INHERITANCE - transhuman sci-fantasy space opera, bespoke system

[Excession]

You may enjoy this game if you like: K6BD, WarFrame, the Firefall novels, Farscape.
This game will be for 4-6 players; amnesiac warrior-mages permanently sealed into their cybernetic armour.
The mechanics are easy enough to learn, a dice-pool system that's simple to use but has mechanical depth if you want to engage with it.
No prior experience with this game or dice games required. All skill levels welcome.
One post a week is ideal, once a month is acceptable.
No set post length - just post what you feel is necessary to move things along.
If you want to discover and explore a unique space opera setting inspired by Warframe, starting with a near-blank slate of a character recovering their memories of the world they lost while learning about the new one and their place in it, you may enjoy this.
If you want to play a powerful space ninja wizard, you may also enjoy this.

=====================================================​

Once, there was an Empire.

It stretched from the temple-cities of the homeworld to the furthest stars. It was built upon wonders of magitech that bent physics to their whim and laughed at the interstellar gulf.

It was a time of peace and enlightenment. No one now remembers what it was really like, but we know it was glorious - and it was lost.

The Others came screaming out of Elsewhere, a dimension where reason and science failed, and tore apart the works of the Magi.

The war raged for a century or more, and the Magi could not prevail, barely able to fend off the Others no matter how many weapons of apocalyptic might they forged. Both they and their mysterious enemies are gone now, perhaps having destroyed each other.

Centuries later, the Palatial system is in chaos, and the colonies around distant stars are forgotten. No living Magi remain and their various inheritors squabble for power, with innocents descended from colonial settlers caught in the crossfire or eking out an existence amid the ruins.

And across the system, hidden in ancient stasis-vaults and armoury-temples, you sleep; the Bandi. the elite warrior caste of the Magi. Peerless fighters and sorcerous adepts, encaged in mystical armour.
Now you're waking up to a world you no longer recognize, your memories corroded and lost - to time, or to tampering? The Magi are gone. Your culture is lost. All that remains is the terrible fire of Will and the sword-wisdom of your augmented body.

Will you take up the mantle of rule, as inheritor to the Magi?
Will you resume your role as protectors to the weak and innocent?
Or are you the killing strike to a universe sickly and faltering?

=====================================================​

Post interest and ask questions below!

[rush99999]

You had me at space ninja wizard.

[Polybius]

Been a while.... I'd like to dip my metaphorical saber into this magitek pie.

Question... I'm assuming there's more lore coming, but are the Bandi and the Others known to have existed or sit in mythological memory of the current empires populace? Like how many centuries later are we talking? And who the fuck is Will and why is he so fiery? I'm intrigued.

[Excession]

Been a while.... I'd like to dip my metaphorical saber into this magitek pie.

Question... I'm assuming there's more lore coming, but are the Bandi and the Others known to have existed or sit in mythological memory of the current empires populace? Like how many centuries later are we talking? And who the fuck is Will and why is he so fiery? I'm intrigued.

@Polybius

There will indeed be much more lore.

The Bandi are varying degrees of mythical to the survivors - the Dusters of the earliest colony tell tales of the eyeless warriors who defended them in the decades following the Fall, treasure hunters from the Ringworld claim to have seen Bandi slumbering in stasis crypts, the Jukari Empire insists they were merely an icon of military propaganda.

The Others are contentious. Some think they're myth, a few highly placed and secretive researchers have found evidence of The Others at hidden battlefields, and no one agrees what they were - aliens from beyond the Palatial System, a rampant Magi creation, an infectious Basilisk memeplex from a black hole, extradimensional travelers, at least one crackpot believes they were Magi from some strange and distant future come to prevent their own existence.

No one is entirely sure how long it's been since the Fall, due to relatavistic travel and informational decay. It is generally agreed to have been at least 500 years with some claiming a mere two hundred, and the Ringworlders insistent it's been an entire millenium.

Will remains fiery until questioned too closely and this to be desired, mostly, if you would rebuild heaven through violence.

[Polybius]

@Excession Jolly good. I will be around!

[Excession]

Good stuff. I'd ideally like a quorum of four players, so let's see if anyone else bites - and feel free to invite anyone who might be interested.

I found something in my notes to best express what we're doing here.

Bandi Sensorium

To conceptualize the sensorium of a Bandi is near impossible for any other lifeform; organic, cybernetic, mechanical - but let us try.

Consider the Vala, The Flame of Justice, a Soulcage favoured for brute simplicity.

Imagine nothing. Neither sight nor scent nor touch. Imagine your spellware booting up. An outsider may perceive lines of code on an external screen, but for the Bandi the first wave of internal diagnostics is sensation.

