Lith Glossary revised
By Greyshirt with additional material by Fred Wolke
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- The Archive
- The Verts originally intended for knowledge storage.Due to the Calamity, The Screens here are either unusable or limited access by The Chimaras. Also known as The Dead Library.
- The Caches
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- Vaults of Tech on various Verts in Lith. Controlled by Chimaras who guard their locations and the items within. Used to frugally reward The Orfan packs who do their will.
- The Calamity
- The term that encompasses both The Malady and The Shift, the occurrences which led to the current state of affairs. Also broadly used to describe current times as simply Calamity.
- The Chimaras
- Still existent AIs from the time before The Calamity. Chimaras were originally intended as attendant subroutines of E.N to take care of The Syndic Lineage on its behalf.The Chimaras are organized around resources. They have placed software and hardware locks on the operation of those elements of technology that still function, in order to control them. Whether they function, and how they function, is controlled by the Chimaras. Due to this ability, coupled with access to The OtherWorld and The Caches, have been taken as gods by Orfan Packs. The Chimaras that control power for 'export' to its neighbors are among the most powerful,because without them, few of the others would have anything at all. The exact number of Chimaras in Lith is unknown by all but themselves. They guard the secret closely and will kill to keep it that way.(supplemented by Fred Wolke)
- Chutes
- The chutes are shafts, with various diameters (one meter for short personnel chutes, three meters for long-distance commuter chutes, five meters for big cargo chutes) in which a form of antigravity is in effect. Moving handrails on the sides move at different speeds, up and down, to carry people to their destinations.(That is of course when they work...) The Chimaras that control the chutes, especially the large ones that reach all the way down to The Depths, control the flow of food up to the Orfans.(submitted by Fred Wolke)
- Crawlies and Creepies
- Two of three Chimara servitor races created to serve The Syndic Lineage. The original names of these creatures is lost and are now referred to by their Orfan nicknames. Crawlies resemble a cross between a slug and a snake while Creepies resemble a cross between a spider and an octopus. At one time of human intelligence or higher, they have denegraded greatly. As creatures once bred to be sterile, they produce their own offspring. Another evolutionary note is due to the dwindling of water in The Depths, both Creepies and Crawlies have split into amphibian and aquatic varieties. Due to The Chimaras access to Orfan packs, there is little use for these creatures now.
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- The Depths
- The Lower utility Verts where Crawlies and Creepies where were employed in hydroponic gardens and water treatment plants. Now their literal breeding ground which is slowly drying up due to damage to filtration and condensation units. A very dangerous place for Orfan and Dragoon alike.
- The Dragoons
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- The other race of Chimara servitors. Originally these cybernetic quasi-humans
- were the police/maintance class of Lith. After The Calamity, Dragoons have become by E.N.'s living appendages into Lith.
- E.N.
- The sprawling artificial consciousness of Lith's creator, The Grand Vizier, which was synonymous with the computer network of Lith. After The Calamity, it was greatly diminished with a number of its higher functions being usurped by The rebellious Chimaras, long since embittered to their Syndic masters.
Now all E.N. has is the bare minimum of functions, little better than a Chimara,
- The Dragoons it possesses, and any Paria willing to act on its behalf. To regain its full power, E.N must take back all 300 verts and hold them long enough to undo the Chimara from existence. Also known as Emepror Null.
- The Expulsed
- The Birthing Chambers though they do not produce Orfans do on occasion created beings which fit no known nomenclature. It may be viral code released as waste by The Malady which is in turn interpreted by The Birthing Chambers as biological forms which in turn were created. No two are exactly alike and there is no set time between birthing sequences. Most Expulsed are predatory by nature while only the smallest percentage even resemble Orfan form.
- Furnace
- The now molten world outside of Lith. Unliveable and if unchecked will lead to the end of Lith itself in roughly two hundred cycles.
- The Hydros
- In various chambers throughout Lith, Chimaras have set up hydroponics labs in order to grow food for their Orfans. These are not as productive as The Depths, but they produce more appetizing and healthy food. The Creepies and Crawlies don't like this practice. Often, they will go on hunts for Hydros to destroy. They see this as a necessity in maintaining their monopoly on food stuffs.
(Suggested by Fred Wolke)
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- Lats
- The horizontal connective passages between chambers on a Vert.
- (The) Lith
- A ruinous archology of 1000 verts.Resembling an immense stone slab though made of an unknown metalloid substance. Located at the equator of Furnace
- The Malady
- A latent viral strain introduced to The Syndic Lineage in the dawn of the calamity which killed them off. It left Lith dormant for 100 cycles. It is one part of The Calamity.
- Menials
- Menials are organic androids that come from the birthing centers,programmed for obedience to The Chimara. Orfan Packs are made uneasy by their slow and methodical demeanor and emotionless appearance. They are genderless and entirely bald. Menials may look the same to others but they posess a low level empathy via a remote link to The Otherworld which allows them to differentiate each other. The only means which allows a non-menial to recognize one is based on the color of their jumpsuit.
