We interrupt the expected transmission for a sudden side trip into the vertical world. Lith has been very unusual as setting for me. I came up with three characters ( to be posted soon I promise!) and began to build the background. It has been an uphill battle trying to get the world in my head onto paper. Luckily, I received some valuable input from Fred Wolke. His insights have been invaluable at bringing Lith to fruition. Or closer to it anyhow.
The Layout of Lith
This section is a Q and A e-mail conversation we had about how Lith looks as well as possible set-up for the interior. Also what about Lith Maps? His comments are in italics while my responses are not. I've tried to resist overediting my responses and have been largely successful. Some connective stuff has been added.
Are the various departments of Lith in large blocks of verts, or are they scattered? If they are in large blocks, how do they stack up? It would seem likely that, unless the chutes were extremely efficient at moving folks around, that they'd be scattered so that going from home to work would be relatively easy.
I have been hestitant to make a map of Lith. On the other hand, if someone would make up a Lith map, I'd post it. I have been trying to avoid any sort of definitive "This is Lith, you can't change it." ruling. However I do see one of the weaknesses of the setting is I haven't gotten across what I concieve as Lith.
Are you sure of the dimensions of Lith? If Lith has 300 verts, then it would seem likely that it's about one kilometer in height. That's nice and big, but if it's 50km wide and 200km long, it's going to look more like a slab than a skyscraper.
I am unsure of the dimensions. As for The Skyscraper image of Lith, it's more of a tag to aid in visualizing it. The challenge of creating an alien culture is finding modern parallels to explain it. I do see Lith as more of a slab structure that the svelte thin skyscaper.
A big slab would be alright, too... but I think that with the dimensions arranged like that, the various powers that be on Lith would be more likely to have spheres of influence that cross the levels, probably organized along the chutes.
How about making it 300 meters by 400 meters, and giving it several thousand floors instead? That makes its height more important than its width... and as a side effect, makes it a little easier to develop maps, as they'll fit on 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper, with one
inch=40m.
Great Idea! As of now, these are the new dimensions for Lith. As soon as Lith goes into a new version this will be implemented. This is an excellent example of how making a setting open allows for clarifications which are beyond a single creator.
These days I don't make graph paper maps as much as connectivity diagrams... showing what gets you to what.
This sort of mapping appeals to me. Though Wolke's dimensions for Lith sound good to me, I am all for a more cinematic approach to mapping. Mapping for the sake of clarity and placement than anything else.
Lith Culture
The Orfans
Now here's a little bit on developmental ideas for The Orfans. Again, Fred's comments are in italics.
Were all of the Orfans created at one time? If they all tumbled out of the birthing machines at one time, I would expect their culture to be very simple and
short-lived.
The Orfans weren't created at one time. After The Silence is just when the birthing machines under the control of The Print, its goals which enigmatic and possibly alien to say the least, began to work again. Under the control of The Print, the birthing chambers work on their own timetable and sometimes produce something that is not an Orfan.
As for Orfan Culture, I am only now beginning to examine it. I see as sort of a mix of techno and tribal. Depending on where a pack of Orfans is will dictate what they are like. For example, I see the Orfans that live in The Archives to be sort of like monks.
At which point Fred suggested using a system similiar to the ork tribes from John Wick's Orkworld.
"a system whereby the players create their 'household' ... before they start making PC's. In this way, a tribe of Orfans could be created, including whether they have a Chimara, whether that Chimara is helpful or hostile, whether they have access to power, food and water, weapons, et multiple cetera."
I see the next important step towards filling out The Orfans to be creating a loose system for generating Orfan packs and Chimara. Solid enough to give the pacts a social shape but loose enough to allow for a given Lith setting to have its own tribal character.
The Print
Could it be that The Print is trying to breed a version of humanity that can survive in the Furnace?
I have been thinking of it as either severely damaged or that it has been invaded by a viral intelligence from another culture. The existence of The Otherworld suggests that there must have been an interplanetary internet during the rule of The Syndics. I am partial to the idea of it being a means of invasion from another culture.
I see Lith as the only planet in many many parsecs with any form of culture on it. I wanted an isolated environment. The idea is firmly rooted in a science fantasy vein with the remnants of Syndic Science being far spread and not wholly functional. Technology is so advanced as to be mythical in scope. It is magic to the Orfans with the computer tech. The Otherworld has a religious/mystical/spiritual flavor to it. I want the idea of finding a gun or a laptop to be an event. Not that "oh cool another relic" event it could be easily become.
Or perhaps even a bizarre form of life that is already out there... or the planet itself could be sentient.
I've included this comment merely to illustrate that the Lith history is broad enough to host various interpretations. I like these options but I don't see them as definitive.
Power Structures
The Chimaras of Lith 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.
What can I say? This is great. It's better than what I had so I'm going with it!
Chutes
You've described the Chutes as 'Neumatic' transport tubes. Did you mean 'pneumatic', powered by air, like something out of The Jetsons?
