd probably say the loser's soul gets eaten, or something.  Since both potential Mother Superiors have already passed the Spice Agony, there is very little risk of losing both women... and in most cases if the contest is TOO close to call, one will 'give up' rather than risk both dying... which is one reason you need the support of the other Reverend Mothers to even try it.

The Mother Superior rarely leaves the Cloister, and is usually entirely unknown outside the Order.  She is busy guiding the many plots of teh Order, and assigning Sisters and Reverend Mothers as necessary. If she DOES appear in public she uses the title Reverend Mother (if she uses any at all!  Reverend Mother Mohaim was unusual in openly using her BG Title, but she served the Emperor directly, where high faluten Titles are rather mandatory.  Given the secrecy of the Bene Gesserit, we can assume many people believed the Reverend Mother Mohaim WAS the bosslady.  

Either way: The Spice Agony, fundamentally, a Spice Overdose, and its a matter of Canon that it turns the eyes of the Reverend Mother to Blue within Blue, which as noted is a Stigma in the Empire, so contact lenses are commonly used, even in Cloister.  

Oddly, despite reaching the pinnacle of their powers, by the standards of the Bene Gesserit, the Reverend Mothers actually spend less time in contemplation and mediation than the boring old 'Mothers'.  A Reverend Mother holds the Directorship of the Bene Gesserit in CHOAM for the Order, another RM manages the Kwisatz Haderach breeding program, another organizes the teaching of new generations, one is always assigned to House Corrino, others may be assigned to other Great Houses. One may liaise with the Spacing Guild.  Often there will be multiple hats being worn, but in the rare cases of a surfeit of Reverend Mothers, the oldest and least 'useful' Reverend Mothers take a number of acolytes into the wilderness on Missionaria Protectivia missions, reinforcing the ancient programs of social control over the savage heathens of the Galaxy.

So we have the basic Ranks of the Bene Gesserit:
Trained/Initites    (3)
Sisters               (5)
Mothers              (7)
Reverend Mothers (9)
Mother Superior    (11)

You have to be at least a Sister to learn Psi, you have to be a Reverend Mother/are automatically Elevated to Reverend Mother in order to master Other Memory, the final power of the Bene Gesserit.  It is not recommended for most games that a player START as a Mother Superior... and probably doesn't qualify, so the (costs) in Assets of Reverend Mother and Mother Superior are notional rather than actual.  In order to progress to Mother a Sister with a Noble Title must give up her Title (which can mean giving her CHOAM shares to the Bene Gesserit), otherwise the asset rank of a Sister or Initiate is ADDED to her rank to determine her actual social status and Spice allotment.  Sayadina may be considered Mothers or Sisters, and will often undergo the Spice Agony much younger than the Bene Gesserit, as the Fremen consider a young a healthy Reverend Mother a very good thing.  There are no Initiates among the Fremen, however unless you consider the very rawest of Sayadina...

Following the FS format for 'classes':

Suggested Traits:
Characteristics: Perception, Wits
Natural Skills: Charm, Impress
Learned Skills: Etiquette, Empathy, Focus, Lore: Religion,
Stoic Body, Stoic Mind
Blessing/Curses: Beautiful (+2 Charm)/Subtle (-2 Extrovert when Explaining Something)
Benefices/Afflictions:Bene Gesserit Rank, Protection, Obligation

I should do a second one for Fremen Reverend Mothers/Sayadina... but since many are actually full fledged BG's, or at least inherited their memories I don't actually care enough to do it.

The Weirding Way, Bene Gesserit Psychic Path
1- Intuit
2- Strengthen
3- Quicken
4- Truthsaying  (Extrovert+observe, Sight, Temporary, 1W)
5- Heart's Command
6- Convert Poison (Calm+Stoic Body, Instant, 1W)
7- Recovering
8- Other Memory
9- Oracle
10- Prescience! (GM determination)

This is not exhaustive, there are other Powers that can be learned, including cloaking oneself, making oneself sexually addictive (quickly developed after exposure to the Honored Matres, but there is nothing that says a Bene Gesserit can't pick it up on their own), Darksight and more. Most of the powers listed above are in the book, or have been adapted from the FS book, so I won't rewrite them.  Note that the Level 10 power is pretty much off limits, and for Bene Gesserit the Other Memory (requires Spice Agony, but is otherwise the Voice from the Past power) and Oracle can only show them the Female side, past or future.  The GM should be pretty lenient regarding Other Memory use.  Note that powers regarding Mind Linking or Bonding are Canon, but are only every part of the either the Fremen version of the Spice Agony, or used to take the Ancestral Memories of another, usually dying, Reverend Mother/Mother Superior (yes, this means taking the memories of a DIFFERENT genetic line, which is WHY the Bene Gesserit get upset about 'lost genetic lines'. They want their Kwisatz Haderach to have access to the entire sum total of human history, more or less.

On the subject of Psychic powers, the Bene Gesserit don't seem to develop any 'external' powers, like Telekinesis.  That isn't to say it is impossible, only that the only example we have is Maud'dib, the Kwisatz Haderach, which scares the hell out of the Bene Gesserit.  On the other hand, almost all the Soma powers (except grow/shrink?) should be available, not just the ones in my list.

