DShomshak

The place names I liked most, though, were plain English. (Or perhaps slightly archaic English.) The valley of Doomfallen, in the Medusa Mountains, where once stood Effigy, the City of Statues. Druid colleges called the Song of Tomorrow, the Lake of the Willow's Daughter, Cauldrondale, the Stonegrave. The Mazewood. Wrecker's Rock and the Reef of Screams. Things like that.
 
Dean Shomshak

The place names I liked most, though, were plain English. (Or perhaps slightly archaic English.) The valley of Doomfallen, in the Medusa Mountains, where once stood Effigy, the City of Statues. Druid colleges called the Song of Tomorrow, the Lake of the Willow's Daughter, Cauldrondale, the Stonegrave. The Mazewood. Wrecker's Rock and the Reef of Screams. Things like that.
 
Dean Shomshak

Oh, sorcerer:
 
* One does not choose to be a saint; one accepts it. I doubt I could surrender my will to the necessary degree.
* Putting the 'fluence on people might be cool, but bleeding is not my idea of fun. Also, I doubt I could perform the necessary sacrifice.
* But having chatty imaginary friends in my head is my normal state. The magic might be fun, too. Especially for dealing with mosquitoes.
 
Though I pity the person who inherited my demon and, with it, a copy of my personality. Having *me* for an imaginary friend would be dire.
 
Dean Shomshak

Vote for Iuz, I will stretch out my skeletal hand from crumbling Dorakaa and raise the dead to serve my will. Their undead labor will drastically reduce necessary costs for infrastructure improvement. I’m pro family, in that all family members shall serve my dark reign or perish…
 
America has shown it’s willingness to be led by dark forces. Isn’t it time we embraced that destiny instead of hiding behind tired slogans?

In many cases, details equivalent to "name 5 Civil War generals" in the fantasy world don't much matter in advance, so I get where Duke's coming from.  
 
To get started...genre and expectations.  Genre:  fantasy, sci fi, modern tech, modern street-level supers.  Obviously build parameters here too.  Expectations...we'll specify a fantasy setting:
--magic:  common or rare?  How many people can do it all all?  Separately, how many people can do it *seriously*?  What about enchanted items?  If magic is rare, do the common folk accept it or fear it?  For full-time magical practitioners, are their SFX generally narrow or broad?  An elementalist (fire, water, earth, air) is still narrow by comparison to, say, a D&D wizard whose magic can encompass any class of power/effect.
--religion:  complex or simple pantheons?  Are there major factions?  Major animosities, a la, Crusades-era Christianity and Islam?  How much does religion influence daily life?  
--large-scale politics
--races and racial politics, at least the basic info
 
That should be enough to get the outline built, assigning most of the combat points.  Background specifics will probably need more info but I, as a player, won't know what specifics...so asking the GM to know all of them ahead of time is unreasonable.  Some?  Yeah...like, a simple pantheon will probably be fully defined, whereas a complex pantheon, maybe not.

Quick aside...I think my favorite religious setup is Bujold's Five Gods books.  Father (judge, law);  mother (medicine, household);  Son (battle, hunting);  daughter (youth, spring, new life);  and the Bastard (too complex to explain quickly...not an evil god at all, but one that's expiated as much as worshipped).  Belief...almost universal.  Bujold has a very nice funeral ceremony showing the soul of the person has been accepted, which answers a HUGE mission of any religion...what happens after death?  And it's otherwise pretty simple and straightforward, not overly bogged down with excessive trappings of portfolios and whatnot.

This map, done in 1986 for my FH game,  was scales so that each square  took about 5 days of travel by foot or oxcart. Less by horse or by river, but in general 5 days on foot. North to south would take several months.  East to west, the entire continent would take maybe about 3 years to travel west to east, bit that is another two or three sheets. In general most countries in Europe would take a week or two to cross on foot. with the exception of France. It took fewer in the Holy Roman Empire.  countries were the size that the local noble could gather resources and men to defend, within their cultural framework.

