The first records of man-lifting kites come from China. Their use is mentioned in Sun Tzu's The Art of War as a means of viewing the movements of enemy troops. In a story about the Japanese thief Ishikawa Goemon (Îì ŒÜ‰E‰q–å 1558-1594), he used a man-lifting kite to allow him to steal the golden scales from a pair of ornamental fish images which were mounted on the top of Nagoya Castle. His men manoeuvered him into the air on a trapeze attached to the tail of a giant kite. He flew to the rooftop where he stole the scales, and was then lowered and escaped. In the 17th century Japanese architect, Kawamura Zuiken, used kites to lift his workmen up to the roof of a temple he was constructing. George Pocock, who invented a kite-drawn buggy in 1822, had previously used kites as a method of lifting men to inaccessible cliff tops, but it was not until around the 1880s that there was serious interest in developing man-lifting kites.
The first well-documented record of a man lifted by kite was at Pirbight Camp in 1894. In the early 1890s, Captain B.F.S Baden-Powell, brother of the founder of the scouting movement, had designed the "Levitor" kite, a hexagonal-shaped kite intended to be used by the army in order to lift a man for aerial observation or for lifting large loads such as a wireless antenna. On June 27, 1894 he used one of the kites to lift a man 50 feet (15.25 m) off the ground. By the end of that year he was regularly using the kite to lift men above 100 ft (30.5 m). Baden-Powell's kites were sent to South Africa for use in the Boer War, but by the time they arrived the fighting was over, so they were never put into use.
Lawrence Hargrave invented the box kite in 1885, and on 12 November 1894, lifted himself from the beach in Stanwell Park, New South Wales using a four box kite rig, attached to the ground by piano wire. Using this rig he lifted himself 16 feet (4.9 m) above the ground, despite the combined weight of his body and the rig weighing 208 lb (94.5 kg).
Samuel Cody invented a kite known as the Bat, that he proposed be used for observation of the enemy during war. After a stunt in which he crossed the English Channel in a boat drawn by a kite, he attracted enough interest from the War Office for them to allow him to conduct trials between 1904 and 1905. He lifted a passenger to a new record height of 2,600 ft (792 m) on the end of a 4,000 ft (1,219 m) cable. The War Office officially adopted Cody's design in 1906, and the war kites were used for observation until they were replaced by aircraft. Cody also made flights in an untethered kite powered by a 12-horsepower engine. Go to Comment
the world is full of creative people who aren't efficient,
interesting, or accessible Wulfhere 1:12 pm: simply due to failure to understand their audience
someone was complaining about what do to with
one of her posts.
They could not see the implied plot lines
So she asked me how to make them more
Take the plot hooks you think are the best, think about how you would explain them to a 13 year old, and write those plots down in one to three line capsles
Then put them in a big section with a bold title:Plot Lines Go to Comment
A BioMaster Clone, taken from an honest to gosh girl (her memories and her basic genetic enhanced). She is now the perfect pop star
Music is pablem. Her lyrics are "slightly suggestive" through innuendo. She is a great dancer. She is sexier than any 16 year old has a right to be.
The tabloids... well you can't go a day without seeing her in the media somewhere.
(Teen Dream enhanced.)
Superstrong and invunerable, plus slowly flight, dazzle, tiny eb, and side effect for extreme power of the flashing lights.
She thinks she is a superhero. She is actually a pawn of BioMaster to gain control over the youth of the world. While she will argue and hem and haw, she will do anyting BioMaster tells her to. Go to Comment
MISC: All skyships-from island hoppers to galleons-are built by members of the Shipwrights Guild, a secretive order dedicated to the Artificer. None outside the order knows the secret of flight, and it is closely guarded. The Shipwrights Guild has boatyards on all major islands. Once built, these ships can be repaired by anybody with the correct know-how, tools, and raw materials, however. Whatever secret, arcane work the masters perform persists with the vessel through its life in the Skies.
Important: Skyships navigate their way through the void using scrying devices called wayspheres-crystal globes filled with magically charged water and a flint-tipped arrow suspended at their center. Each waysphere is attuned to the ship as part of her launching ceremony.
A navigator must handle rock or dirt from the island to which he wishes to travel no more than thirteen hours before attuning the sphere. Then all he need do is concentrate on the chosen destination and the arrow points the way. Go to Comment
They are supernatural mushroom creatures with thick blood and a toughness born from their lack of organs. They kill humanoids for their blood, the more magical the blood the better. Thus dwarves and elves are prefered eating vs. humans. As plants, Orcs are truly alien - an axe weilding kudzu. Their motives are to survive and spread their species across the world.
As intelligent plants, they grow with all they need to know, but slow to learn information not inbred in their cell structure. They can sense the presence of their own for many miles, probably by pheromones, and gather in groups to hunt together. However, as plants, they are greatly competitive to dominate their niche for the most food - that is, sweetly enchanted blood. Also, there are many breeds of orcs as their breeds adapt to different terrains and grow forth from different soils.