'cage integrity is nothing, until it is breached. Only a total awareness of every centimetre of form, and of attuned weapons. A sword is a folded finger. A full magazine is a lungful of air. Shield intensity is warmth and weight spread over the shell. Mana reserves are joy bubbling beneath a calm veneer. Comms are a soft chorus, lights in the dark. An absolute understanding of position relative to allies and targets, like shifting patches of heat and cold across your skin.

Immediate visual perception is a bloom of impossible colour until filtering subroutines pare it back to total clarity beyond the resolution of an organic eye. Facing is irrelevant; vision is distributed across every surface of the Soulcage. Audio is briefly deafening until similar filters block out the noise and selectively emphasize priority data; the sound of footsteps, the snap of a reload. Overlays highlight items of interest and trigger emotional resonances. The armoury is love. The repair sarcophagus is maternal warmth. Long obsolete biological imperatives are repurposed to the nature of the mechanism.

The enemy inspires hunger. Their reactor core triggers disgust.

In the arc of a blade lies euphoria. The gender of the Bandi is violence.

And for the Vala, other senses. An immaculate grasp of temperature for dozens of metres. Ally and enemy and muzzleflash are not crude heatmaps of lesser devices but an intuitive understanding; that is the low thrum of a heatsink, this is the warm path of arterial blood, and there the scant after-image of a bullet bullying air aside. An extension of the self, that one might reach out with pure intent and halt ignition in the rifle's chamber.

Any other being trying to ride the senses of Bandi would be overwhelmed by input. Human vision is a patchwork of intersaccadal flashes, a kludge of last-second edits to maximize signal value in service of mammalian processing to keep meat within its limits. Too many inputs and the whole organism is paralyzed by indecision or thrown into desperate action. There is meat within the Soulcage, but the protection of that sealed armour extends beyond physical.
In the execution of its purpose, a Bandi is perfect; the kaleidoscope of sight, sound, telemetry, weapon status, velocity, position winnowed to razor edge second by second. Thought and action become one, sheared of all uncertainty, unless...

The natural state of a Bandi is war. Take one from the battlefield, deprive it of both sleep and prey. What thoughts may emerge? What sights slip behind the eyeless faceplate? What does a sword dream?

Perhaps we may discuss other Soulcages of more esoteric perception another time - the deathsight of Jadugara, the prescience of Raksaka, the hum of Fate's threads surrounding Nabi. Or would you rather speculate on the Jukari senses, or conjecture widlly of The New Flesh?

[Polybius]

Good stuff. I'd ideally like a quorum of four players, so let's see if anyone else bites - and feel free to invite anyone who might be interested.

I found something in my notes to best express what we're doing here.

Bandi Sensorium

To conceptualize the sensorium of a Bandi is near impossible for any other lifeform; organic, cybernetic, mechanical - but let us try.

Consider the Vala, The Flame of Justice, a Soulcage favoured for brute simplicity.

Imagine nothing. Neither sight nor scent nor touch. Imagine your spellware booting up. An outsider may perceive lines of code on an external screen, but for the Bandi the first wave of internal diagnostics is sensation.

'cage integrity is nothing, until it is breached. Only a total awareness of every centimetre of form, and of attuned weapons. A sword is a folded finger. A full magazine is a lungful of air. Shield intensity is warmth and weight spread over the shell. Mana reserves are joy bubbling beneath a calm veneer. Comms are a soft chorus, lights in the dark. An absolute understanding of position relative to allies and targets, like shifting patches of heat and cold across your skin.

Immediate visual perception is a bloom of impossible colour until filtering subroutines pare it back to total clarity beyond the resolution of an organic eye. Facing is irrelevant; vision is distributed across every surface of the Soulcage. Audio is briefly deafening until similar filters block out the noise and selectively emphasize priority data; the sound of footsteps, the snap of a reload. Overlays highlight items of interest and trigger emotional resonances. The armoury is love. The repair sarcophagus is maternal warmth. Long obsolete biological imperatives are repurposed to the nature of the mechanism.

The enemy inspires hunger. Their reactor core triggers disgust.

In the arc of a blade lies euphoria. The gender of the Bandi is violence.

And for the Vala, other senses. An immaculate grasp of temperature for dozens of metres. Ally and enemy and muzzleflash are not crude heatmaps of lesser devices but an intuitive understanding; that is the low thrum of a heatsink, this is the warm path of arterial blood, and there the scant after-image of a bullet bullying air aside. An extension of the self, that one might reach out with pure intent and halt ignition in the rifle's chamber.

