December 12, 2011 · 8:00 am

Technobabble

Tarnoc and I were talking Star Trek on Saturday and I was saying how hard it is to play a Star Trek RPG. I would also rope any attempt to play a Dr. Who RPG into this but I’ll stick with Trek for now.

It is very hard to play Star Trek and have the same kind of feeling as the TV shows. The structure of the shows tend to go something like this. There is some unusual effect that is slowly growing worse. The crew tries to fix the problem but it doesn’t work. Commercial. The crew regroups, comes up with a different plan but it still doesn’t work. Commercial. The crew uses their combined knowledge of the last two failures to solve the problem. Credits.

So what’s so hard about that? It’s because the problem and the solution are usually technobabble. If I tell you that “Something is causing a reverberation in the dilithium crystals and it’s building up a feedback wave in the warp core.” How do you fix that? Sure you can try to hold off the Klingons while you’re trying to come to a solution, you understand that part. How do you fix a technobabble problem?

The answer starts with not relying on what you know. Rely on what your characters know. This is the perfect time for intelligence rolls, warp drive skills and subspace harmonics specialties. Is that it though? A passed roll and the problem is solved? That doesn’t sound very fun, it also doesn’t follow the structure of the TV shows (assuming that’s what you’re after).

There are a few ways to handle this. I’ll hint at a few and go into my favorite. The simplest would be to have Technobabble waypoints. The PCs have to roll for their skills to come up with a plan, then they have to try it. If there is some kind of a logic behind the technobabble then they might get a clue to the logic when their first plan fails. Repeat. Repeat and solve.

That starts to approximate what happens in the show but it’s not very interesting. Play enough times and the games will probably get a little boring.

Another way to handle the problem is by giving the players more agency. Depending on how they do in their skill rolls the technobabble problem will do different things. If the rolls are bad, the problem could get worse or the symptoms might change entirely. For example, our heroic PCs try to dampen the reverberation in the dilithium and the problem gets worse until system after system in the ship starts shutting off. The problem symptoms may not seem like they have anything to do with each other and that’s part of the fun. Now if the players succeed in their roles the dampening seems to work but the PC that implemented it wakes up that night with their quarters filled with a poisonous gas. Again the problem seems unrelated but something is still going on.

To help the GM it would be good to have a number of story transforms in a list or a table so that they could roll on it and always have a fresh take on where the story will go.

On a failure

Problem gets worse
A second problem is created
Someone gets hurt
Attempt failed any more attempts require putting crew in danger

On Success

Problem fades but comes back growing stronger
Solution does nothing but give a clue to the PC as to real cause.
Problem is partly fixed

I’d have to sit down and watch a bunch of Star Treks to get more ideas for more story transforms. Hopefully you get the idea.

So those are kind of cool but my preferred way to model this is to really amp up player agency and make a technobabble monster! If you’ve looked at the Survival Games posts, apply the logic to this problem. The problem gets it’s own kind of Hit Points that the players have to use their skills to attack. Each technobabble monster is weak to a certain skill, like say Subspace Systems seems to be effective in harming it. Other skills may have some or no effect on it. Attacking it with some skills might even make it stronger.

Now the monster can’t be passive or this isn’t going to be interesting. What kind of attacks can a technobabble monster make? One would be the story transforms. Each time the monster is attacked, the GM throws a transform at the players. These may change the skill that the monster is vulnerable to. They may need physical actions like an obstacle course or a direct attack to be made.

I’m going to try constructing just such a monster that would work for most of these situations. It’s a pretty wide subject but it might be doable. I’ll post it if I can make something that works.

Any ideas for story transforms that you’d like to see?

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Filed under Experimental Mechanics, GM Advice

December 9, 2011 · 11:41 am

Comfort

It’s snowing and that has me thinking about the weather. I find that it’s usually hardest to model subtle effects in an RPG. Systems are most often geared for big effects like a sharp piece of steel being swung around. One raindrop doesn’t even register in an RPG. Even when you scale them up to thousands of drops there usually isn’t any way to handle that other than to say “you’re wet”.