My observation is that a lot of game writers are frustrated novelists who can do the world-building for a novel, but can't actually write story, dialogue and character. Example: Me. Also describes a lot of the writers I dealt when freelancing on Exalted, but then it was my job as developer to keep them on track, producing stuff that might, just might, be useful in a campaign.
 
"I'm sorry, [Name], these three pages you wrote about the Solar Deliberative in the First Age is all freaky cool, but completely irrelevant to what is happening in Wavecrest right now. I'm cutting it."
 
Also, the people who wanted to give long descriptions of the cool, epic stuff that NPCs had done, instead of situations that GMs (excuse me, "Storytellers") could place PCs in right now.
 
I expect there was learning all around.
 
Dean Shomshak

Apropos of this, my experience writing and developing for Exalted suggests to me that some game writers -- though quite bright in other ways -- have a dubious grasp of geography and scale. Like, one writer who was creating a new country described it both as "small" and "a thousand miles wide." I reminded him that 1,000 miles is the distance between Chicago and New Orleans. This may be "small" compared to some countries in the setting, but it's a bit large and spread-out for some of the institutions he wanted the country to have.
 
Part of the problem, I think, is that Exalted started with a world map and design went down from there -- and when you start sketching borders on a mpa whose scale is 1 inch = 800 miles, you tend to get pretty big countries.
 
Discussing this on White Wolf's forum, I came up with this comparison for people who think you need big places for big stories. On the Exalted map, Ireland would fit within a quarter-inch square. Ireland, with all its weight of history, from the Tuatha de Danaan to the Troubles. Is Ireland too small for a Fantasy epic?
 
Okay, you say it is. Half an inch on the map can include most of the Ancient Greek world. Most of the Greek myths and epics happen within a half inch square, with a few excursions B eyond the Fields We Know such as the Argonautica or Odysseus sailing to the Underworld.
 
The Biblical Middle East fits within a one inch square. And all of China fits within a two inch square.
 
Now, Exalted campaigns are supposed to operate on a hyperbolic scale. Threats to the entire world are a thing. But that doesn't mean that everything needs to be gigantic. (And indeed, every place that isn't sprawling is a city-state, because then you just put a dot on the map.)
 
I also suspect that some cases where settings have huge spans of time but not much seems to be happening within them derive from a similar top-down approach, and would benefit from more bottom-up design. Like, don't start with 6,000 years or whatever and try to fill it. Start with now, decide what incidents are absolutely needed to explain current conditions (or to plant as story seeds, ore just as bits of atmosphere to help show what kind of setting this is), and figure out how much time you actually need to fit it in. Like, if the kingdom's leaders seethe in anger for a past military defeat and want to start a new war to avenge it, does the defeat need to be from a thousand years ago? When 10 or 20 would work as well? Or if the defeats did happen centuries ago, is it a point of the adventure that someone is deliberately dragging up and inflaming old grievances because they really really want a war?
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 

Apropos of this, my experience writing and developing for Exalted suggests to me that some game writers -- though quite bright in other ways -- have a dubious grasp of geography and scale. Like, one writer who was creating a new country described it both as "small" and "a thousand miles wide." I reminded him that 1,000 miles is the distance between Chicago and New Orleans. This may be "small" compared to some countries in the setting, but it's a bit large and spread-out for some of the institutions he wanted the country to have.
 
Part of the problem, I think, is that Exalted started with a world map and design went down from there -- and when you start sketching borders on a mpa whose scale is 1 inch = 800 miles, you tend to get pretty big countries.
 
Discussing this on White Wolf's forum, I came up with this comparison for people who think you need big places for big stories. On the Exalted map, Ireland would fit within a quarter-inch square. Ireland, with all its weight of history, from the Tuatha de Danaan to the Troubles. Is Ireland too small for a Fantasy epic?
 
Okay, you say it is. Half an inch on the map can include most of the Ancient Greek world. Most of the Greek myths and epics happen within a half inch square, with a few excursions B eyond the Fields We Know such as the Argonautica or Odysseus sailing to the Underworld.
 
The Biblical Middle East fits within a one inch square. And all of China fits within a two inch square.
 
