Exilian
Game Design and Project Resources: The Workshops Quarter => Tabletop Design - The Senet House => Utherwald Press => Topic started by: stormwell on October 21, 2015, 02:14:14 PM
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This week we take a look at the Ancient Terrans' legacy that folks are likely to encounter from ruins through to artefacts and something else entirely. Least some of this week's post should prove useful as fodder for adventure ideas.
I'm also taking requests/suggestions for posts, so if there is a Frozen Skies related topic then by means let me know. Cheers.
http://www.utherwaldpress.com/2015/10/remnants.html
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Have you got any examples of the sorts of artefacts that turn up/technologies that are unavailable to the current humans that might have once existed?
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I envision Ancient Terran relics and artefacts being similar to archeotech from Warhammer 40K, both are advanced technology for which the knowledge of and means to produce has been lost.
Compared to a 1940s technological base modern battery powered toys will be considered hi-tech thats straight out of Science Fiction, a laser weapon even more so (though they did give serious thought to weaponizing radar as a 'death ray'). Granted with Weird Science its possible to build a Pulp era style raygun, though a 40K style las weapon would probably be Ancient Terran for example...the difference is that the latter isn't that likely to explode during use.
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OK, so a small AT trinket for a rich collector could be, say, a high-function digital watch or a touch-sensitive electric lamp, whereas the governments are trying to locate advanced weapons systems etc? That makes sense.
(I mention collectors because a wealthy collector is the sort of thing that could be a good quest NPC).
Also, in terms of post requests - how does news and information spread in Frozen Skies, especially outside military channels? I'm guessing radio exists, but is it commonly used? Are there newspapers and is there any television/film? A cool idea might be to have no TV network or broadcasts but travelling mini-cinemas that stop off in different towns and show silent films (these were common in the early C20th in realspace IIRC).
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Yes.
I'd imagine most communications being radio based with a functional postal system (mostly air mail) and a somewhat limited telephone network (exclusively in the biggest cities). Given that TVs were a rarity in Britain in the 1930s and what limited TV service there was got cancelled when WW2 started its probably safe to say that TVs are virtually non-existent in the setting's world, save perhaps for a visual PA system in the Iron Collective for example.
Funnily enough I was thinking about how to work in travelling circuses, though mini-cinemas would probably work even better given that the Flying Scotsman service had a dedicated cinema carriage and I believe portable cinemas were used for troop morale in WW2/1950s.
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Both would make some sense, I think, yes. Travelling entertainers of any sort are also fantastic for GMs to use for all sorts of purposes :)