Any other being trying to ride the senses of Bandi would be overwhelmed by input. Human vision is a patchwork of intersaccadal flashes, a kludge of last-second edits to maximize signal value in service of mammalian processing to keep meat within its limits. Too many inputs and the whole organism is paralyzed by indecision or thrown into desperate action. There is meat within the Soulcage, but the protection of that sealed armour extends beyond physical.
In the execution of its purpose, a Bandi is perfect; the kaleidoscope of sight, sound, telemetry, weapon status, velocity, position winnowed to razor edge second by second. Thought and action become one, sheared of all uncertainty, unless...

The natural state of a Bandi is war. Take one from the battlefield, deprive it of both sleep and prey. What thoughts may emerge? What sights slip behind the eyeless faceplate? What does a sword dream?

Perhaps we may discuss other Soulcages of more esoteric perception another time - the deathsight of Jadugara, the prescience of Raksaka, the hum of Fate's threads surrounding Nabi. Or would you rather speculate on the Jukari senses, or conjecture widlly of The New Flesh?

@Excession

This is downright erotic. I really hope this gets rolling.

[Excession]

<Snipped quote by Excession>

This is downright erotic. I really hope this gets rolling.

@Polybius

Thank you! I think all of my finest prose comes out when I write for this setting and my demon wuxia epic.
And if this doesn't get rolling, I was going to see if 'a mixed pack of demons and damned souls are set the task of delivering a scroll containing the nine billion names of God to Pandemonium in between comedies of manners and tournament arcs' is more digestible to a general audience.

[rush99999]

memeplex

@Excession

Memeplex?

---

The gender of the Bandi is violence.

@Excession

There is nothing about this sentence that I do not love.

[Excession]

A memeplex was theorized by Richard Dawkins before he went off the deep end; a collection of memes which form a cohesive whole and have a web of inter-relationships and dependencies.
Any organized religion can be considered a memeplex, as can some cultural conventions and, I would have argued before the philosophy faculty had me removed, so too are many internet media fandoms and roleplaying games.

Think of this conception of The Others as a kind of contagious religious mania which induces compulsive behaviours, fixations, and shifts in values culminating in the carrier messily exploding from their own flesh as a huge lotus of volanic glass in which eyes are suspended reflecting a world entirely at odds with the physical surrounds while the less-progressed cases gather and wail prayer-like strings of gibberish.
Is this an accurate understanding of The Others? Maybe. It is definitely an accurate understanding of something in the setting.

[rush99999]

Think of this conception of The Others as a kind of contagious religious mania which induces compulsive behaviours, fixations, and shifts in values culminating in the carrier messily exploding from their own flesh as a huge lotus of volanic glass in which eyes are suspended reflecting a world entirely at odds with the physical surrounds while the less-progressed cases gather and wail prayer-like strings of gibberish.
Is this an accurate understanding of The Others? Maybe. It is definitely an accurate understanding of something in the setting.

@Excession

That something in the setting must have some pretty dank memes if it's capable of this.

[Excession]

unhide to be instantly lotuspilled

Hider

[ANYM]

Do I need to be a Bandi? Can I be an Other?

[Excession]

Do I need to be a Bandi? Can I be an Other?

@Havoccultist

Bandi only to start with, and Others aren't really intended to be playable, but I might allow characters from some of the other factions and transhuman clades.

[Excession]

Some unreliably narrated in-universe lore, to draw folks in:

Hider

Once, there was a Republic

I am Enso Wylam, of Tombwatch. Don't let the name fool you - it's a nice enough city, all things considered. It's the view, you know? Up here on the mesa we can see the buried spires of the Tomb. They say it was where the Magi of old times made planetfall here, that once it was a city of wonder and majesty that towered to the upper atmo. Now it's a barrow under the red sands.

My ancestors came to this planet with genes optimized to survive until it looked like the homeworld - first planet colonized, first wave of colonists. Built for the harsh climes.

But then a cataclysm came, a war that destroyed the old Republic. In the stories, it's said that aliens from beyond the edge of the solar system arrived in ships of spun glass and living bone, and fought the Magi with weapons that shattered one of the moons of the homeworld. It's said that the Magi made their own monsters to fight back, and they got out of control, so they had to fight a war on two fronts. By the time they found a weapon to beat the invaders it was too late.

And just as soon as they appeared, the Others were gone and the Magi all dead. Chaos followed; the shipping lanes collapsed and vital infrastructure in ruin. Without the Magi, we were like children. To this day, we still don't know how their machines work, and we surely can't reproduce them. Everything we know about physics, they just... they ignored it. Bent it. We had to learn everything over again while renegade bioweapons terrorized the system and rogue military declared they were taking control in the absence of the Magus Council.

We had help, though, or so the stories say. No one has seen a Bandi in generations - the eyeless sentinels who protected my ancestors in silence, appearing from nowhere to fend off threats with gun and blade, before disappearing as if swallowed by the sands. No great story about why they stopped coming; they just... stopped. Kept us safe in the years after the fall and then were gone.