Now, Exalted campaigns are supposed to operate on a hyperbolic scale. Threats to the entire world are a thing. But that doesn't mean that everything needs to be gigantic. (And indeed, every place that isn't sprawling is a city-state, because then you just put a dot on the map.)
 
I also suspect that some cases where settings have huge spans of time but not much seems to be happening within them derive from a similar top-down approach, and would benefit from more bottom-up design. Like, don't start with 6,000 years or whatever and try to fill it. Start with now, decide what incidents are absolutely needed to explain current conditions (or to plant as story seeds, ore just as bits of atmosphere to help show what kind of setting this is), and figure out how much time you actually need to fit it in. Like, if the kingdom's leaders seethe in anger for a past military defeat and want to start a new war to avenge it, does the defeat need to be from a thousand years ago? When 10 or 20 would work as well? Or if the defeats did happen centuries ago, is it a point of the adventure that someone is deliberately dragging up and inflaming old grievances because they really really want a war?
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 

Apropos of this, my experience writing and developing for Exalted suggests to me that some game writers -- though quite bright in other ways -- have a dubious grasp of geography and scale. Like, one writer who was creating a new country described it both as "small" and "a thousand miles wide." I reminded him that 1,000 miles is the distance between Chicago and New Orleans. This may be "small" compared to some countries in the setting, but it's a bit large and spread-out for some of the institutions he wanted the country to have.
 
Part of the problem, I think, is that Exalted started with a world map and design went down from there -- and when you start sketching borders on a mpa whose scale is 1 inch = 800 miles, you tend to get pretty big countries.
 
Discussing this on White Wolf's forum, I came up with this comparison for people who think you need big places for big stories. On the Exalted map, Ireland would fit within a quarter-inch square. Ireland, with all its weight of history, from the Tuatha de Danaan to the Troubles. Is Ireland too small for a Fantasy epic?
 
Okay, you say it is. Half an inch on the map can include most of the Ancient Greek world. Most of the Greek myths and epics happen within a half inch square, with a few excursions B eyond the Fields We Know such as the Argonautica or Odysseus sailing to the Underworld.
 
The Biblical Middle East fits within a one inch square. And all of China fits within a two inch square.
 
Now, Exalted campaigns are supposed to operate on a hyperbolic scale. Threats to the entire world are a thing. But that doesn't mean that everything needs to be gigantic. (And indeed, every place that isn't sprawling is a city-state, because then you just put a dot on the map.)
 
I also suspect that some cases where settings have huge spans of time but not much seems to be happening within them derive from a similar top-down approach, and would benefit from more bottom-up design. Like, don't start with 6,000 years or whatever and try to fill it. Start with now, decide what incidents are absolutely needed to explain current conditions (or to plant as story seeds, ore just as bits of atmosphere to help show what kind of setting this is), and figure out how much time you actually need to fit it in. Like, if the kingdom's leaders seethe in anger for a past military defeat and want to start a new war to avenge it, does the defeat need to be from a thousand years ago? When 10 or 20 would work as well? Or if the defeats did happen centuries ago, is it a point of the adventure that someone is deliberately dragging up and inflaming old grievances because they really really want a war?
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 

Apropos of this, my experience writing and developing for Exalted suggests to me that some game writers -- though quite bright in other ways -- have a dubious grasp of geography and scale. Like, one writer who was creating a new country described it both as "small" and "a thousand miles wide." I reminded him that 1,000 miles is the distance between Chicago and New Orleans. This may be "small" compared to some countries in the setting, but it's a bit large and spread-out for some of the institutions he wanted the country to have.
 
Part of the problem, I think, is that Exalted started with a world map and design went down from there -- and when you start sketching borders on a mpa whose scale is 1 inch = 800 miles, you tend to get pretty big countries.
 
Discussing this on White Wolf's forum, I came up with this comparison for people who think you need big places for big stories. On the Exalted map, Ireland would fit within a quarter-inch square. Ireland, with all its weight of history, from the Tuatha de Danaan to the Troubles. Is Ireland too small for a Fantasy epic?
 
