Sleepless Empire
Sleepless Empire, where shall I begin? This idea first started in my head years and years ago, I think I was 15 or so. It was originally titled ….get this..
 Guns & Gangsters.
 Isnt that just great? Gawd im a geek.
 Anyways, the idea was basically lasersharked D&D, I thought D&D is cool, 1920’s Mobster Movies are cool, lets combine em, and that was more or less the whole idea.
The idea has been rolling around in the back of my head this whole time, and every once in a while I come back and look at it and think about it a bit more. I added alchemists, then turned those alchemists into an illuminati style world spanning, world controlling organization run by old crochety men. Then I added Sorcerers, this was during the period when I was going to use D&D 3rd Edition rules and the idea of people who “just had” powers intrigued me greatly for some reason. Then I turned them into Marvel Comics style mutants and made the populace fear them and alchemists envy them.
It gets more crazy from there. But I just cant put the idea down permanently. Now the game has morphed into being about racism and hate and caste-ism and class-ism and all those other kinds of things that people make up to hate eachother over.
Â
Everyone hates the alchemists because they have all the wealth, the alchemists hate the sorcerers because they get powers for free when the alchemists have to study there whole lives, the sorcerers hate there powers because it makes everyone afraid of them, the goblins (did I mention them) hate the people in the city above because they make them stay in the dark and fix there machinery for slave wages. and so on and so on.
 The basics of the setting
 It takes place in a fictional New York City during the Roaring 20’s.
There are Sorcerers, people given power for free. Rich, Poor, Black, White, Popular, unpopular, it doesnt seem to matter, some people get sorcerer powers , and some dont, noone knows why. There powers are pretty much like super hero powers, some can increase there size 10x some can teleport, some can turn water into egg creme. Sorcerers are supposed to register there powers with the proper authoritys, but they are feared and reviled by the general populace so many break the law and try to hide there powers.
All PC’s will be sorcerers.
 Alchemists-These are the previously mentioned crotchety old men, although some arent so old yet, they are I suppose the main antagonists, they more or less run the world, this world has technology, but the real force of this world is magic, other than sorcerers, the main way to manipulate magic, is by alchemy, but only the alchemists know the secrets of it, and they dont like to share. They are rich and powerful, and do more or less whatever they want, since noone can really stop them.
Goblins - this is a wierd third group. You see, the whole city is dependant on whats underneath, Clean water is piped in, dirty water is piped out, electrical lines provide power for lights and machines, subways carry workers to there jobs, who maintains all this stuff? noone likes to talk about it. It all works, so we just look the other way. The dirty little secret is that its kind of a slave race, goblins people call them, on the rare occasion they choose to talk about them. mutated bodies, grotesqueries beyond imagination, but they have special connection with the machinery down there, in the guts below the city, and they keep it running. Noone knows how many there are, or why they work for us, the city officially denies there existance, but somebody must keep all that stuff working.
Those are the major elements for now, theres other stuff I want to establish, like..whats going on out side new york, or, can goblins be sorcerers? all that kinda thing, and although I know I want the stories to revolve about peoples inexplicable inability to deal with eachother without hating eachother I dont really have any idea about how to go about doing that. But its a cool idea, and someday ill do something cool with it.
April 19th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Okies, so re: What do the players do? which is yet unanswered, I have an idea.
The PCs are all sorcerers, but no one knows why. I say I know why.
The PCs magical abilities stem form a basic, innate rebellious nature. They simply refuse to be confined into the mundane world, and refute it by displaying their powers. Expression of mind over reality.
Quote: “peoples inexplicable inability to deal with eachother without hating each other”
Now I can tie that in too!
The PCs can’t deal with each other/groups/creeds because they counter one another, one’s expression of mind over reality can’t be constrained!
Now, what do the PCs do? The PCs try and survive in a mundane world that constantly chokes off their innate, rebelious nature. They suffer under any oppressive control and must rebel, or it will cost them their very existance.
So I got a bit carried away, but you get the idea I’m sure
April 19th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
[...] Sleepless Empire Blog Post [...]
April 19th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
hmmm, interesting. I intended the whole “noone knows why” thing to be one of those convenient mysterious story elements that the GM could pull out of his ass whenever necessary, but its helpful to consider an alternative.
The second one, that is also worthwhile but a little contrary to my intention. Which I now see I didnt specify.
The general populace, by and large, hates the sorcerers. This is partially human nature to hate that which is different, is partially an orchestrated and subtle propoganda campaign on the part of the alchemists.
There you are a successfull businessman, wife, family, kids, job, all that stuff, then one day, you “almost” get mugged, only almost because you spontaneously burst into flame and could fly away, with no harm to yourself of course. Your a sorcerer, what do you do? Register? then EVERYONE will know, you face certain ostracization, your wife might take the kids and leave, you might lose your job. Those rumours of registered sorcerers dissapearing into the system might be true. Or do you hide what you are? risking being found out and getting all of the above PLUS immediate incarceration.
Basically what i am trying to get accross, is you used to have all these nice lables, defining who you were , Well to do, white, married, etc. etc. but suddenly none of those labels matter anymore, or at least not nearly as much as they used to matter, now the only label that matters is “sorcerer” suddenly everyone has a preconception of who you are that has nothing to do with who you were. This is getting hit straight on with prejudice. So the pc’s might still dislike or hate eachother or have certain prejudices based on there previous perceptions of eachother, none of that really matters in the face of the really big thing that overshadows everything else, your all sorcerers. your all on another side of the line that you never thought you would be on. it has its advantages (super powers aaarre pretty cool) and its disadvantages (most everyone hates and/or fears you)
April 22nd, 2006 at 1:25 pm
It’s a nice idea, but you’re going to have to work on the ‘everybody hates you’ thing… Why?
It can’t all be ‘the bad guys manipulate the world into hating sorcerers and everyone who isn’t one does’, unless you’re planning to run very two dimensional (and rather dull) scenarios.
There ought to be *some* sorcerers who are giving the world a reason to hate them, as well as some normal people who don’t react that way. There should be some kernal of truth to most rumors.
The goblins are a really interesting idea. Do you have any thoughts on why they *would* slave away? What do they get out of it?
April 22nd, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Right, I was saying it as a bit of a blanket statement and that isnt really how I envision it. There are even sorcerers who are considered “heroes” both state sponsored ones and ones that are essentially vigilantes that the downtrodden of new york look up to. (I have read way too many comic books in my life)
The general status quo is that “sorcerers are bad” but there is definitely variances in the way people actually feel.
In the near future I plan to do some writeups on the various factions of the world, including some I havent mentioned yet, like Communist Scientists and Other-Dimensional Elves, and oh yeah, lycanthropic Gangsters.
For now though.
Goblins are a heavily mutated species some are 3 feet tall and eyeless like cave fish, others are Giant monstrosities with bone spurs for defending themselves. Many have debilitating mutations. Most of theme seem to have almost a sixth sense about the machinery that runs the world, there seems to be no formal training system on the technology, they just “know”.
As far as “why” that is also supposed to be one of the great mysteries of the world, I am going to establish that there definitely IS some sort of deal with the government in the topworld and goblins of the belowworld. But the details of this arrangement are kept highly secret.