I guess that’s not that big a deal. Only isn’t it a big deal? When it’s pouring rain, don’t you pause before going out into it? You know it won’t really hurt you, it’s just going to make you uncomfortable. A character in an RPG doesn’t care. I have never seen a “comfort” mechanic (actually that could do wonders for a social conflict system) in a game, or not as such. There are effects for freeze rays and feeling severe pain but no comfort mechanics. Now we’ve made it this long without one, why am I talking about this now? Because characters are immune from small scale effects, things that cause trepidation in real people. Because the role played by the player of the character is significantly diminished by not having one. By treating comfort as insignificant, we are limited to only large grain effects.

As a result RPGs are limited to lava pits and sulfuric acid rain. That’s about the best we can do with what we have. Even those things tend to not have any effect on characters for some reason. I wonder if a hurricane would significantly slow down a lot of PCs. (That sounds really cool, I’ve never had a game where players had to deal with a hurricane as a complication.)

So what is comfort or more accurately, what is uncomfortable? How is it to be modeled?

Isn’t comfort being free of stress? Yeah, I’m going to call on Stress Points again. Unfortunately Stress Points in the Fraction Column system are still geared to large grain effects like the stress of severe conflict. When working on the system I was imagining modeling the stress of one day. I’m loath to say track fractions of a point. That’s not very elegant and it likely isn’t going to have an effect on a player’s approach to the game. So what can be done?

A way to simulate a fractional point is to give the characters a chance of getting a whole point. In a light weather event like simple rain, for every hour the players roll 1d10. For severe weather like strong wind and rain, heavy snow and the like, for every hour the players roll 1d6. If they get a one on the die, they receive a stress point.

At first look this may seem unfair. One or two players end up with a full point and everyone else walks way unaffected. My answer is that this is simulating when those fractional points have finally added up to one full point. Sure it could be the first game but statistically it should (eventually?) even out. I know, my players defy statistics too but I haven’t been able to design a fix for improbable players yet. ;P

You’re game doesn’t have stress points? Why in the world not?

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Filed under Experimental Mechanics, Survival RPG

December 8, 2011 · 12:52 pm

Stop Making RPGs?

Several times I have seen the call to stop making RPGs by different bloggers. Usually the reason for the call is market saturation. There are simply thousands of available RPGs out there and it makes it hard for a company to gain enough market share to make a profit. Many game companies work for “beer money” and that’s the successful ones.

So what would a halt on game creation do? Would it clear out the backlog of old poorly written games? No. Would it make people like the big name games that are already out there? Not if they don’t like them already. It would do one thing, it would kill the hobby. Seriously.

Why can I say this? Because I know a few game designers and most of the time they write games because they’re not satisfied by what is out there. They want something more or less or just different. That’s why I write games. I wasn’t satisfied with what was out there. The systems were too chaotic thematically or didn’t have enough teeth to model the concepts I wanted.

Stopping all the indie games and free games and games that can’t be played because they just weren’t written intelligibly, all the games that have poor production values would kill the industry. How? Because it’s some of those half baked ideas that are usually the craziest. It might not work entirely and maybe it’s half baked but someone else reads it, likes it and does it better. The game they come up with gets a bit of praise, a little acclaim and some beer money.

But guess what, it changes every RPG to come after it. Maybe not overtly, maybe not completely but every RPG that someone thinks up after that has the thought in the back of their head “I need to do what that RPG did or why write.”

Don’t believe me? List off the popular RPGs and I’ll tell you what they changed. There are too many to get into here but you know them, you played them and they changed your expectations for RPGs.

So how do we make it all better? We do need to make some changes. All the designers out there are running around like minstrels playing their own tune. No one wants to or can even figure out how to work together. I think the desperation of having one designer work on a game and the frustration with getting something done makes us skimp on quality. Burn out is another problem with the solo designer.

There are some rumblings of change out there. Bands are starting to form. Not all of them will stick together, not all of them will be able to play in harmony but the idea is out there. Maybe we need to think of game design in a more segmented fashion and learn to riff off each other. You need a lead designer, someone who can say yes or no to ideas. You need someone who comes up with brilliant mechanics. There has to be a Writer (proper), someone who can turn clever phrases and make dry text that the mechanic came up with into prose. Then you need artists, at least one finish artist and at least one bulk artist. The finish artist works on cover art and a few eye catching pictures. The bulk artist gives life to different ideas and possibilities in the game by filling in the pages.

