I'm good with Ctech's "God is Dead" or "Slay for God" concept. It's too binary to be realistic, but its fine for high drama. Lukewarm isn't compelling and lacks passion to motivate characters.

I've been a ghostwriter for almost three decades and 18 years ago, I got a contract to do deep research and draft writing on Atheism & War. What's fascinating is how much atheism developed during and after WW1 and WW2, but I dug deeper into historical discussions for pre-20th century wars and there exists a strong "God is Dead" or "God has abandoned us" or "No God would allow this, thus there is no God" response in the face of war and atrocity.

But the flip side of the research showed a several historical rises in fundamentalism and revivalism as well in response to war and atrocity, which appeared to have more influence than the fringe atheists on the mainstream.

And 18 years ago, research meant physically traveling to libraries around the state with card catalogs and ordering books via mail order catalogs!

I left out all of the horrible stuff and just ran it with tagers and robot-monsters. The mechanics needed a clean up. Sounds like what they're doing. Yay!

Quote from: Orphan81;855788One of the head writers on Exalted, does NOT play RPG's but reads them for entertainment...

But it really actually explains a great deal of things.

Particularly if he's not the only RPG.net moderator and RPG writer who does the same thing.

Yes, that would explain a great deal of things in the current RPG subculture.

Giant fucking volumes of things.

I have long suspected this, it's weird to get such blatant confirmation.

Quote from: Orphan81;855788Particularly if he's not the only RPG.net moderator and RPG writer who does the same thing.

I've heard there are others but this is the first I've recall being confirmed.

The antireligious bias really rubbed me the wrong way. Beyond people simply doublethinking their way around biblical inerrancy, there are clear parallels between Christianity and certain mythos cults.
http://bactra.org/jesus-cthulhu.html
http://kinginyellow.wikia.com/wiki/The_Living_God
http://stealingcommas.blogspot.com/2011/12/work-against-emperors-magic.html

I can imagine Christians and Muslims believing the End Times are nigh and welcoming Cthulhu and King in Yellow as the second coming of Christ and Muhhamed. In fact, potraying those cults and associated creatures as benevolent allies of humanity would be more realistic than going for the gonzo "Cthulhu Wars" and "The Doom that Came to Atlantic City" style of setting it is now.

Deep One and human engineers building mechas emblazoned with crucifixes while passages from The King in Yellow's second act are carved into the weapons systems is a very fascinating image to me.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;855942Deep One and human engineers building mechas emblazoned with crucifixes while passages from The King in Yellow's second act are carved into the weapons systems is a very fascinating image to me.

That is a very cool and creepy image. Throw in some Bible Hymns being sung while it's taking place and it's perfect.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;855881Yes, that would explain a great deal of things in the current RPG subculture.

Giant fucking volumes of things.

I have long suspected this, it's weird to get such blatant confirmation.

No big surprise...

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?765942-Infraction-for-Celestial-Lord-1%29-One-Day-Ban&p=19385734#post19385734

I'll give Wildfire this: they're taking almost the exact opposite approach to Exalted 3rd edition. I might not like where its going but I like their approach.

A suggested "tweak" for Nazzadi

Quote from: Bailywolf;19385964I suggested in another thread - one of the recent biggies - that they tweak the Nazzadi a bit.  Change the default black skin to something like the skin of a cuttlefish or octopus, rich in chromatophores which allow them - when minimally clad - to use active camouflage bio-engineered to optimally disrupt the human visual perceptual system.  This combined with a system of capillaries and heat-sequestering organs, as well as some novel enzyme processes, and metabolism allow them to match their body temperature to ambient conditions with minimal discomfort.  Cell clusters on their face, hands, arms, chest, and back can emit coded bursts of infrared light which they can themselves see, and sense with other organs in their skin.  Their gut bacteria would let them digest cellulouse, and indeed most biological material for sustenance, and desalination organs allow them to drink sea water if they must.  So, dropped without supplies, and advancing without speaking, using directed IR flashes to communicate, a nazadi infiltration force could advance on human positions, quickly liberate weapons from assassinated enemies, and engage in sabotage and stealth murder, then vanish back into the bush.   They'd be ideally set up for missions of infiltration, assassination, disruption, and stealth with a minimum of special equipment.

