Strange Mechanics
Ok boys, girls, squirrels and tilt-o-whirls its time (that is, if time really exists) to openly talk about those weird mechanics of your realm that your NPCs take as "physics" but have no place in the real world.
Physical, metaphysical - scientific, mystical - quantum or quizzical. The laws that hold your fragile realms together at its very fabric. Almost all well-defined realms have scholars who can boast about the physical universe they live within. And I want to speak with them. Offer up the weird mechanical substance of such things as
Your realms time: Does it take a physical form as a being or god? Or is it simply a dripping water pipe counting off eons as it echoes throughout eternity? Tell us what governs or protects the passage of your realm's sacred moments of existence.
Round, flat, or other: What's the shape of your world? Does it orbit a sun in space among a galaxy of similar orbs aimlessly silent? Or does it rest on the flexing back muscles of some giant beast of godly size?
Past the stars: Your PCs look up and see stars. They probably don't know what's past them, but you do (or maybe you don't, it can be impossible to know). What's up there, space? Heaven? Marbles of light? Hook me up.
Or anything dealing with the "weiiiiird" laws of your worlds. Not out of game dice, but in-game physics (or mystics) that could be learned if only the right hands got ahold of the information.
Atom and Eve: Any one ever boil things down to a sub-atomic level? What's matter really made of? Are there atoms or are all things a dream? Being a big fan of Penrose Hawking and Schrödinger- My realm has delved deep into the nature of the Sub-A world. I doubt anyone geeks that hard on a D&D game, but hey if your out there- please share any recent discoveries within your realm in dealing with micro singularity, super positioning atoms, and string theories on anything that can hang on a string.
Dimensions of dimension: Where does "here" start and "there" begin? Are there entire other universes with physics, gods and life that differ from your "normal" universe you play in? Any world-walkers? Door openers? Worm hole wack-o astronauts of reality? Who can travel from world to world? How? Whets the point and is it dangerous?
I would love to see what you guys use for the weirder parts of science or non-sciences of your realm. Anyone got anything for me to read?
They call me Sif.
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Well, Sif, I *do* have some ideas about the cosmology (including planar cosmology) of my campaign 'omniverse'.
But....as it is quite possible that my players read this forum I'm keeping schtum!
I must confess I haven't devoted too much thought as to the fine structure of matter in my realm - whether it is composed of quarks or strings or whatever and even if it is 'real'. This is a difficult enough subject in the real world, without having to drag magic into the equation! (or maybe there *is* magic in the 'real' world that evaporates when you try to turn a scientific eye upon it....)
I'm in two minds about Roger Penrose. He's a very clever chap in the realm of mathematical physics but I am not a great fan of his musings on Strong AI. I can see numerous flaws in his arguments but I will not go into details here. Also he sued a company who allegedly used one of his 'Penrose Tilings' as a pattern on their toilet paper:
http://www.parascope.com/articles/slips/fs_151.htm
Which I think is plain silly - first off, it can't have been a Penrose Tiling because this is by definition a pattern that never repeats itself, which is impossible to mass-produce on a loo-roll. The pattern was just something that looked a bit similar.
Secondly, the very concept of suing someone over the usage of a mathematical object is ludicrous. Next we'll have someone patenting the usage of circles, triangles, squares etc.
{/rant off}
I have a blog where I sometimes post snippets of interesting science stuff that I stumble across, if you're interested:
http://uk.360.yahoo.com/lurkinggherkin
Penrose is my homie, and "I roll with Hawking" (if you ever use that clever sentence, you owe me royalties since we made the t-shirt).
Anyway...Science in a campaign can be fun, ever-twisting, and very confusing in a "swirling down the never-ending-toilet-of-wonder" sort of way. A rabbit hole thats deeper then a billion rabbits.
In my realm we have many terms that have become very popular to my in-game scholars as theroies, facts, and misgivens about the structure and nature of the realm they live in. There are very few explorers of the realm that are close to huge truths on the mechanics of the universe, and there are even fewer that hoard factual information on the proof of other worlds.
One famous Gnomish scholar in our realm "DR Indy Anna Gnome" (stupid name, old PC retired, Now NPC know it all)has gone far into detailing the major "Lorrical Laws" behind the recent arival of Lorroks.
Lorroks:(in Gnome, Loowicks)Are the bodies the player's act within when playing. The world has only seen "players playing" for about 3000 years in-game time, and they have many times become huge heros, saved the day, defeated giant evils, etc etc. And Indy Anna is credited for almost all discoveries within the feild of Lorrical Science (since Anna is a retired "player" he also has the advantage of studying his own life since he WAS a "Lorrical being" before he retired.
His major laws of Lorrical science prove without a doubt that Lorrical beings suffer reality differently then every other creature in the universe. The laws that prove this are well known by our players, and often disscussed or used by Lorrocks in situations where they can use the laws to their advantage. The BIG laws are as follows.
Lorrical attraction: Proven over 500 years ago by Dr Indy Anna Gnome during the first adventure of a campaign-chapter. The Gnome followed the players before they actually met (in a tavern) by a handheld palm-crystel locater. Following the party moments before they first met each other, he went through great trouble to keep them apart (teliporting them with his gnome-tech teliporter, leading them to other sections of town, locking one in a basment, etc...but no matter how far he seperated the players- they still gathered and became a party of adventurers. Indy then studied his findings for over 20 years before releasing the law of "Lorrical Attraction"; Lorrical attraction cuases the Lorrocks to meet early in life, no matter how far they are born apart, how distant they are, how conflicting of culture, alignment or creed. The Lorrocks will always gather (yes, some times in taverns) before they have their first adventure. This law is the reason dungeon-n-dragon parties gather together even when us players are saying OOG "What!? Why would my Elf wizard end up with these human fighter morons!?".