Writing and producing The Artifact was a collaboration. I had several artists that not only did great work, they added in their own ideas about how things should look. They went in directions I wouldn’t have thought of. Sure I did the writing but I had help with a lot of the ideas. To this day a good number of the ideas I come up with are a result of playtesting and talking about ideas with Tarnoc (we call it “breaking The Artifact”). I’m a mechanic kind of guy but I’m not much for prose. I do my own art but I’m more of a bulk artist. I don’t have the time anymore to do big impressive pictures.

How do you think designers can form these “Bands” and riff off each other?

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December 7, 2011 · 12:44 pm

The Loyal One

This adventure can be for any group of player characters but is not well suited for a beginning characters.

Introduction

The PCs are on a recon patrol of a remote area in Kelrath territory. They are helping establish the location of a base in the region by finding out where the Kelrath travel. They need to travel quietly and not alert any Kelrath patrols to their whereabouts in the process. The characters are equipped to be out on this area for several weeks.

The Favor

As the PCs are doing their recon, they find ample sign of Kelrath presence. Some roads are well used and occasionally it will seem that they have just missed actually encountering Kelrath traveling through the area. The need is for an area that the Kelrath do not use so the characters need to move on to fresh territory. After a day’s travel, with no let up on the signs of Kelrath presence the PCs need to find a place to camp. Somewhere undercover would be good. If there is a Scimrahn in the group they might be helpful in recommending a good place to sleep.

The players should decide ultimately where to stay the night but if they’re not coming up with ideas offer the following.

Staying out in the open would be dangerous, somewhere hidden would be preferable.

Tunnels in the floor could be used but they only leave two options for escape if discovered.

Camping out on a conveyor can be done but may cut off escape options. It’s better than a tunnel.

Camping in the buildings of a residential hex is possible but sometimes the buildings are crumbling.

Hiding inside the Hosent of industry hexes is an option but may have the same problem as the res hex buildings.

The character’s should have someone stand guard while the others rest. If there is a vehicle, leaving it’s sensors on to passively monitor may be a good idea. Have each player roll for their characters to see if they stay awake. They can use either their Con or Psy to pass this roll and the Iron Will skill if they have it.

If any fall asleep then a message arrives while they are sleeping. If no one falls asleep it can arrive on the last watch. It is a written message and it is sent by someone in the area close to the PCs. In very broken english it says “You are found but useful to me. Do what I say and you leave here safe. Stay here two days. Do not leave or I hunt you.”

The players will have to decide what they will do with this information. If a Communications Officer examines the transmission, a successful radio skill roll will reveal that the signal was sent by a Kelrath radio. If a quarter or eighth column is rolled, the Comm Officer will recognize that the signal was sent by a low power system that was very close to where the PCs are. Possibly only 200 meters away.

If the players do not decide to stay, go to The Hunt.

If the players decide to stay, in ten hours a single Kelrath Gijorn will walk directly towards the location the players are in but at 10 meters away, will put a piece of paper on the ground and walk away. If the PCs try to call out to him as he approaches, the Gijorn will put the paper on the ground and immediately walk away. He will not speak to the PCs (he cannot speak english at all). The note will say the following. “My loyal one is coming. You take him home and go in peace. He is not safe here. He come one more day.” Again figuring out what to do with this information is up to the players. If they do not listen go to the hunt.

The Hunt

The messages are being sent by a high ranking Gijorn. He is the equivalent of a general. At the moment there are ten Rall 4s in the region, several groups of 20 Geetin and the general in his Enhanced Variant Rall 3 (see The Fringe sourcebook for stats). If the players do not follow the instructions the whole force will be mobilized to track them down. One Rall 4 is within 30 Km. Others are farther away. Even if the characters can outrun the Ralls, there are more in any given direction that can intercept them. How many is up to the GM.

The Ralls have orders to detain the PCs not to harm them, much. The harder the PCs push the harder the Gijorn in the Ralls will push back. They don’t need all of the PCs, just one with a vehicle would be preferred.

The Act

Once the two days have passed, either because of the PCs volunteering to wait or because they are detained by the Ralls and Geetin, they will eventually see the Enhanced Rall 3 and a wheeled vehicle approaching. As it does, the Rall 3 will power up it’s shields. Through the loudspeaker, the pilot of the Rall 3 will say in english “You want my loyal one? You can not have him! I will defeat you!”