So then, when the plan to use them to kill all the humans goes pear shaped, and they instead join up and integrate, the nazaddi color-changing skin and clipped blink-language take on weird and interesting cultural significance.  Visually, they could change their coloration at a whim, adopting wild fashions or making their color part of a uniform indicating their military affiliation.  Off-hours, they strip down (being most comfortable without too much clothing), and let their skin shift in reflexive mimicry, or change it consciously to be as wild and weird as they like.  Color shifting for stealth and for fashion then becomes a skill you can fold into sneaking skills and interaction skills, perhaps even art skill as well.

And, you neatly ditch the unfortunate implications of space drow.

That's a small "tweak"? Do they want them to be "more" human by adding in transgenderism or intersex/third sex or less human by making them two legged chameleons/predators?

At least its not a direct statement from the writers but I have to wonder if it gets enough support will it be incorporated. I think I'm going to end up putting this on the same shelf as Exalted 3rd edition unfortunately.

All I wanted from Cthulhutech was to play a badass fishman commando with a speedboat and basically do Waterworld Cyberpunk adventures but nooo, no monster heroes in ARE SETTYNGE unless you all agreed to play Guyver Ripoffs (and maybe one guy can be a weaksauce version of Dr. Orpheus)

Quote from: Harime Nui;855982All I wanted from Cthulhutech was to play a badass fishman commando with a speedboat and basically do Waterworld Cyberpunk adventures but nooo, no monster heroes in ARE SETTYNGE unless you all agreed to play Guyver Ripoffs (and maybe one guy can be a weaksauce version of Dr. Orpheus)

Ghuls are optionally playable.

And that's another thing about Cthulhutech I can't wrap my head around... the most interesting, creative and actually adventurous part of the whole Cthulhu mythos is the Dreamlands so, of course, what's the one part they just say "nah we're not doing that" and blow it up?

Quote from: Nexus;855970A suggested "tweak" for Nazzadi



That's a small "tweak"? Do they want them to be "more" human by adding in transgenderism or intersex/third sex or less human by making them two legged chameleons/predators?

At least its not a direct statement from the writers but I have to wonder if it gets enough support will it be incorporated. I think I'm going to end up putting this on the same shelf as Exalted 3rd edition unfortunately.

Honestly? I think his suggestion is really cool...but that's just me.

Quote from: Orphan81;856000Honestly? I think his suggestion is really cool...but that's just me.

In fairness, I may be unfairly biased against it for two reasons: My players and I love the Nazzadi as they are, feeling there's allot of rp potential in them. And with the way everything's being eaten up it might be adopted "fixing" another thing that isn't broken, IMO and discarding something we like about the game in the process.

And this tweak is avoid the "Drow problem" which is something that just irks me to no end. Despite being called "Black people" we are not jet black.


 If I could look at it objectively I might have less of an issue with it. It is better than the suggestion of replacing them with sentient shoggoths.

Edit: Or maybe not. The Nazzadi are about as inhuman as I'd want a PC race (bad word!) to be in a game with mood I'd run Cthullutech with. Making  them Predators with chameleon skin is past the line of innate weird I'd like. And yes, I don't care for Tagers that much but they are more for a different level of game. But, YMMV that's purely a subjective call.

Seems like allot of people want: The Guyver: the RPG or Pacific Rim meets Evangelion out of the game.

Quote from: Nexus;856008And this tweak is avoid the "Drow problem" which is something that just irks me to no end. Despite being called "Black people" we are not jet black.

EDIT: Although, and maybe Skywalker can check me on this one, a lot of the "Nazzadi=Drow" debate was originally based on them being a ripoff of Drow without any human racial "problematic" aspect to it.  In other words, lazy worldbulding, not racist worldbuilding, that part came later.