- The Color scheme is as follows- Housing:Green, Entertainment:Blue, Security:Black, Research:White, Utilities:Red.
- Since The Menial's color designation is a remnant of their days during the time of The Syndic Lineage, it's meaning has less to do with their currently appointed tasks than where they live.
How closely a Menial works and in what compacity with The Orfans depends on the pack they are associated with. In some they may be used as an extra line of defense. In others such as those who live in The Dead Library they may be seen as assistants. It is not uncommon for a Chimaras to entrust them with tasks they deem too sensitive to request of Orfans.
The Production of Menials after The Silence has been erratic with the occasional "emotional compacity defect" appearing more often than The Chimaras would like. A menial with feelings is a threat to The goals of The Chimaras who value the menials' unquestioning and self sacraficing nature. Disposal of ECD (emotional compacity defect)Menials is a definite concern for Chimaras. A Menial with ECD cannot recieve orders via the remote link to the Otherworld.This lack of connection also makes them unseen by other Menials who require this rapport to recognize one another.
There are incidents where a "mutated" menial has gone Paria but often Menials find that most Paria are biased against them. They are seen as servants of The Chimaras regardless of their ECD status. Possibly deep cover agents sent to undermine the Paria's free status.This coupled with the inabilty to be recognized by others of its kind leads most ECD Menials to be solitary creatures.
(based off of an idea supplied by Fred Wolke.)
- The Orfans
- The devolved progeny of The Syndic Lineage. Born in Birthing Chambers on various U Verts, Orfans resemble the ancestor of The Syndics, Homo Sapien, due to The Malady. Since The Malady had made connection to The Print intermittent at best, Orfans were not born fully adult, as the syndics were, with imprinted teaching. They were born at the outset of adolescence at The Silence. Due to the unstable Malady driven genetics process which lead to their inception, Orfans last only twenty one years before they begin to rapidly deteriorate. After nine more years they die. It varies depending how successful imprint lasts but there is no knowledge of an Orfan exceeding the age of thirty-seven. The birth of the Orfan brood from the birthing chambers has two noted side effects. The race is generally sterile, which makes 'natural' birth a miracle, and the birthing chambers of the U-Verts have basically gone cold.
The Orfans number roughly seven hundred and broken into loose tribal groups based on the U-Vert they were birthed from. This grouping is called a pack. Most but not all are connected to a Chimara in some way. Some are nomadic between Verts while others try to live as, their pregenitors, The Syndics did.
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- Otherworld
- When E.N and the Chimaras were disconnected from one another, a large virtual space in the Network opened up. In this space resides, The Print. As does The Chimaras in their dream dwellings where they play at being Corporeal and Human. Due to the incalculable size of Otherworld, it is possible that other virtual beings exist there as well.
Somewhere in Otherword is E.N.H., the inpenetrable home node of Emepror Null. The mystery of how Otherworld works is very obscure and archaic even to most of those who reside there. To Orfans,Menials,and Dragoons, it is a neon lit world of spirits.
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- The Paria
- A term for Orfans who have resisted to live with their repsective pack for whatever reason. Some of these outcasts run in their own outsider packs while others deem to live alone. Another destinction of Paria packs is whether or not they ally with a Chimara. This difference only truly matters to those who are Paria. Orfan packs view all Paria with the some suspicion if not hatred. They are different for reasons that Orfans find questionable. Orfans, unlike Paria, do not like mysteries or discoveries that they do not outright benefit from.
- The Precinct
- At the top of Lith is 100 S-Verts which are the barracks and center of operation for The Dragoons. The exact caches at their disposal are unknown. Dragoons are also born in Precinct in method that varies from how all other denizens were birthed. All that is certain is that it is not as severely damaged as the birthing chambers but still is not untouched by the Malady. The exact layout of Precinct is also a point of contention. The shadowy details of The Dragoons and their high command is due to the misinformation surrounding them.
- The Print
- The genetic encoding and imprinting mechanism which was damaged in The Calamity. Once part of E.N, it seems to be controlled by the viral intelligence of The Malady. It resides in Otherworld and is unapproachable by any of the AIs of Lith. Its purpose is unknown to all.
- Screens
- Touchscreen access terminals located throughout Lith. Originally controlled by E.N through The Chimaras. Combined effects of the three elements of The Calamity, have destroyed whatever allocation protocol existed and left Screens as hazy windows into the Otherworld. They are sporadic at best when it comes to usage. It is believed by Orfan packs of The Archive that access is only granted by the will of those within The Otherworld. Who grants this access is the very crux of faith of those who attempt to use these cryptic and obtuse access terminals for any variety of goals.
- The Shift
- A disaster allegedly caused by a spatial disturbance which turned the planet into furnace. More of a rumor kept alive by Chimaras than anything substantial. Temperature fluctuations of Furnace are commonly used by Orfans to substantiate this destruction myth. Due to the Shift, The Chiramas claim, Lith will last only two hundred cycles before structural decay will claim it.
- The Silence
- The first two elements of the Calamity, The Malady and The Shift, created Otherworld which in turn caused an absolute halt of all computer functions which lasted 100 cycles.