If there is an E-suit or tank in the group the Rall 3 will go up to it and start to punch at it (punches pass through shields). If there is no E-Suit or tank the pilot will exit the Rall with full Gjorn Armor on and declare “I do not need machine to beat you! I beat you with hands only!” and start boxing the largest PC.

This is an act. It is done with the Scimrahn so that observers will see some kind of a fight. The Gijorn will really fight but will not use any weapons unless punching is clearly ineffective. The more the PCs act like they are being hurt the more the Gijorn will let up. If the players try to use weapons, the Gijorn will do his best to disarm them but if that is not possible he will use the Rall 3s Plasma guns (which he can command remotely if needed), a knife or a Plasma Sphere depending on the situation. He will try to make it clear to the PCs that he is only there to fight with one of the PCs and the rest must watch. He may fire the Rall 3s weapons in between him and the other PCs if needed.

A turn or two into this staged fight, either by laser communication or by whispering it, the Rall 3 pilot will tell his opponent, “You steal him now, tell your friends.” He may say this several times. He means for other PCs in the party to break into the wheeled vehicle and take the occupant hostage. If the PCs aren’t getting the idea he will try again and again to indicate this is what they are supposed to do but only with limited english. If the PCs say anything about this over radio or out loud so that others can hear, the Rall 3 Pilot will proclaim that they will be defeated.

If at any time the PCs beat the Rall 3 Pilot, the remaining Rall 4s in the region (which have been closing in on the PCs) will attack.

Rall 3 Pilot

Full 1/2 1/4 1/8
CON 60 30 15 8
STR 50 25 13 7
AGI 70 45 23 12
REF 60 30 15 8
DEX 60 30 15 8
BTY 30 15 8 4
CHA 70 45 23 12
INT 50 25 13 7
IQ 60 30 15 8
PSY 60 30 15 8
HP 20

Once the PCs break into the wheeled vehicle (use the stats for an ASO transport) they will find an elderly Geetin in Geetin Armor. He will go with the PCs but will tell them “Make it look good” in Kelrath. Once the PCs have the Geetin, the Rall 3 Pilot will shout “No I will stop you!” but not make any other adjustments to his strategy he may even ease up. If the PCs use the Geetin as a hostage he will stop and declare that he and his men will leave if the PCs promise to not hurt the Geetin, refering to him as “My loyal one” in english.

The idea is for the PCs to escape with the Geetin. The Rall 4s will not attack as long as they have the Geetin and he is safe.

Conclusion

The Geetin has been an advisor to the Gijorn for many years. Recently he had to protect his master from an embarrassment which meant the death sentence for the Geetin. Because of his loyalty the Gijorn sent him out on one last task before his execution. The last task was where the PC’s intercepted and took him. The Geetin explains that they must leave and get away from the area or the General will not be able to protect them any longer.

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Filed under Civilian, Military, Transmissions

December 6, 2011 · 7:08 am

Steampunk

I wrote a while ago that I’ve been working on a new project. I didn’t want to say a lot because I wasn’t sure if the project would actually work. Now that the text is almost done and I’d like to begin playtesting soon, I’m more confident that this will see the light of day.

Why was I afraid? Because I’m a pretty traditional RPG guy. I like the GM to control the world and the players to control their characters. I like dice and the power of randomness. This game messes with both and I’m way out of my element. That’s right I’m making a narrative diceless game. Why? because the ideas struck me as fun. At first I just mentioned them to a few people to try and get them off my chest but they stayed there and wouldn’t leave. I had to start writing.

So what is it?

I’m working on a game that the players have some influence over the overall story and events in the story. It’s loose when it comes to down details and it’s intended to be. It also doesn’t use dice or any kind of randomizer, the players get options and decide what order to put them in and try to surprise their opponent or guess what the difficulties of a task is.

Looking at the parts of the story that I had, I wondered what kind of a genre I should set it to. For some reason it felt like steampunk to me. I’m not a steampunk expert but its a genre that has intrigued me for a while now and this seemed to fit. The thing is, there is no one world for steampunk and I don’t want there to be only one. Because of that, at character creation, the players pick story seeds that they want for those characters. The world can be the same each time or it can change. The story is about technology and invention and the players choose that too so the players make their characters but they also hand the GM the outline of the world those characters live in. The GM then fills in the details keeping it fun for the players.

The game also has some features to help it run humorously if desired which is a departure from my normal fare. It doesn’t have to be played that way but it’s there if you want it.