When an orc dies, the body decomposes enough to feed the new growth. Even the thick orc blood that seeps into the earth will give rise to more orcs. Thus orc incursions rise year after year from the battlefields. A city overrun by orcs may never be free of the scourge as the new bodies grow several feet below the ground in the darkness until the orc is fully formed and ready to claw its way to the surface world.
Some orcs are better. They are fungi that grow in and upon a half buried body. These orcs have true and stronger bones. This makes them taller, stronger, and more functional.
The Orc will eat some of the flesh of their targets, to take in additional nutriants and get at the blood.
They also need magic to aid them in their process. By absorbing the magic of ambient objects, they become stronger/ faster/ more durrible. Thus they might have magic items, but never use them for their intended use.
Orcs tend to splay the bodies out, so the blood will spill on the earth. Then they will half bury the bodies to build Dire Orcs.
Half-Orcs are born to human mothers who have eaten orc meat or crops grown where orc blood has been spilled. Although outlawed in most civilized areas, orc meat is quietly eaten by villagers in particularly bad winters.
Orcs emerge, spill forth, as the spores finally begin to digest and replace the human form.
They are welcomed by orcs who see them as leaders and often specialists capable of grasping knowledge beyond the simple urges in their plant cells.
Orcs serve evil spellcasters because they are fed well. When a warlock cast spells on their enemies, the orc leaps upon the enemy with hungry fury for if the enemy can be killed swiftly while the aura of magic is still upon the body, such blood is tremendously sweet. Thus Orcs and Evil Wizards is a symbiotic affair. Go to Comment
(XX) Sift and sort
(XX) Top down process (__)(__)(__)
(__) Bottom up (__)(__)(__)
Themes and Images:
There are nine elements here, one for each main primary and secondary color, black/ white/ grey. These weave together to make reality.
Mages = Weavers or SkeinWeaver (vs thread or cotton weavers).
Each region is its own magic. Magic users tap into the region's magic to produce cool magical effects (mostly summoning things).
The world is kind of anime, thus there will be fuzzy spots, and it will all be about look.
The World seems fairly European, Early Medieval. The two older Empires broke vs invading "orcs" (beast men? mongols? vandals?) We have the left overs of the not quite conquered territories with their own cultures.
All the power is centered on Regios and
Earth Standards. See in one big brush stroke, you know what the world is approximately like. It is like our world in general geography, change some of the squiggles.
We will focus on "Europe and Africa and Middle East" regions of the world. Why, because it is familiar for the players.
Nothing out of the ordinary
Imagine Europe not depleated by Roman Predation. So you will have Northern and Southern Lions and a few "african" creatures adapted to northern climes.
Plants, unless infused with magic, are pretty much normal.
Nothing is specifically rare.
Races and Peoples:
Our dominant culture is a Post Roman Medieval. Pre Charlemagne.
We have three other mini-cultures in this. This mixes in with the dominant culture.
Celtic/ Guals (nearly conquered)
Those of the Ruins (building their lives on the shattered cities in Italy)
Northmen (nearly conquered people plus the nomads pushed infront of the "Orcs")
The other core culture is more of a Eastern Roman Empire.
All pomp and form, little substance. Add to this a heaping helping of Egypt. Included in this area, our Elves (which are just a subtype of human).
Feudal. One Lord/ Skein Weaver, some supporting noble people, merchants/priests, peasants, in each Regio.
No suprises for the standard calander. There is an arcane calander that runs with a nine day week
There might be up to three tiers of feudal obligation.
The Church, centered more East than West. It is the matrix that holds all of the world together.
Laws and Morals:
Technology and Common Power:
Military Weapons and Tactics
Math and Science:
Each Regio of the world has its own "ethos". This is its strongest points: comprised of its geography, geology, history, elemental allignment, and strongest magic.
Magic here is mostly summoning of phantasmal things (animals, people, monsters). Some effects (such as an enhancement or enchantment or simple spell effects) are possible.
Each Weaver is linked to a Regio. It can only pull "Mystical Archetypes" in that to make them manifest Go to Comment
Several century agos, in the wild and wooley, Age of Star Expansion, a lone trader found a planet. It was a very quiet place, slowly being tended by robots. "A terrible thing" occured 900 standard years ago. It was some kind of bio hazard event that "removed" the humanoid intelligent species on the planet. The same event removed most higher animals remaining (as the culture there had "tamed" all the beasts, so only domesticated and near domesticated animals remained). With the robot's aid, the ecology has begun to recover, but there are no higher animals.
A lonely greedy man landed on a planet full of mechanical beings who exist only to serve. He became their King. His whims energized the Mechanicals. They built a utopia for him, as the robots held themselves to a high order Asmovian Hirerarchy.
So to save him from himself, they could never let him go. Eventually, using his wits and spurious logic, he managed to free himself from the robots Go to Comment
HOW TO BE A KID - STATS
First off, you can use the system developed in Cybergeneration, plus or minus evolved powers depending on your campaign. Kids have a variety of roles to choose from, and there are ready-made rules for kid stats and skills. You should remember that emancipated kids will be a bit older than most kids in Cybergeneration, since emancipation age starts at fifteen (and the vast bulk of emancipated minors are sixteen or seventeen).