Okay, you say it is. Half an inch on the map can include most of the Ancient Greek world. Most of the Greek myths and epics happen within a half inch square, with a few excursions B eyond the Fields We Know such as the Argonautica or Odysseus sailing to the Underworld.
 
The Biblical Middle East fits within a one inch square. And all of China fits within a two inch square.
 
Now, Exalted campaigns are supposed to operate on a hyperbolic scale. Threats to the entire world are a thing. But that doesn't mean that everything needs to be gigantic. (And indeed, every place that isn't sprawling is a city-state, because then you just put a dot on the map.)
 
I also suspect that some cases where settings have huge spans of time but not much seems to be happening within them derive from a similar top-down approach, and would benefit from more bottom-up design. Like, don't start with 6,000 years or whatever and try to fill it. Start with now, decide what incidents are absolutely needed to explain current conditions (or to plant as story seeds, ore just as bits of atmosphere to help show what kind of setting this is), and figure out how much time you actually need to fit it in. Like, if the kingdom's leaders seethe in anger for a past military defeat and want to start a new war to avenge it, does the defeat need to be from a thousand years ago? When 10 or 20 would work as well? Or if the defeats did happen centuries ago, is it a point of the adventure that someone is deliberately dragging up and inflaming old grievances because they really really want a war?
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 

Apropos of this, my experience writing and developing for Exalted suggests to me that some game writers -- though quite bright in other ways -- have a dubious grasp of geography and scale. Like, one writer who was creating a new country described it both as "small" and "a thousand miles wide." I reminded him that 1,000 miles is the distance between Chicago and New Orleans. This may be "small" compared to some countries in the setting, but it's a bit large and spread-out for some of the institutions he wanted the country to have.
 
Part of the problem, I think, is that Exalted started with a world map and design went down from there -- and when you start sketching borders on a mpa whose scale is 1 inch = 800 miles, you tend to get pretty big countries.
 
Discussing this on White Wolf's forum, I came up with this comparison for people who think you need big places for big stories. On the Exalted map, Ireland would fit within a quarter-inch square. Ireland, with all its weight of history, from the Tuatha de Danaan to the Troubles. Is Ireland too small for a Fantasy epic?
 
Okay, you say it is. Half an inch on the map can include most of the Ancient Greek world. Most of the Greek myths and epics happen within a half inch square, with a few excursions B eyond the Fields We Know such as the Argonautica or Odysseus sailing to the Underworld.
 
The Biblical Middle East fits within a one inch square. And all of China fits within a two inch square.
 
Now, Exalted campaigns are supposed to operate on a hyperbolic scale. Threats to the entire world are a thing. But that doesn't mean that everything needs to be gigantic. (And indeed, every place that isn't sprawling is a city-state, because then you just put a dot on the map.)
 
I also suspect that some cases where settings have huge spans of time but not much seems to be happening within them derive from a similar top-down approach, and would benefit from more bottom-up design. Like, don't start with 6,000 years or whatever and try to fill it. Start with now, decide what incidents are absolutely needed to explain current conditions (or to plant as story seeds, ore just as bits of atmosphere to help show what kind of setting this is), and figure out how much time you actually need to fit it in. Like, if the kingdom's leaders seethe in anger for a past military defeat and want to start a new war to avenge it, does the defeat need to be from a thousand years ago? When 10 or 20 would work as well? Or if the defeats did happen centuries ago, is it a point of the adventure that someone is deliberately dragging up and inflaming old grievances because they really really want a war?
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 

In my last D&D campaign, I came up with some basic naming patterns for people and places. Like, "Darod" meant any fortified place and could be used either as suffix or prefix, giving locations such as Sundarod or Darod Femoy. I tried to keep it common enough to show that it was a thing, but not so omnipresent as to become tedious. Then some more names ending in -thezor; again, just enough to show it's a thing. Also lots of place names based on landscape or occupational features, such as Lindy's Mill, Snakebridge, Shorseport, Thornhill. Pone's Crossing. Most proper names were one or two syllables. "=ion" could be used as a suffix for surnames, indication descent from a notable ancestor. Thus, the family of wizards descended from the great mage Sith Korosh where the House of Sithion. The evil overlord was named Bel Shanion.
 