When will it be available?

The rough draft of the game is nearly done. Playtesting will undoubtably show changes that need to be made. I also do not have any artwork for the game yet but I’m working on it. I’m hoping to have a first draft ready by the spring. Anyone interested in playtesting or doing some art?

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December 5, 2011 · 8:00 am

Gamer Personality Test

Several years ago I wrote up a little PHP app that asked about a hundred questions about what you liked about games and then told you what your gamer type was. Unfortunately that file got wiped out in the great hard drive collapse of Dec 2009. I had written it with the idea that it would give some insight into how a new player would get excited about a game. The questions asked about what the potential player liked about board games and video games. It was a pretty useful tool.

Fortunately for GMs and me the people over at Brainhex.com had a similar idea and more of a budget for research than I had. Their test results even gives you the part of your brain that is probably most active while gaming. The survey is focused entirely on video games but the results seem to translate well to what a GM would want to know about a player for an RPG. The other advantage to the questions being all about video games is a player that’s never role played before doesn’t have to stretch their imagination to answer the questions.

Here are my results from the test.

Your BrainHex Class is Mastermind.Your BrainHex Sub-Class is Mastermind–Conqueror.You like solving puzzles and devising strategies as well as defeating impossibly difficult foes, struggling until you eventually achieve victory, and beating other players.

According to your results, there are few play experiences that you strongly dislike.

Your scores for each of the classes in this test were as follows:

PS. They even tell you what kind of animal you’re like. According to my sub class, I’m a Sharktopus.

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December 2, 2011 · 7:02 am

Points of Disinterest: Episode 11

They said it could never happen. They said that if you tried to do it you would just end up disappointed. In true heroic style Christopher Wilson ignored them!

Wilson has succeeded in producing Zero Point Energy. He made energy out of nothing. He probably used more energy to make the energy out of nothing but hey, he did what he shouldn’t have been able to do. At Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology, Wilson used a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID for short. No, really) to make a mirror that could vibrate at nearly a quarter the speed of light. This allowed them to observe for the first time the “dynamical Casimir effect”. Confused yet?

Lets back up. Zero Point Energy refers to a odd phenomenon of quantum physics. Pairs of particles (like photons) and their anti-particles are constantly popping into existence out of nothing, colliding with each other and annihilating themselves. This happens so fast that you can’t normally detect them. The main way to prove this is happening is to place two plates very close together at a distance smaller than the wavelength of the particles. The plates are forced together by what is called the Casimir effect.

Photons are energy though, and if you were able to prevent them from annihilating each other you would suddenly have energy. In effect, that’s what Wilson has done. From nothing, something. Even if you made a perfect vacuum in a jar, these particles would still pop into and out of existence in that jar. The jar is never really empty no matter what you do. Manipulating this field of particles called quantum foam is also called vacuum engineering. ZPE refers to a point where you should have zero, but you find this energy coming in and out of existence, thus zero point energy.

Now that doesn’t mean we’ll be whipping up perpetual motion machines anytime soon but then we weren’t supposed to be vacuum engineering anytime soon either. What will be interesting is to see if some of the ideas about this quantum foam are true. For example, some have theorized that gravity and inertia are results of matter interfering with the vacuum energy. If you manipulate the zero point field of particles, can you generate or even negate gravity? What about inertia? I’d put that as a long shot, but it would be really cool to finally be able to say to my kids “You know when I was a kid, we used to watch all those sci-fi movies and ask ‘How are they making gravity on their ships? No one knows how to do that!’ Well, we were wrong!”

If you want to read more. . .
Chalmers scientists create light from vacuum

Casmimir effect

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December 1, 2011 · 12:00 pm

Chezbah Customs Continued

Continuing on Tuesday’s post, here are some more culture notes for the Chezbah.

Oaths

Being a very ritualized society, oaths play a large role in Chezbah agreements and contracts. Oaths are usually announced to the community. Going back on an oath or failing to perform on one can be very humiliating.

Tricks and Thievery

If a person is fooled into agreeing to something, it is viewed as a legitimate way of getting them to do what you want. This can be a little jarring to outsiders because a Chezbah will be required to stick to an oath even if they were tricked into it.