Still, we're lucky. There are former colonies out there that have forgotten civilisation, that really believe in gods and monsters. Others have been taken over by the Jukari, those cyborgs who worship their god-empress. We still have an ancient orbital defense array intact, so they haven't got us yet. But it seems like a matter of time before we're enslaved, too. Can't match their technology.

Some of the younger folk are talking about going to the Tomb. They think they can wake up the Bandi, to save us.

Maybe they're right.

[Polybius]

Devil's advocate here but...

Playing as a Bandi, what sort of character personas do you envision for the cast?

[Excession]

Devil's advocate here but...

Playing as a Bandi, what sort of character personas do you envision for the cast?

@Polybius

Good question. In past, I've asked players to sketch out 3-5 evocative sentences describing fragmented memories of their Bandi, with impliations about who they were, or who they are at their core. Some of the game is based on self-discovery and self-definition from a relative blank slate.
The Soulcage your Bandi uses has some influence on what their persona might be, but in the past some of the personae players have rolled with include:
Enthusiastic, curious, and eager for teamwork, like an energetic scout type.
Thoughtful, ruthless, but content to follow allies.
Vicious and desperate to avenge some unclear wrong on whatever foes can serve as suitable surrogates.
Stoic but inventive, mainly interested in making and testing new weaponry or disassembling enemy tech for study.
Total mama bear, compulsively protective of anything that reads as 'child' but also a terrifying shapeshifting murder beast.

Really my preference is no one invested in omnicide, and minimal inclination to infighting at first.
It's totally fine with me if over time the group(s) fractures due to emerging ideological differences (non-intervention, conquest, manipulation, etc).

The Bandi don't quite know what to do without a mission and commander, so realizing you're allowed to decide for yourselves and then what you decide would, I hope, but a good early arc.

A example of what some of the character, eh, initial writeups were like other times I've run this:

Memory Fragments:
Attack ships on fire aff the shoulder of Orion, c-beams glittering in the dark.
Imperial banners scorched and holed, buried in piles of the dead, flapping in the breeze of an alien world.
The weeping face of a child and the solemn face of their parent, right before the looming claws of the autosurgeon descend.
It took twenty-one minutes for emergency services to arrive - I timed it to the second, headlights approaching through the night like radio signals from another star.
"4.6 billion souls and all the blood and dust of the world on your hands, my darling..."

[rush99999]

Here are five fragmented memories from my guy:

"Things that bother you never bother me, I'm so happy and fine. Ha ha!"
A sea of combat lay ahead, and it was a thing of greatest marvel.
When the blade was finally sheathed, its wielder rested awhile among the fallen dead.
Mind is not paid to the banners being set up behind.
"Livin' in the sunlight, lovin' in the moonlight, havin' a wonderful time!"

[Excession]

Since it may also help:

Soulcages

Vala
The Flame of Justice
A solid all-round ‘cage, the Vala can project flames, heat the air, generate explosions, and increase their allies' resistance to mind-altering effects.
Vala are coloured in shades of fire and gold, and often the helmets invoke the Manticore of ancient times.

Sarda
The Icy Grasp
An agile ‘cage, the Sarda can slow and freeze enemies with ice, drown them, and inspire fear. Sarda is styled in emerald, white, and blue, helmets evoking sea serpents.

Nabi
The All-Seeing
A fast but fragile ‘cage, Nabi can see and manipulate Fate. Decorated in amber, silver, and clockwork motifs.

Chaya
Death’s Shadow
Chaya is the stealthiest Soulcage, able to manipulate darkness and shadow. Decorated in shades of black, often with something like a cloak attached at the shoulders.

Raksaka
The Glasswalker
Raksaka is a slow, tough ‘cage able to fold time and space. Decorated with components seemingly made of glass and sandstone.

Gaida
The Beacon of Hope
Gaida is a tough ‘cage that fires beams of light, can cloak itself, and inspire its allies. Decorated in gold and ivory, often with a mirrored helmet.

Separa
The Red Talon
A versatile, bestial ‘cage, Separa can reshape itself, delivers deadly killing blows, and can envenomate targets. Heavily organic, Separa look quite distinct.

Prem
The Thief of Thoughts
A light ‘cage able to probe and distort the minds of enemies. Decorated in ruby and violet.

Jadugara
The Soultaker
Jadugara is a much feared ‘cage, able to raise the dead and sunder souls. Decorated in black and purple, with a skull motif.

Kampa
The Earthbreaker
Kampa is a very durable, strong ‘cage that can shape and shatter earth and metals. Decorated in bronze, brown, and motifs of earth.

Bijali
The Cleansing Storm
Bijali commands air, lightning, and magnetism. Decorated in blues and gunmetal.

[rush99999]

Separa sounds cool.