Arx

[MisterBoring]

@Apos I’m gonna ask a juicy question:

What’s the biggest secret in the original Arx run that nobody uncovered?

[Apos]

@MisterBoring Biggest is kind of subjective. Like if we are talking about mechanical clues, out of 4904 researchable clues, 125 were never discovered. At a glance, the majority of those were written in response to some player investigation and they never completed it, so didn’t see what the GMs came up with, like someone looking into the Stonewood, or about their character’s secret, and so on. Some were clues seeded in response to major events, like there were clues around Esera’s disappearance that were never found in season 1, for example.

But for biggest, in terms of ‘how would this change how people perceived the world’, I think it would have been a lot of the backstories of major historical figures and how things developed the way they did. Like I don’t think people found out why Onyx was kind to mortals, or what was behind some of the disputes or wars or things like that. Like I’m not sure how many people would guess what in Arx 1 would lead to the cataclysm hinted at in the above lore, though some probably would.

But turning back to Arx 2, what I think I’m going to do is post a bit about mechanics/design and then follow up with a very unreliable narrator lore post, and probably keep at it for the different major starting areas every so often. So for the game design post of today:

When making systems for Arx’s reboot, I separated systems largely along three different axes.

One is Player to Player, and for that all the systems around relationships, making social scenes feel very meaningful to character progression, the ties that strengthen characters and yield benefits and drive story, that’s one axis.

Second is Player to GM, and this is going to be primarily GM tables, where GMs (whether player or staff), have tables of groups of players to run stories from, manage the stories of the PCs at them, help guide them on adventures, keep track of what they need to do and what can happen. I didn’t like how often people stalled out in Arx 1, and specifically I think the ambiguity of whether a next step existed at all caused way more harm than good. I think we can make enough mystery without not knowing whether a story is over, or if it’s waiting on it to be written or if a PC needs to do things first in order to advance.

Third, and which was basically completely absent from Arx, is player to environment. I am just a huge believer in a living grid. This is what I missed the most in Arx 1. A PC, or group of PCs, being able to go just do things on grid, whether that is breaking into a place and do an automated crime heist, checking out a shard haven in the wilds, doing a spy mission, tinkering with alchemy and seeing if you are eaten by a demon, managing a domain, anything. The goal here is to have strong enough automated tools where people feel they can make meaningful impact upon the game world without needing to go through staff, and it to feel fair both to them and the stories of everyone around them. This has been a not inconsiderable percentage of my time working on the new Arx. Special shout out to the first PC to opt into doing something extremely high risk and dying. Risk, for obvious reasons, will be extremely clear and opt in.

[Apos]

Next on starting areas, though I consider this a rough draft.

The Holy Revolutionary Republic of Luxen

“One stands before us in Durance. Speak thy name and testament.”

Every day the threat grows greater. The Afflictions ravage the land with a cost that continues to mount in the villages consumed, the people infected and slaughtered by slaver demons. And we hold the other realms of Catenys accountable not simply for a failure to act to stop this madness, but all too often a complicity in their dabbling with the Abyss, of being so foolish and arrogant as to think they could use the tools of demons against them and somehow escape unscathed.

The People of Luxen know better. We saw it first hand in our good King Alairre, Shepherd keep him. Blinded by his pride and notions of tolerance, he was betrayed by those closest to him, and if not for the Church rising up to cast down the usurpers, all of Luxen would have been lost. It became clear that the sin of pride would lead us all into destruction, and the Abyss and all its works must be confronted with force and burned out root and branch.

And so it was insufficient for us to stop here. We cannot rest until every tyrant that consorts with the Abyss has been overthrown, and their lands liberated. This starts with the Umbral Emperor, and if one ever needed proof of our war’s necessity, they only need look at the great Affliction that rose and stopped our righteous advance upon Umbral lands. Once that is consigned to flame, we shall do what is necessary.

“Extremism in defense of the Revolution is no vice.”

From the highest Blessed to the lowest Sinner, all in Luxen know our cause and how the survival of our Republic, our continent, even all of Nitera rests upon it. Still, knowing the dangers of the sin of pride, self-honesty might force us to confess there has been excesses. To keep the white cities safe, it is true that the Inquisition can be overzealous. Some of the most soft-heartened might wonder, quietly and in secret, if the Sinners are treated too harshly.

Those sorts have seldom wandered into the cumberwards of Salvation, nor have they seen the risks of loosening the leash that has bitten us time and again, from the very start of the founding of Luxen until now. When we liberated these lands from the Chimera Empire we did so to avenge the loss of the Daeva and drive the imps into the sea, but also to guarantee that we could never again fall under the chains of a great tyrant or his minions. King Alairre lost sight of that, and it killed him.