In business, spying is rampant because of this. If secrets are stolen or even if goods are stolen, it is looked on as a failure of the business man. It is considered his responsibility to keep his knowledge and possessions safe. Failure to do so is not the spy’s moral shortcoming but the owner’s. This means that most robberies of intellectual property or physical goods are covered up. If the owner knows who stole from him, he may even announce that he has given a gift to that person as an act of charity thus covering up any dishonor.

However a thief who is caught in the act often suffers greatly for their actions.

Tapestries and Rugs

The residential buildings that the Chezbah live in are cold and for the most part uncomfortable places. The Chezbah are restricted by religious law from altering these structures. This includes permanently anchoring anything to the structures. They are allowed to tie cords around pillars and there are some clever fasteners that the Chezbah have developed to hang tapestries and even full doors to doorways.

The Chezbah hang tapestries from walls for insulation and as dividers to form rooms. Thick woven rugs also help to make cold floors more comfortable.

A good number of tapestries and rugs are woven by machine. Only the most expensive are hand woven but almost all are story telling aids. Pictures on the tapestries explain important events, relate legends and tell jokes.

Welcoming

Chezbah will clap to welcome a person, often three times is enough but more if they are very important.

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Filed under Chezbah Sourcebook

November 30, 2011 · 11:05 am

A Tour By Rail

Railroading is always bad! I read that all the time and in the majority of instances I do agree. If you’re not familiar with the term, very simply railroading is when the players have as much ability to steer the story as an engineer can steer a train. There is an expected destination and a specified route to get there. In an RPG it limits the interactivity of the story and invalidates most of the player’s choices.

Let me offer a situation where it might not be so bad after all. Have you ever taken a rail tour? I have and I did enjoy it but that was because I was expecting the tour to not offer the ability to go and check everything I saw out. I knew that if there was something cool that I saw I had one chance to see it and then it was gone. That didn’t mean that one day I couldn’t come by again (not in a train) and see the things I thought were interesting. There also were stops along the way that I could get out and look around but I did have to get back on the train as scheduled or it would leave me behind.

Lets think about that in terms of an RPG. When would that be fun? I’d venture to say it would be the same times that a train trip is fun, when you want to cover a lot of new territory relatively quickly and with little effort for the riders. So when would that be for an RPG? My thought is when players are starting up a new game or setting.

Let’s consider that for a moment. Players may want to explore a new setting or system slowly and incrementally but I know that in some games that’s meant either never getting to some cool stuff or taking a long time to get there. Taking a long time can be rewarding because when you do get there it’s a big payoff. But what if one of those really cool things is one of the reasons you wanted to play in the first place? Then taking a long time is boring and frustrating.

So if the players are new and if they want to cover a lot of ground quickly, If they want to sit back, relax and let the game flow around them, Railroading a game as a tour can quickly explain how certain challenges are intended in a system to be handled. It can explain a lot of very specific story ideas without the players having to read it all from a game book. With very limited and conscious use, railroading could be useful and beneficial to a player’s enjoyment of the game.

Ideally a “Rail Tour” should be designed by the setting or system’s writers or someone who has become thoroughly familiar with them. It would be a limited use tool that must be used carefully or it can all go wrong. The players need to know the nature of the session before hand to properly enjoy it. It also means a lot of work for the GM. There’s a lot to explain and usually a lot of speaking and acting.

What do you think? Could railroading be used in this way to good effect? If you were a player, would you be comfortable with a one shot tour if it opened up a new world for you? As a GM do you think it would somehow corrupt your normally good habits of allowing players to solve problems as they want?

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November 29, 2011 · 1:13 pm

Chezbah Customs

When an Espionage Specialist sneaks into a Chezbah settlement, it is useful to understand their customs so as not to give away being an outsider.

City Lifecycle

There are several stages that a Chezbah settlement can be at in it’s life cycle. Understanding the stage of the cycle is important because the stages alter the social fabric of the community. The first stage of a city is reconstruction. During this phase young men and women from other cities are brought to an old city that is in need of repair. As families are established and grow, they work on restoring the city structure. Monitoring priests award titles to family heads according to what they have accomplished. This is a time of political and social jockeying for position. Finding a family low in the rankings and getting their favor by helping them advance can open up repeated access to the community. This is often done by spying on other families and finding out their practices or revealing a scandal that would lower a family’s ranking. Finding families that are in such a position is not difficult because honors are displayed on banners hung from buildings.