Prana Bindu:
This is the Bene Gesserit art of controlling the body with the Mind, so techniques cannot be learned higher than the Stoic Mind skill. Its use as a martial art is largely secondary to its purpose, so it cannot be used with weapons, but it can be used simultaniously with any Soma Psychic powers in the same action.  Emphasis is on speed and precision, but most techniques are available.  Defensive Moves cost one extra XP to learn, kicks cost one less XP.



That was easier than I'd thought... was afraid I'd have to cherry pick all the manuevers like I did for psychic stuff.  For the record powers two three and six would be Soma powers, but you may wish to expand/alter it to All Bene Gesserit Way powers (the above list), though most of them would be... odd... to use while punching someone. Maybe Intuit?

Huh. I seem to have... finished? Well... good. Enjoy, and I'll be back later to slap together the pertinent details of the setting, maybe (if I'm feeling froggy, I'll do 'templates' for other 'classes'). Heck, if someone sweet talks me, maybe I'll clean it all up into a good and proper manual of some sort, though how to do that without tripping up copyright laws? Probably just collect all the various ideas for benefices and shit into one place. Also I'll have to do up some Dune Specific Items (Shigawire guns, still-suits, slowguns and hunter-seekers and more, oh my!), plus the promised Shai Halud write up.

And yes: A Crysknife is JUST A KNIFE.


Oooh... I forgot the Gom Jabbar! Well, I'll have to do something about rules for various rituals, like the Spice Agony, and I've got plenty of work in drugs and poisons, so just put that on the list. You don't need the Rules for the Gom Jabbar to play a Bene Gesserit, so as far as I'm concerned I've delivered!

Also, if you are still reading this (and if so, why? What are you, a glutten for punishment?? These posts are faaken Yuugge!), I have to add Jews to the post on religions, and should probably update/alter the OC portions a little, as I finally got around to reading the Wiki page for it. Sigh. And I did remember the Jews, once I was reminded. Even Frank had his face-palm moments in writing the books, it seems.  Suddenly, Jews Appear!  sigh.

The Galaxy of Dune is not an equalist sort of place, and if you have a problem with that, take it up with Frank Herbert.  That said it is not a remarkably patriarchal or matriarchal society either.  My take on the setting is going to soften it a bit in areas we didn't see, such as CHOAM Agents and so forth, but that's because I don't like screams of outrage, they really harsh my mellow, and its uncharted territory.

Frank Herbert, rather deliberately, set the Bene Gesserit and Bene Tlielaxu at odds with each other, thematically. I think he personally was more of an equalist than the setting he wrote, perhaps even a feminist, as the existance of the Fish Speakers and the cutting observations of traditional military forces in God Emperor of Dune suggests. Maybe he became one in the long gap between Dune and God Emperor of Dune? Certainly by Chapterhouse: Dune the focus is almost entirely on women.

That is neither here nor there, however, when converting the setting to a Game Setting.  Looking purely at Dune as written we can assume there are plenty of women of Noble birth, but no actual Noblewomen, as in titled rulers. Princess Irulan is relatively strong and proactive, but still has to marry Paul to do anything, and Wenescia (sp? Damn!), is the classic powerless but manipulative aristo mother later on.  Of course, among the Fremen the women fight alongside the men, and in Lynch's film we even see a female Feydakeen being inducted. They aren't in the majority until the Fish Speakers.

So the Era of the Setting matters, and if you want to remain true to the Dune books, then Women are wives, concubines and Bene Gesserit, but never rulers.  They have plenty of ability and agency, but no legal path to power. Even the Fremen only seem to follow men, despite being more open to women in traditional male roles (fighters...). We don't see Female Mentats or Swordsmasters... nor do we see (I won't swear to this...) women in the Spacing Guild, I'm pretty sure at one point all the Navigators were male, but as it would have been a minor point it may have gotten changed. I am thinking specifically about how the Bene Gesserit cannot look into Male Space, but the first thing Paul does as Kwisatz Haderach is to kill a Navigator (in the Lynch Film, at least) in, basically, Astral Space... in the Male Space where the Bene Gesserit cannot look, which I think was a comment about opposed gendered psychics, with the non-psychic (so far as we know) Bene Tlielaxu replacing the SG as the Male Pole in that thematic motif.

Ultimately I try to leave any and all gender politics out of Gaming.  If a fast sweaty hairy dude wants to pretend to be Milla Jovovich, well that's his bag to carry, not mine. If a girl-gamer wants to pretend to be Milla Jovovich, well, why not let her?  If she wants to be Gerard Butler, well... again, that's her bag to carry, not mine.

And if the Setting says that women can conquer the Galaxy by force of arms, and then again with pussy power? Well, I didn't write it, nor did I make it popular... I'm just the fan translating it.  Right, wrong or indifferent, the Setting is the Setting.  

For what it is worth, I don't think that Pre-God Emperor Dune actually allows women to do much of anything at any level, except for the Bene Gesserit, though it varies from world to world, clearly.  But since I can't prove it, and I don't particularly think it makes for a Fun Setting, I plan to change it as we move out of the Noble Houses and into CHOAM and the Spacing Guild.  I still intend to keep Navigators as Male Only, for reasons I've explained above (thematic poles, etc), but not because I don't believe women couldn't do it. Then again: Navigators will not be made playable by me, so it hardly matters, now does it?