The Players have seen this time and time again, every time a new chapter in the campaign begins, a group of players, diverse as the very elements themselvs, gather over great distance, no matter how mathimatically impossible the mix seems, it happens and BOOM we got a playing group. If you ever wondered how your players always met, no matter how tight the plot, it all happend cus of Lorrical science and Lorrical Attraction, as detailed in the works of the great DR Indy Anna Gnome.
Lorrical War: This law was discovered by Indy Anna Gnome during his PC years, when he was activly seeking out Lorrical science laws as a Player not NPC. The law was discovered when the Dwarven hold of the Bavilbanger family was under attack by a huge oger army that was gathered by an evil human knight gone bad. The Gnome doctor had broken his leg days before the war and was forced to sit high above the battle, watching from the montain's top through a seeing-glass. Though he missed out on fighting the actual war, the ever inteligent doctor used this chance to study a Lorrical war. The doctor studied the battle and noted a few interesting facts. Every time one of the Lorrocks (Players) struck hard agaisnt the enemy, the Gnome noticed all NPC soilders in battle seemed to do better agaisnt the enemies they fought. Every time a PC got hit, the soilders seemed to do worse. Though the dwarvs were out numbered and overwelmed, the presence of Lorrocks seemed to even the odds. When the PCs did well, the dwarven army did better, when the PCs rolled critical hits, the dwarven army seemed to do the same. Dr Indy studied this effect in three other wars later in his life before producing the facts behind "Lorrical War".
This law proves that Lorrocks can influence battle on grand scale to give the benifiting side advantage (or disadvantage) depending on the success of the individual blows of the Lorrocks present. This law was used to save the world when the time of chaos produced a major world-war that took place across 5 land masses. The armies were created by the evil scion (and son of evil PC-turned-NPC-goddess 'Toth')Vatt. Vatt had enough draconian soilders to out number the good aligned armies of the entire realm (he produced them from the dragon eggs he had stolen 1000 years earlyer). The world was being hit by a unified strike of evil in 5 lands across the world. One of the players pointed out that Dr Indy Anna had discovered Lorrical war, and that if they split up and led the 5 lands into war seperatly, then perhaps the lands would have a better chance to win agiasnt such horrible odds. They did seperate, each player disquised in locking iron masks that hid their identity, sailed to each corner of the world to lead each race into battle agaisnt Vatt. The PCs who fell in these wars, lost the entire war, giving control of the land to Vatts empire of evil. But the PCs who won had won the war agianst all odds simply by doing well in battle.
This law is often abused by powerful governments who wish to employ Lorrocks to lead men into battle.
Lorrical Magnetism: Much like Lorrical Attraction, Lorrical Magnetism deals with the unseen hand that guides all players. The law states that: When time deals us Lorrical Beings, they will adventure together and move towards great obsticals. The Lorrocks only seem to appear when the realm is moving towards great danger. When the realm has a large or sinister evil brewing Lorrical Beings will appear. They will gather (see Lorrical Attraction) and then being a long journey that brings them to the head of events.
What this law basically states is- that the players are here for the epic story, they do not exist to just make armor in a shop, bake bread or raise puppies, by the end of their adventure they will go head-to-head with the giant evil that had called them into being in the first place. During this journy the PCs will also encounter many smaller evils or problems that only they can defeat (it is not proven that normal people can't save the day, but it is known that Lorrical Beings seem to have a higher success rate at saving the world then normal NPCs).
The PCs will encounter, time and time again, evils small or great throughout their adventuring career. Ever wonder how your playing group gets into so much trouble, action, adventure? Well its Lorrical Magnetism. All this means is that reality is painted or formed with the Lorrical Beings seen as very-possible answers to current problems vs evil. They are the heros of the story, and Magnetism of some mystical form brings them all, eventually, time and time again, agiasnt the big-bad-badass bad guys almost always.
Indy Anna has formed many other laws, studied many factual properties about the life and actions of Lorrical beings. The therory he is currently producing gets laughed at by all scholars of the feild today, earning him the speculation that he has grown too old (over 1000 years now) and is getting "daffy" in his old age.
The theroy is
"Lorrical Absolutism"
The theory states that "possibly" the only thing that really exsists is the mind of Lorrical beings. That all matter, energy, even the gods, don't really exsist. This drastic claime has caused conservitive science to banish the good gnomish Doctor to the scientific realms of "Quackdom".
The theory claimes that the Lorrical beings are the only "realness" of the realm, that on a certain level, the very universe was designed to sapport the players, not visa-versa. The realms, heavens and hells are simply concepts while everything in them are equally un-real. But the Lorrical Being's minds are not conceptual or figments of reality. They are re-returning, ever-being creatures or entities that return to exsist within the realms (why they return is not known by Indy but he has guessed its for enjoyment or play in some of his notes)
The world can not accept this idea, for if it was true it would mean the all of the universe, heavens and hells- nothing is real, just a playground for the only real things in the universe "the Lorrical Mind". If this is true it would mean that the universe didnt create the Lorrocks, but in some way or another, the universe was actually created FOR them. Weird...
prolly not true eh?
Anyway...those are some major Lorrical laws of Lorrical science.
PS-forgive the typos, errors, etc, but im at work and typing at the speeds of light.