But the Church of the Shepherd has never forgotten.

“No crowns or tyrants here.”

Luxen stands alone, surrounded by enemies. The Blood Kingdoms of Ariwn to the East have never been our friends, nor can we tolerate the murderous predation of vampires or lycans here. The Umbral Empire has vowed to crush the Revolution and would seek to install the betrayer queen upon King Alairre’s throne, and force us all to kneel. The imps in the sea would murder every last one of us, and drag their old lands back into the Abyss.

Within, there are those who would destroy the Revolution. The savages of the Revanche who leave carnage and destruction in their wake, and are forever hunted by the Inquisition. The traitors who once had rank and title and humbly accepted the Church’s grace, but treacherously seek to regain what was lost. The proud and weak of soul who hear the whispers of the Abyss and consort with the darkest forces, and the malcontents proud enough to say their lot is insufficient, and would do anything to change it.

We are unafraid. We shall meet these challenges and overcome them.

Or else all the world is lost.

[Smile]

@MisterBoring I am sure someone figured it out but Donrai despite having faked his death the first time, did get killed and replaced by a Ruby controlled mirrorborn before he could do anything. Which did cause confusion in the “is he really dead?” question.

[Ominous]

@Apos said:

Second is Player to GM, and this is going to be primarily GM tables, where GMs (whether player or staff), have tables of groups of players to run stories from, manage the stories of the PCs at them, help guide them on adventures, keep track of what they need to do and what can happen. I didn’t like how often people stalled out in Arx 1, and specifically I think the ambiguity of whether a next step existed at all caused way more harm than good. I think we can make enough mystery without not knowing whether a story is over, or if it’s waiting on it to be written or if a PC needs to do things first in order to advance.

You probably already have a solution in mind for addressing this, but Pathologic 2 and 3’s Mind Map might have some ideas to steal: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/pathologic-2-mindmap-a-questlog-people-actually-read

Pathologic are games built around philosophy, mysticism, and mysteries, and the Mind Map works really well as a quest log for that atmosphere as well as the word heavy narrative. Unfortunately, the Mind Map is built heavily around the GUI so some work would need to be done in translating it into something that works on a MU*

EDIT: Maybe have some sort of GUI on the website? But that makes the player have to leave the MU* client to go look at their “quest log.”

[kalakh]

I can think of some history related things that I’m not sure were ever made clear to players, such as how the war between the elves and the dragons started, Tyrval’s mom, wtf the Thicker was (I don’t know what the Thicker was), that the Primordia were all female, why Diamond lost his fool mind.

There’s a lot of stuff that I think only a few characters knew, like the entire deal behind the Castle of Yesterday, the origin of the spirit’s hatred of blood magic, White Bear’s existence, or, iirc, that the bottom of the ocean led into the Abyss.

[RightMeow]

All I hear is I’m going to fuck around with alchemy and find out by a demon eating me because I can never leave well enough alone.

I’m in.

Unless SOME PEOPLE try to give me visions of the violent death of my soul less teddy bear again.

[Dreampipe]

@Apos Halfway through this turned into a Bloodborne narration in my head and I am buzzing.

[Testament]

@Apos You keep saying Durance and all I think of is the amazing character from Pillars of Eternity 1. It’s going to keep throwing me.

But this is a good stuff. Took a break from MUing since Arx 1 finished to be ready for Arx 2: Electric Boogaloo

[Apos]

The Umbral Empire

“One stands before us in Durance. Speak thy name and testament.”

There are several folktales taught to children that are unique to the Umbral Empire. The first is a type of tale where an individual is offered countless dangerous opportunities, and thinking themselves prudent and wise, decline to run reckless risks. These tales always end with the utter destruction of the individual and all they hold dear, chastising them for their foolish failure to be bold and gain what was necessary to prevent disaster. Similarly, other children’s tales emphasize the importance of never mocking another’s failure if what they tried was daring enough, or how shameful it can be to gain great success without ever running risks.

It comes as little surprise to outsiders that there is no greater cultural insult than to call a peer of Umbros a coward. It does, however, come as a significant surprise that the insult is almost unheard of, because gloryhound risk taking is so deeply ingrained, that if a peer is failing to act on something opportune but dangerous, it is just assumed that they are restraining their natural inclinations to try regardless of consequence and forcing themselves to wait for slightly better odds.