I wasn't thinking like The Jetsons but more in a sort of Logan's Run/ big superconductor elevator way. Again I haven't devoted as much time to it as I plan to. It will change as Lith moves to 1.1. (Neumatic is of course a silly made-up sci-fi word. Sorry couldn't help it.)
Ah, the pain of growing up in public!
And then, of course, Fred Wolke nails it down!
"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 some kind of antigravity is in effect. Moving handrails on the sides move at different speeds, up and down, to carry people to their destinations. 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. "
I'm humbled. That's better than what I had, which was admittedly little. No good idea will turned away!
So clearly on a roll, I'm going to share with you some more of Wolke's great additions to Lith without comment for a moment or two. Just take a gander...
Hydroponics
The Depths are not the only sources of food, though. In various places around 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, and will attack any group that threatens their monopoly.
Power
The primary power-generating systems of Lith went silent cycles ago. All that remains are various auxiliary power sources, some larger than others. 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.
Menials
Menials are the lowest rung of robots in Lith. They are slow and stupid, but the Chimaras trust them better with sensitive tasks that could subject them to direct attack. Individual menials are useful on their own, but even more useful are the repair shops and
recharge units that are necessary to their operation.
Okay,here I have to interject something.Menials are an obvious addition to the Lith setting but it is a question of how common or rare you want robots to be. In keeping with biotech edge I wanted, I personally would go with this second option Fred Wolke offered up.
"...they could be organic androids that come from the same birthing centers, programmed for obedience. "
Perhaps like the Mentats from Dune? Menials also bring up an interesting question: how does Orfan culture deal with Menials?
Environment:inside and outside
How hot *is* the Furnace?
I thinking more hot as in molten than as in desert. Not as hot as the hot side of Mercury or the sun but climbing at a slow but steady rate to becoming a literal inferno.
In the intervening time since I recieved these e-mails, I have come to the idea that the science should be retro or atleast soft boiled. Lith is science fantasy.
So for those of you who wish to look at the hard science of it, here's Fred Wolke's well reasoned explanation for why this is unlikely.
"Molten worlds don't stay that way long. Space is a cold place and a world will either evaporate or freeze before any geologically significant time has elapsed. Mercury's surface is pretty damn hot, but it's still a solid world."
Logical, yes. Lith, no. It is pure space opera in many ways. I make no appology for this. Again, I'll post any hard sci-fi variants on Lith I receive.
That all said, he did offer up some ideas which are too good to ignore and will be included in some form in Lith 1.1
"....Certain parts of Lith are hotter than others. (THE) coolant system that Lith has is certainly not working at peak performance levels. It's damn hard to keep something cool when EVERYTHING around it is hot... especially for any length of time. If the world cooled off some at night, that would allow for getting rid of the heat. Lith (Does) not have day/night cycles so much as hot/cold cycles."
"The exterior of Lith (has) windows... making the rooms they face on deadly hot or deadly cold depending on the time of day...."
"The planet's rotation is slowing down...That's the ultimate doom for Lith; either it's going to freeze to death, or bake."
"Lith is 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. Needless to say, the rooms near the rift have severe temperature extremes."
In some way shape or form, these ideas will be intergrated in. At the moment, I am still putting it all together.
Setting and System
Finally, here's some talk about mood and mechanics....
Do you expect Lith to be a dark or light setting? You're using Risus, which is a good ruleset for silly settings, but Lith seems pretty dark.
Anime, though I am not a big fan of this style, is the closest I can come to describing how I see it. Sure, it's dark but not hopeless. As for Risus, it is the system I used to make those unposted characters. I wanted something that was rules light. It puts the focus on the storytelling part of RPGs while giving some element of randomization. Also I'd be using the Tim Hunter Risus variant rules to bulk it up alittle.
There's a good Anime RPG called "Big Eyes Small Mouth" out there that hits that style pretty well. It's a generic system, and rules-light. In addition to Risus, you may want to check out The Window. It's very similar to Risus.
I had a long rambling list of why Risus and why not others but really I want this to "port-able" to whatever system a person desires to use with it. Fred made good cases for several systems but for the sake of brevity and getting this out we'll save that for later.
Conclusion
At some point in time, what "open resource" means in terms of Lith will have to be answered. An unforeseen challenge for me has been, trying to decide where does setting end and plot begin. I still don't know.
Well, there it is, the second column. I hope that the wait between this and the next will not be so long. Next up will be a spotlight on Orfan Culture. Unless something else comes up between now and then. What I like so much about Lith is that it is an ever-mutating thing. The Print works in strange ways....
Last and certainly not least, thanks to Fred Wolke for his excellent ideas and interest in this setting. Not to mention his patience.
Interest in Lith seems to be growing steadily and let me encourage anyone reading this to let me know what they think. All e-mails will be answered. Thanks for reading -June 20th 2000
Lith, an open source setting, was created George Pletz for public use in 2000.All rights reserved, all wrongs reversed.
