Nuclear Beasts

Setting Promo

I need some sort of teaser that I can post places to solicit comments on the setting itself. I know where to go for rules feedback, but before I start statting things up, I need a better handle on what elements should be statted up, and which should be discarded.

Let me think... what things do I want to mention?

• The Ancient Laws.
• The fact that Caretakers and Rangers are cyborgs.
• What a Beast is.
• The three generations of Beasts.
• Psychic powers (at least their existence).
• Exterminators.
• The Blight.
• The whole "mysticism layered over high tech" theme.

Should I replace "generation" with a different term? Perhaps a clinical one like "batch" or "vat"? Or "wave"?

Man once ruled this world, but Man is no more. The Last War undid his works, his life and (some say) his very soul. The ruins of his great cities lie scattered across the landscape, guarded by metal golems and strange, twisted monsters.

The All-Mother looked across the wreckage of the world and sorrowed that her child Man was dead. Her tears washed over the animals gathered at her feet and made them anew. To them, she gave the Gifts of Man, the ability to think and speak, so that they might be like Man once was.

The first generation of Beasts were fierce and powerful animals that could drive away the monsters that stalked the ruins of Man's world.

The second generation of Beasts were small creatures, with clever paws that could use Man's tools but still ran on all fours.

The third generation walked upright like Man.

And the All-Mother gave unto them the Ancient Laws, the sacred rules which they were to live by:

1. Harm not the Beasts who speak, nor eat their flesh.
2. The Caretakers are the arms of the All-Mother; the Oracles are Her voice.
3. Seek the fertile lands and tend them.
4. Honor the memory of Man.

But that was generations ago, and now the many breeds of Beast have spread far and wide. They have developed strange powers and abilities. The art of Rending, whereby a Beast's claws could tear through metal as though it were flesh, was the first such power to be discovered, but it was far from the last.

While the Caretakers and the Oracles still dispense the word of the All-Mother from the sacred caverns wherein she resides, their numbers have remained constant while the other Beasts have flourished and grown. Their power and authority is waning. The most distant of settlements have begun to question their wisdom, their authority and even the divine nature of the All-Mother.

The silvered flesh and metal skullcap of the Caretakers, once regarded by all as holy, are now viewed with suspicion. The Engineers, those Beasts most learned in the lost science of Man, have come to fear the Caretakers and the All-Mother. They use a new word for those Beasts whom the All-Mother has blessed by turning part of their bodies to metal.

That word is cyborg.

Posted by Kiz at July 16, 2004 04:20 PM