My current campaign is based in a fading empire loosely impired by the Byzantine Empire, so humans have Greek or Roman names, or from other languages that have been Latinized (as was often done in the Middle Ages, e.g., Baruch to Barocius, or Remy to Remigius). Such names are easy to find in quantity, such as from Kate Monk's Onomasticon website. In fact, I went through it and saved most of the name lists to draw upon for different cultures. Elves of course get Celtic/Irish/Welsh names because duh, and dwarves get Norse or Germanic names for the same reason. (Though for dwarves, I also went through the index for the Prose Edda which, naturally, names a lot of dwarves. Giants, too. Thank you, Snorri Sturlason.)
 
For exotic names where context doesn't matter much, I often turn to the atlas. There's a lot of boring names, but with patience you can also pull out cool names such as Bagrash Kol, Ikerre, Mizratah, Osoom, or Saravane. (A fair number of the proper names I used in Doctor Strange-style spells for Ultimate Supermage/etc. came from the atlas in this way.)
 
Dean Shomshak

I'm sorry to say it, but... almost certainly not. Sales were piddling, both here and on DriveThruRPG. Not worth the work -- especially the illustration. I am not an artist. I can sort of fake it sometimes, but it's like pulling my own teeth. Taking care of my mother in her declining years has also been an impediment.
 
It's a shame, because I do have more Shared Origins I'd like to complete. The Parallax Event for the Shared Accident: A bit of stolen alien technology goes kaboom, and the wave of hyperspacial energy gives random people super-powers -- especially the people nearest, who form a supervillain team called the Constellation. Or there's Wreck of Empire: Professor Proton was one of the world's most powerful villains, but his ruthlessness led to his death. Some of his lieutenants try to keep his criminal empire going, but many of his agents, bases and weapons are up for grabs, creating Spinoff Characters. And for a Power-Granting Artifact I have the Doomsday Cross created by the Warlock, which pulls various lesser demon lords out of Hell to possess unwitting mortals. A few more. But they are all stalled at various points. At least you've got the concepts now, to develop for yourself.
 
Gladiator6c.pdf
 
 
And I see the attached file vanished at some point. Here it is again, I think.
 
EDIT: Old files detached.
 
Dean Shomshak
Gladiator6c.pdf

I'm sorry to say it, but... almost certainly not. Sales were piddling, both here and on DriveThruRPG. Not worth the work -- especially the illustration. I am not an artist. I can sort of fake it sometimes, but it's like pulling my own teeth. Taking care of my mother in her declining years has also been an impediment.
 
It's a shame, because I do have more Shared Origins I'd like to complete. The Parallax Event for the Shared Accident: A bit of stolen alien technology goes kaboom, and the wave of hyperspacial energy gives random people super-powers -- especially the people nearest, who form a supervillain team called the Constellation. Or there's Wreck of Empire: Professor Proton was one of the world's most powerful villains, but his ruthlessness led to his death. Some of his lieutenants try to keep his criminal empire going, but many of his agents, bases and weapons are up for grabs, creating Spinoff Characters. And for a Power-Granting Artifact I have the Doomsday Cross created by the Warlock, which pulls various lesser demon lords out of Hell to possess unwitting mortals. A few more. But they are all stalled at various points. At least you've got the concepts now, to develop for yourself.
 
Gladiator6c.pdf
 
 
And I see the attached file vanished at some point. Here it is again, I think.
 
EDIT: Old files detached.
 
Dean Shomshak
Gladiator6c.pdf

I'm sorry to say it, but... almost certainly not. Sales were piddling, both here and on DriveThruRPG. Not worth the work -- especially the illustration. I am not an artist. I can sort of fake it sometimes, but it's like pulling my own teeth. Taking care of my mother in her declining years has also been an impediment.
 