At this time nothing stirred but the Creepies and Crawlies in The Depths and The Malady in Otherworld. What brought an end to The Silence is unknown to any current denizens of Lith: Creepies and Crawlies devolved beyond their humanoid states to little better than animals and The Malady remains enigmatic and withdrawn from normal affairs.
- The Syndic Lineage
- The ancestors of The Orfans and the archetect/builders of Lith. They were a very advanced strain of humanity. The Malady wiped them out. The equipment in The Caches is all that remains of their dynasty. The Chimaras have secreted all knowledge of the Syndics away from the current denizens of Lith.
- Utilities
- The Verts originally dedicated to the basic needs of The Syndic Lineage. It is on these Verts that the birthing chambers exist.
- Vert
- A level of Lith. Each Vert is 300 meters long and 400 meters wide. There are three thousand Verts in Lith.Number of Chambers, Chutes, and Lats varies. Before Calamity, each vert was part of one of five departments: Housing (H), Entertainment (E), Security (S), Research (Re) or Utilities (U). Currently there is no such delineation except for The Depths which is the lower one hundred levels of Utilities, The Precinct which is the upper one hundred levels of Security, and The Archive, the middle one hundred levels of Research. (game note : Maps you would create for Verts in Lith would fit on 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper, with one inch=40m.)
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Time and Temperature in Lith
Lith does not have day/night cycles so much as hot/cold cycles. The coolant system that Lith has is not working at peak performance levels. The primary power-generating systems of Lith went silent cycles ago. All that remains are various auxiliary power sources, some larger than others. This has a direct effect on the coolant system which is a serious power drain right after the Otherworld and The Birthing Chambers.
The exterior of Lith has windows that make the rooms that face the outside either deadly hot or deadly cold dependant on the time of day. These chambers on the extreme edges of The Verts are considered all but uninhabital. These chambers do hold certain strategic value to The Orfans since The Dragoons are largely resistant to the rigors of temperature and could use them to their advantage if not carefully controlled.
Lith is also broken down the middle, making a 'rift'.Getting across is only possible at dusk and dawn, when the temperature is not too extreme, but any bridge constructed of ordinary materials will be destroyed by the next sundown. The Rift has also made certain chutes deadly if not entirely unusable Needless to say, the rooms near the rift have severe temperature extremes as well.
As should be evident those rooms along the edge and the centers of the Verts have more variance than those between them. Chambers along the rift and those with views, though more extreme in temperatures, change more slowly adhering to the twenty hour planetary cycle. Those without either, though picking up residuals from these two, are more temperate and experience noticable but not deadly changes in temperature every ten hours.
In other words the best places to live are lower to the ground, away from the rift and the edges and have less temperature changes. Plus they will be less dependent on what day it is and more dependent on what time The Chimara says it is.
Due to the tight grip that The Chimaras holds on all technology, means of telling time rely heavily on these fluxes in temperature as well as natural light. Days are logged by light and temperature changes in the edgewise chambers while hours can be denoted by the same changes in the riftwise chambers. Orfans have also learned how to devise primitive devices from the Chimara to reflect these time changes. Ancient, more advanced, devices for tracking the hours from The Caches are very rare but available. Since The Chimaras can tell The Orfans what needs to be done when, they see no need to make these items readily available.
Time and Temperature dictate alot about Orfan Culture and The Chimaras know this.
(based off of ideas suggested by Fred Wolke.)
Time designation in Lith
One Earth Hour = One Lith Hour
20 hrs = 1 lith day
5 Days = 1 Lith Week
72 weeks = 1 Lith Cycle
Monetary units in Lith
There is none. All they have is barter of goods,services and knowledge. Season to taste
Final Notes and Current Developments
The game setting laid out in The Lith Glossary is by no means complete. All answers have been left to the GM who opts to use this setting. Some, such as what do these denizens do for food, are more crucial than others. Other setting information, such as what are the goals of The Malady, though not imperative could lead to a variety of interesting adventures. And finally maps of Lith are solely up to the user of this setting though I have tried to leave certain hints to what may be good. Lith is open for numerous interpretations. Currently I favor a retro-science fiction vibe with healthy bits of anime and weirdness. Though originally I intended to use Risus, the current system I intend to use is Imagination's Toybox.(Link forthcoming!)
Any recieved or created additions, such as graphics or additional information (including characters and variants) will be listed onsite as a service to anyone who chooses to use Lith but is not intended as the end all be all Unless it is really relevant, in which case, it'll get intergrated in.
Current Lith development includes Orfan pack generation rules,the listing of the original three characters in ITX (Imagination's ToyboX) stats, and a new IVW collumn around mid -August.
Check out Inside the Vertical World, my irregular posted column dedicated to explaining the various elements of Lith. Currently there are two.IVW I is about the calamity and IVW II is about changes to be made to Lith based on input made by Fred Wolke as evidenced here.
Lith, an open source setting, was created by George Pletz for public use in 2000.All rights reserved, all wrongs reversed.
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