The second stage of the city starts when reconstruction ends. The youth in the city are continually sent out to start new cities. The population ages and slowly shrinks over several centuries. In these established cities it may be difficult to find contacts. The city now produces products for other developing cities. This often means there is plenty of work to do and although social ranking can change at this point, it is far more difficult to do so. There is very little a Scimrahn can offer a Chezbah as far as wealth goes but some Scimrahn do find selling black market items to work on occasion. The problem is that revealing a Scimrahn spy carries a very large reward.

The third stage is when some of the city’s children are allowed to return and care for their aging parents. At this point the population of the city is very small and often only takes up a tiny fraction of the buildings in the city. These communities are relatively wealthy and stable but there are often rifts in the social fabric left over from old wounds. In these situations, a Scimrahn may find a place to operate out of by carrying out acts of revenge. These can often be seemingly minor acts of vandalism or harassment because of the Chezbah’s strict social code.

The fourth stage is a slow build up of a city. For a few generations the city’s children are allowed to remain, instead of being sent out to a new restoration site. The city grows slowly over the generations and becomes very rigid socially. Because of the age of most Scimrhan, this stage often offers the opportunity to move about in the city and blend in with youth moving about. However, unlike previous stages, there is little opportunity to attach oneself to a household and have a safe base of operation.

City Buildings

Buildings are often occupied by extended families. It is uncommon for different families to inhabit the same building. One family head is often in control of the entire building.

The residential towers themselves are white except for on the lowest level and around window openings where they are painted with bright blue and yellow patterns. Most patterns are blocks of varying simple geometric patterns that are hand painted on by women of the family.

Higher up there are large colorful banners that hang from the windows. The banners have a family name along with their occupation and then a list of short phrases like “Loc’s servant”, “Strong man”, “Hearer”, “Loyal”, “Good”, “Founder”, “Man of Loc”, “Great” and “Rememberer”.

These banners carry the titles that are awarded to the families for various deeds. Families usually only have a few of these titles and more titles mean more prestige to the family. Each one gives the family certain rights or privileges in society.

Inside the first floor of most of the buildings Pettok or Berem are kept. The entrances are roped off with electrified cable to keep them in. A younger man of the family is stationed here to receive guests and messages. Entering a home without being recognized and escorted means that a person has sinister intentions.

Business is often carried out on the second and third floor of the building and the fourth and fifth floors often have refrigerators pantries and freezers for storing food.

Gesturing Acceptance

Authority and recognizing authority is a life and death matter among the Chezbah. Once a person has been put in charge of something by being given a title by the priesthood, ignoring that authority is a capital offense. The offended has the right to kill a person that rejects their assigned role in society.

One of the main ways of showing that a person’s authority is recognized is by a common gesture. The gesturer’s eyes close and their fingertips touch their forehead. Then the hands are raised into the air.

This is an important gesture to learn because it is the proper response to a range of statements.

The Knife

To the Chezbah, a knife is a symbol of self reliance. It is not often considered a weapon but rather a tool.

At a dinner, a knife is only used to take a portion of the meat that is put in the middle of the table. This is a symbolic gesture showing that the guests are not becoming part of the host’s family but are still able to take care of themselves. Otherwise the patriarchal head of the family serves the meat.

The knife is tied to marriage ceremonies but also in the betrothing process. If someone were to show their knife to a member of the opposite gender it is a proposal to marry. The Tradition goes that a man is showing that he can take care of a woman or the woman asking the man to take her knife which is done during the marriage ceremony.

The Fathers and Mothers

As in the Scimrhan language, “Father” is an honorary title but the term has other uses as well.

The dining table is referred to as “the father”. The table supports the meal and therefore the family, this is the father’s role in Chezbah society. As an extension, plates for eating are also called “fathers”. The cooking pot is called “the Mother” Bowls for eating are called “mothers”. Only the father who’s table it is and his wives may place their bowl directly on the table. Anyone else places their bowls under the table or holds it up while eating. Cups are specialized bowls according to Chezbah tradition.

Dinner Conversation

At the meal, the patriarchal head is the only one allowed to start a conversation. No one may speak unless invited to by the patriarch. There are ways for someone to signal that they would like to speak. Looking directly at the patriarch is one way of doing this. Putting one’s elbow on the table is a demand to be heard.

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