Mass Effect Digressions 1 - Why I love it when Thane calls me 'Siha'

Note: I have been playing through Mass Effect. I will periodically post thoughts here.

I'm playing Shepard as a mostly paragon dutiful alliance officer. War Hero, Spacer. Bit of a fuck up when she's not fighting, but she wants to do her duty and do the right thing while she's doing it. The alliance military is and has always been her life.

So I play her in Mass Effect 2 as a woman who's had her identity taken away from her. She's no longer with the alliance, she's working for people she hates, and the military discipline she loves has been replaced by low life thugs like Zaeed and the insulting familiarity of Ms. 'Call Me Kelly' Chambers. She'd done things that she isn't sure she can live with, like helping Garrus murder people. In general she feels like she's gone from fighting on a battlefield to murdering mercs in back alleys. And she doesn't feel nearly as bad murdering said mercs as she should. She worries that she'll turn into Zaeed. So she spends her time getting black out drunk at Dark Star whenever she's not able to keep herself busy with the mission.

And then Thane comes along. Another killer who wants to make the universe a better place. And he looks her in the eyes and calls her a warrior angel, a protector of the innocent. He's saying that Shepard really is a guardian of humanity. And I think that's something she really needs to hear.


EDIT: I also doubt that Shepard's ever really been able to let someone see her whole self, except maybe a few old war buddies from Elyssium or the N7 program. I imagine her hiding from her boyfriend that the worst thing about Elyssium is that she misses it, and having to conceal how miserable the boredom of civilian life makes her, since he'd never understand that. With Thane she can share both who she is 'on the job' (and that job is her life) and off of it. And that seems like something she needs.

Magic, both Fantastic and Mundane

A decent definition of fantasy is that it takes place in a setting where magic exists.  This can take many forms, from magical-realist dream-logic to alternative metaphysics to a detailed system of magical rules.  Magic is thus what makes a fantasy world distinct, and I'd argue that it's best when it makes a fantasy world more distinct and more fantastic.  This does not mean 'weirder and more full of magic,' it means that magic, well-employed, makes a fantasy setting more itself.

What follows are my own ideas about magic in fantasy settings, in RPG's and otherwise.  They are not universal laws, just some general ideas that I've found produce pleasing results.

The Many Forms of Greater Daemons

Introduction

Greater Daemons are the most characteristic ‘big bads’ of the Warhammer world.  While other settings have dragons and giants and evil liches, Greater Daemons are so wrapped up in the mythology of chaos that they are particular to Warhammer.  They are evocative antagonists -- inhuman, inscrutable and immensely powerful.

And yet when it comes down to it they can be disappointingly less than chaotic.  It’s apparent that their descriptions has always been shaped by the miniature line, which requires that they be relatively solid and predicatble to make the ‘fluff’ match the figures.  As a result we have the perverse result that all Bloodthirsters apparently look much the same.

Moreover, they are so powerful, and the power level of WFRP is so low, that they are unusable in most conditions.  Unless the characters have an army behind or beside them or the GM introduces some sort of secret weakness or macguffin to help the party, a greater daemon will kill any party sent against them.  This restricts them to being used as plot devices.  While they can be potent in that role, it can prevent the climatic show down and limit the GM’s and party’s options to ‘not confront the daemon’ or ‘total party kill.’

The article below attempts to address both of these problems, by introducing new forms for daemons to take that are both stranger and less powerful.

Notes on Rivers of the Empire

The Purpose of this Post

The published materials for both 1st and second edition include river maps and general notes, but not detailed guides to what parts of the river are navigable to different types of craft, when they're navigable or particular hazards of the rivers.  I've included these below, along with some general notes about the course of each river.

The Reik River System

The Reik/Talabec system drains around 400,000 square miles of the Empire, Kislev and the surrounding mountains (more than the Danube) and has an outflow of 8,000 cubic meters/second (about that of the Volga).

The chief rivers of the system are the Reik and Talabec, which meet at Altdorf.

General note: most of the course of Rivers are navigable by small boats (bateau) going one way only for most of their course in the Empire.  The ‘notes on navigation’ describe two-way traffic in the winter and summer months.

See below for notes on each river.

Why do we Fight Chaos

Introduction: This is an in-game essay on why the fight against Chaos is not in vain.  Warpstone did a somewhat similar piece, 'Fighting Chaos - why bother?' which is collected in 'Corrupting Influence.'  However that piece focuses on the problems of chaos in the setting more than it sketches out solutions.  I wanted to provide an in-character explanation that did not change the setting (like turning the law gods into equally powerful opposites of the chaos gods, which would be a bit too dualistic and Moorcockian for my tastes).

By Pretorius Fasnacht, Magister Obscurans (original master of the Grey Order)

This does not seem like an important question now, in the hour of our triumph.  Magnus has vanquished Asavar Kul, and the remnants of the chaos hordes have been burned and butchered in the Grovod Forest.  Norsca, so long under the domain of dark chieftains, turns back to Taar and Olric.  Our Empire, once divided, is one nation again.

And yet we who fight Chaos must ask this question, because we must be honest about what we are fighting.  Chaos is a vast force, more ancient than man, given form and power by man’s own dark desires and sins.  Our gods protect us, but they are human gods, not the great dark powers that are arrayed against us.  Heresy, you may say, but I have travelled the world and there are no universal gods -- the elves have theirs and we have ours and the Indians have something else.  Those who remain of the Old Faith have no gods at all, only the living, breathing world.  Our gods can protect us, but only inasmuch as we protect ourselves.*

Introduction

I've been talking about starting this blog for ages.  Really as long as I've been running games and having opinions about RPG's, I've wanted to start this blog.  I had the named picked out and everything.

I picked the name rather deliberately.  It doesn't just express my opinions on thieves guilds (they are silly and anachronistic and don't make sense) but my broader ideas about fantasy settings: people, and societies, must be believable.  You can add daemons, elves, and all matter of wild creatures.  You can add magic and change the laws of physics.  But as long as you're dealing with people, and want to build a believable world, you should ensure that  they act like people and organize themselves like people do.