It's a shame, because I do have more Shared Origins I'd like to complete. The Parallax Event for the Shared Accident: A bit of stolen alien technology goes kaboom, and the wave of hyperspacial energy gives random people super-powers -- especially the people nearest, who form a supervillain team called the Constellation. Or there's Wreck of Empire: Professor Proton was one of the world's most powerful villains, but his ruthlessness led to his death. Some of his lieutenants try to keep his criminal empire going, but many of his agents, bases and weapons are up for grabs, creating Spinoff Characters. And for a Power-Granting Artifact I have the Doomsday Cross created by the Warlock, which pulls various lesser demon lords out of Hell to possess unwitting mortals. A few more. But they are all stalled at various points. At least you've got the concepts now, to develop for yourself.
 
Gladiator6c.pdf
 
 
And I see the attached file vanished at some point. Here it is again, I think.
 
EDIT: Old files detached.
 
Dean Shomshak
Gladiator6c.pdf

I'm sorry to say it, but... almost certainly not. Sales were piddling, both here and on DriveThruRPG. Not worth the work -- especially the illustration. I am not an artist. I can sort of fake it sometimes, but it's like pulling my own teeth. Taking care of my mother in her declining years has also been an impediment.
 
It's a shame, because I do have more Shared Origins I'd like to complete. The Parallax Event for the Shared Accident: A bit of stolen alien technology goes kaboom, and the wave of hyperspacial energy gives random people super-powers -- especially the people nearest, who form a supervillain team called the Constellation. Or there's Wreck of Empire: Professor Proton was one of the world's most powerful villains, but his ruthlessness led to his death. Some of his lieutenants try to keep his criminal empire going, but many of his agents, bases and weapons are up for grabs, creating Spinoff Characters. And for a Power-Granting Artifact I have the Doomsday Cross created by the Warlock, which pulls various lesser demon lords out of Hell to possess unwitting mortals. A few more. But they are all stalled at various points. At least you've got the concepts now, to develop for yourself.
 
Gladiator6c.pdf
 
 
And I see the attached file vanished at some point. Here it is again, I think.
 
EDIT: Old files detached.
 
Dean Shomshak
Gladiator6c.pdf

I took a look on Wikipedia at Chinese History and WOW!
 
If you think China has been in its present borders all this time, think again.  Add all the time when the country fragmented into warring states ( at one point it was about 10 different states) and you rapidly get the idea that China's history is like boom or bust.  Periods of great stability and prosperity, then civil wars with huge losses of life and displacement.

Apropos of which, the Marketplace radio program yesterday said that Tesla Motors just filed its patent for using lasers as windshield wipers.
 
<All together now> What could possibly go wrong?
 
Especially with autonomous vehicles? Everyone loves robots with death rays!
 
Dean Shomshak

My "Magozoic" D&D setting has many pantheons, and only one. Theologians know there are 10 transcendent Godheads, called Archons, each associated with one of the celestial planes. However, mortals cannot interact directly with Archons -- only with avatars of the Archons, shaped by mortal imagination, whom mortals call gods. Gods seem to have distinct forms and personalities, can be born, die and reborn, get in fights, and generally behave like people with big magic powers. None of this affects the Archon, any more than a battle between two hand-puppets affects the puppeteer. A god can be forgotten for ages, but can be re-created if the ancient myths are rediscovered and the rites performed again. (One of the PCs just became the first cleric of such a long-forgotten god.)
 
This permits an unlimited number of pantheons, which are all true and all false. Humans tend to have pantheons modeled on human royal families, because that's such a common human system of authority.
* The Yidmiri pantheon (modeled rather obviously on the Greco-Roman pantheon) has a multiple generations, and many of the gods are children (legitimate or otherwise) of the ruling sky-and-storm god.
* The Marolici pantehon (modeled on Norse) has two families, with some intermarriage, and a few oddballs of obscure origin.
* The Drohashgi pantheon (modeled on Egyptian) has a primordial creator sun-god with several generations of descendants.
 
But there are exceptions. The broad Macrine plain is a land of city-states who have spent millennia conquering each other. Each city had its own pantheon: the gods were nearly identical, but the names and relationships differed. When one city rose to dominate the rest, it declared its own gods the "real" versions and the gods of the conquered peoples were versions of them. After many millennia of this, the Macrine people stopped giving their gods names and just refer to them by the roles: the Thunderer, the Emperor and Empress, the Hierophant, the Overseer, the Priestess, the Charioteer, the Star-Maiden, the Fool, and so on.
 