If you dont want to use the Cybergeneration kid skills, you can run kids like miniature adults in a standard CP2020 game, with some of the stat modifications suggested below. Personally, Id at least convert the Cybergen roles over, since I cant quite get my mind around the idea of a fifteen-year-old-solo. But its your call.
As you no doubt know by now, I dont use roles in my games, and Im not a big fan of Cybergeneration. So, I use a method developed by Ocelot. Also, note that with Ocelots Alternate Character Generation System, kids have significantly less skill points than the average twenty-eight-year-old edgerunner.
HOW TO BE A KID - ATTITUDE
First off, if you have younger relatives, take a few minutes to observe them, especially if theyre in an appropriate age range (thirteen to eighteen). Teenage personalities are as varied as those of adults, so dont play every pube you meet as a tantrum-throwing spoiled-rotten corpkid. But there are some characteristics that adolescent kids tend to have in common that you might want to think about:
Youre not sure who you are yet.
Youre trying to figure out who you are what you want to do with your life, what you like and dislike, what kind of friends you want, what your strengths and weaknesses are. Youll tend to experiment with a lot of new things: a dozen hobbies, a hundred musical styles, a thousand ways of doing your hair. Youll go through a lot of casual friends, but youll pick two or three out of the crowd and get a bit closer. Maybe even very close, as youre also checking out the strange new world of sex.
Youre an idealist.
Kids in this age range see things in terms of black and white. They cant understand why injustice and evil exist in the world. Theyre not necessarily naive just because youre a Combat Zone-hardened juveganger and have seen the worst that humans have to offer doesnt mean you know why people are that way. You judge people on their actions, not their motivations. This is part of the reason the Cybergeneration universe is set up the way it is: teenagers are very, very quick to see the world as a great big battle of good vs. evil.
Youre impulsive and emotional.
Lets face it. Adolescence is a cannonball dive into the hormonal pool, and you splash everyone around you when you jump in. If youre happy, youre ecstatic. If youre sad, youre sunk into the blackest pit of despair. You might be prone to rapid mood swings, but its more likely that you have the same emotional reactions that adults do you just exaggerate everything in typical teenager fashion. And you interpret the world around you through your own emotional lens. You may take the most innocent remark as a heart-rending insult or an ego-bursting compliment. Go to Comment
goto wikipedia and adapt some fictional wizards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_wizards
Bound Djinni (the third rank of Celestial Beings, creatures of fire and smoke, not alligned to the celestial forces, but bound to the fabric of the universe.)
They are bound to shapes of horses. Their Riders/ Owners (those attuned) are granted good magical powers (great if they have magical access).
The Wild Fires themselves are super fast, super strong, super endurance, and able to limited communicate.
The Book of Calleretti:
magic book of an ancient sorceerer. You can't just find it. Some people have, but because they are not worthy of the Ancient's Powers, they only find a book of grand spells and many mystical secrets. If they are worthy, the books animates and The Ancient begins to advise the wielder. Go to Comment
MoonHunter 11:42 am: Bigger ships would be like jets launched from airports. MoonHunter 11:42 am: bigger ships, bigger engines and higher speeds. Siren no Orakio 11:42 am: Well, yes. MoonHunter 11:43 am: Though the larger "cargo" ships might need "tugs" MoonHunter 11:43 am: tugs would provide the extra antigravity to lift them out quickly MoonHunter 11:43 am: or such a ship might just stay at a dock in orbit MoonHunter 11:44 am: Depends if the cost of the four tugs would be less than holding and maintaining a
fullsized orbital dock MoonHunter 11:45 am: Ground facilities would be needed for staging cargo anyways
Call them Rands. From Atlas Shrugging.
Smaller and more manuverable than the Hekurean tugs Go to Comment
Sometimes, when you're alone at an empty cross road, he'll show up. The Dark Man. He'll offer you a deal: your greatest desire, for a favor later on. There's a huge group of people, all networked and organized, all thoughout northern America, just waiting for when that favor will be called in. Almost no one knows about this "Crossroads Society", and those who do have no idea how dangerous it could be. Go to Comment
She was curved like a knife. Attractive not for what she'd give you but snip take away. Others would take you to the light where you'd see them; she'd take you to those dark abodes where you could see yourself. Go to Comment
I see them as improved trees, or a glowing moss that goes on the trees.
They light hometrees. They light paths. They light when an intruder passes by.
I know that when you were dealing with the Minoan diplomatic team,
you worked long and hard to secure the rights for Minoan
biotechnology, especially their bioluminescent plants.
1. Christmas trees that do not need lights, reducing danger from
2. Glowing trees to line highways to save government electricity
3. Agricultural crops and domestic plants that luminesce when they
4. New methods for detecting bacterial contamination of meats and
5. Bio-identifiers for escaped convicts and mental patients
6. Detecting bacterial species in suspicious corpses
7. Novelty pets that bioluminesce (rabbits, mice, fish etc.)
The nation-states in the core worlds have achieved most, but not all
of the goals listed here. I would like to see airborne
microorganisms developed that would tag infected Mellor with a glow
that can be see by our explorers. Go to Comment