There is a constant tension in Umbros that is never truly reconciled. Deep responsibility to Houses whose continued survival very much depends upon their protectors continuing to draw breath, versus the constant need to run greater and greater risks to gain glory and strength to guarantee the success of those same Houses. To any that would bemoan that, there is a common saying in the Empire that if one finds the crown heavy, another would happily bear it.

“Dare Greatly.”

Modesty, as a notion, is not overly prized as a virtue inside the Empire. If one has a strength in any arena and in any form, it should be flaunted. This combined with an intensely daredevil culture can result in extremely predictable conflicts, and some cultural traditions have arose to slow the constant churn and bloodletting between the best and brightest of Umbros’ rising talent. Duels are more restricted than most would expect. While all take place in magical rituals to restrict the degree of collateral damage, it is an immense loss of face for a challenge to take place except between peers. And ‘peers’ have a more restrictive meaning in the Umbral Empire than in the peerages of the other realms: it is not noble blood alone. One is considered a peer of the Empire if, and only if, they are a blooded member of a noble family and have magical talent. The latter is considered far more important, and is a strict requirement in voting for the Tannistry. It is customary for the Gifted visiting Umbros to be given courtesy noble titles in address.

The need to cultivate the relationships between Peers and their houses finds an emphasis on social events that those outside of Umbros often find excessive and frankly exhausting. Masquerades serve a particular role in Umbros, where it is understood that many can recognize precisely whom they are interacting with, that those under exile are tolerated with a polite fiction of anonymity, but one can spend a pleasant evening with those whose situations would be materially improved by marrying them, murdering them, or frequently both.

Those perplexing social events serve an important function in that it is given to the Peers to cultivate as many allies as reasonably possible among other Gifted, as it is commonly accepted that one trying to go about their Durance alone is nothing more than a particularly self-indulgent way of committing suicide.

“Return puissant.”

More peers of Umbros are invited to Shroudwatch Academy than any other group, a source of not inconsiderable pride in the Empire, but the reason is not necessarily indicative of overwhelming natural ability. It is understood, of course, that it is far more likely to be Gifted if one’s maternal bloodline has magical talent. But the likelihood of one manifesting magical talent is tied inseparably to moments of great personal risk, intense danger, and all too often trauma.

It is expressly forbidden to have children in arms, strenuously enforced by all the realms of Catenys after some infamous and rarely-spoken incidents. But Umbral noble houses tend to not be overly concerned with the safety of their scions, and increasingly hope that life-threatening situations awakens ability in them. Betrothals between noble houses are generally of a shorter duration, as one would neither guarantee that a noble still be among them in the following years, nor would they imply that they would ever do the self-defeating notion of attempting to keep them out of harm’s way. Longer betrothals, in the rare cases they happen, are taken as a sign of immense confidence in the capabilities of those involved to not die despite whatever reckless behavior they chase.

Safety, it is said, is a price they are unwilling to pay.

[hellfrog]

I thought the premise was that it was a small (ish) population in a sealed city that was just opened up to the post-apoc world. In-city empires? Nations?

[Apos]

@hellfrog said:

I thought the premise was that it was a small (ish) population in a sealed city that was just opened up to the post-apoc world. In-city empires? Nations?

Thank you, let me explain a bit. So what I’m doing now is posting lore introductions for different starting areas, from the angle of an unreliable narrator for different areas.

Mechanically, a new player making an OC character would select a region, and from there they can select a different Beginning from the different cultural groups available, and some of these could have very dramatically different starting stories (like playing a member of an oppressed group within a culture).

Arx as a city has been cut off for a thousand years (from their perspective), and now the world is open for them to explore.

The other starting areas are different realms that have risen up since the most recent apocalypse. There is Luxen, Umbros detailed above, and then we have three others: Inferna, Ariwn, and Aythirmok. Past that, there’s several neighboring powers that won’t have CG available initially, but will open up later- Blighton, Jadairal, and the Southern Compact.

One significant mechanical difference from Arx will be a replacement for clues in our Codex system, which largely has all the IC knowledge that a character has. So if someone has specific cultural knowledge to their starting area, they would start with that in their Codex, and something shareable to other characters, and something they could research further as they delve into histories.

[real_mirage]

@Apos Very interesting!

So is this to be considered a sequel to Arx 1, and would it be 1,000 years in the future (via perspective) from Arx 1? Or are we doing a kind of reboot of the overall Arx story?

[Apos]

@real_mirage It’s canonically the same game world, if warped by the passage of ages and catastrophic events, though I am trying to write it so it should not require any knowledge of Arx 1.