Nonhumans have different models of authroity and, consequently, different pantheons.
* The region's dwarves seem to have a divine family -- but the other gods aren't the children of the dominant creator-god; they were made in the creator's forge. Dwarves take the artisan, rather than sexual reproduction, as their model of creative power.
* The region's elves have a pantheon of deified heroes whose deeds made them living expressions of the Archons: for instance, the great general Ferrai became one of their war gods, while the mage Eboriax became their God of Magic by codifying the eight schools of wizardry. Most of their gods are deified elves because, well, obviously no one is more perfect than an elf (Admit it. In your heart you know it's true.) But not all.
* The gods of the gnomes are also deified mortals, but they are gnomes who ascended to divinity through various comical or unlikely means; they are modeled on the Chinese Eight Immortals.
And so on.
 
Prophets are important in this system, because they shape mortal belief and so change the nature of the gods. This may result in radical re-interpretation. For instance, the cult of Jeduthon Soteira turned a randy and temperamental sun-god into a figure of mystic enlightenment. Many people worship Jeduthon Soteira who don't give a rat's ass about the rest of the Yidmiri pantheon. Another prophet re-interpreted the Drohashi sun-god Sorath (son of the primordial god Suzeratos; "active" ruler of Heaven to his passive authority) as the true and supreme god whom all must worship; and invented, basically, Jihadism.
 
Conversely, there's also a lot of syncretism, as believers in Macrine gods assimilate gods from other pantheons to Macrine deities: as the Marolici storm-and-war god Talse and the Drohashi storm-and-war god Barakel are assimilated to the Thunderer.
 
All this is in support of a campaign whose premise is one of mortals being responsible for the world they live in. There is no supernatural Big Bad, whether Satan, Sauron or Cthulhu, to blame troubles on. And if mortals get it wrong, there is no Daddy in the Sky to save them. Or even to tell them what the right course is.
 
This is of course not suitable for every campaign. (And I threw out most of the bog-standard D&D cosmology.)
Dean Shomshak

... Assuming this SCOTUS even cares how many precedents it overturns, or what legal cans of worms it opens, as long as it gets the desired result on this one issue.
 
I would hope the five extremists would at least have the basic sanity to resist this.
 
Dean Shomshak

Perseverance rover collects very first sample of Mars rock for return to Earth

Also, had this 1982 Supreme Court case pointed out to me.
 
LARKIN ET AL.
v.
GRENDEL'S DEN, INC.
 
https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/cases/5577
 
Apparently, a state can't in all cases delegate regulatory duties to private individuals or private organizations because it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It has to pick and choose when it can according to whether the private organization is substantially doing the regulatory duty using the same standard as a state agency would.
 
In the Texas abortion case, however, the state is attempting to devolve regulatory power onto private individuals or private organizations which no state agency even has. That's violating the precedent which Larkin v Grendel set up.
 
Which makes any court challenge to the Texas law much easier since the Supreme Court has already set up guidelines for how to a state may do such a thing. And how it may not....
 

My "Magozoic" D&D setting has many pantheons, and only one. Theologians know there are 10 transcendent Godheads, called Archons, each associated with one of the celestial planes. However, mortals cannot interact directly with Archons -- only with avatars of the Archons, shaped by mortal imagination, whom mortals call gods. Gods seem to have distinct forms and personalities, can be born, die and reborn, get in fights, and generally behave like people with big magic powers. None of this affects the Archon, any more than a battle between two hand-puppets affects the puppeteer. A god can be forgotten for ages, but can be re-created if the ancient myths are rediscovered and the rites performed again. (One of the PCs just became the first cleric of such a long-forgotten god.)
 
This permits an unlimited number of pantheons, which are all true and all false. Humans tend to have pantheons modeled on human royal families, because that's such a common human system of authority.
* The Yidmiri pantheon (modeled rather obviously on the Greco-Roman pantheon) has a multiple generations, and many of the gods are children (legitimate or otherwise) of the ruling sky-and-storm god.
* The Marolici pantehon (modeled on Norse) has two families, with some intermarriage, and a few oddballs of obscure origin.
* The Drohashgi pantheon (modeled on Egyptian) has a primordial creator sun-god with several generations of descendants.
 
But there are exceptions. The broad Macrine plain is a land of city-states who have spent millennia conquering each other. Each city had its own pantheon: the gods were nearly identical, but the names and relationships differed. When one city rose to dominate the rest, it declared its own gods the "real" versions and the gods of the conquered peoples were versions of them. After many millennia of this, the Macrine people stopped giving their gods names and just refer to them by the roles: the Thunderer, the Emperor and Empress, the Hierophant, the Overseer, the Priestess, the Charioteer, the Star-Maiden, the Fool, and so on.
 
Nonhumans have different models of authroity and, consequently, different pantheons.
* The region's dwarves seem to have a divine family -- but the other gods aren't the children of the dominant creator-god; they were made in the creator's forge. Dwarves take the artisan, rather than sexual reproduction, as their model of creative power.
* The region's elves have a pantheon of deified heroes whose deeds made them living expressions of the Archons: for instance, the great general Ferrai became one of their war gods, while the mage Eboriax became their God of Magic by codifying the eight schools of wizardry. Most of their gods are deified elves because, well, obviously no one is more perfect than an elf (Admit it. In your heart you know it's true.) But not all.
* The gods of the gnomes are also deified mortals, but they are gnomes who ascended to divinity through various comical or unlikely means; they are modeled on the Chinese Eight Immortals.
And so on.
 
Prophets are important in this system, because they shape mortal belief and so change the nature of the gods. This may result in radical re-interpretation. For instance, the cult of Jeduthon Soteira turned a randy and temperamental sun-god into a figure of mystic enlightenment. Many people worship Jeduthon Soteira who don't give a rat's ass about the rest of the Yidmiri pantheon. Another prophet re-interpreted the Drohashi sun-god Sorath (son of the primordial god Suzeratos; "active" ruler of Heaven to his passive authority) as the true and supreme god whom all must worship; and invented, basically, Jihadism.
 
Conversely, there's also a lot of syncretism, as believers in Macrine gods assimilate gods from other pantheons to Macrine deities: as the Marolici storm-and-war god Talse and the Drohashi storm-and-war god Barakel are assimilated to the Thunderer.
 
All this is in support of a campaign whose premise is one of mortals being responsible for the world they live in. There is no supernatural Big Bad, whether Satan, Sauron or Cthulhu, to blame troubles on. And if mortals get it wrong, there is no Daddy in the Sky to save them. Or even to tell them what the right course is.
 
This is of course not suitable for every campaign. (And I threw out most of the bog-standard D&D cosmology.)
Dean Shomshak

My "Magozoic" D&D setting has many pantheons, and only one. Theologians know there are 10 transcendent Godheads, called Archons, each associated with one of the celestial planes. However, mortals cannot interact directly with Archons -- only with avatars of the Archons, shaped by mortal imagination, whom mortals call gods. Gods seem to have distinct forms and personalities, can be born, die and reborn, get in fights, and generally behave like people with big magic powers. None of this affects the Archon, any more than a battle between two hand-puppets affects the puppeteer. A god can be forgotten for ages, but can be re-created if the ancient myths are rediscovered and the rites performed again. (One of the PCs just became the first cleric of such a long-forgotten god.)
 
This permits an unlimited number of pantheons, which are all true and all false. Humans tend to have pantheons modeled on human royal families, because that's such a common human system of authority.
* The Yidmiri pantheon (modeled rather obviously on the Greco-Roman pantheon) has a multiple generations, and many of the gods are children (legitimate or otherwise) of the ruling sky-and-storm god.
* The Marolici pantehon (modeled on Norse) has two families, with some intermarriage, and a few oddballs of obscure origin.
* The Drohashgi pantheon (modeled on Egyptian) has a primordial creator sun-god with several generations of descendants.
 
But there are exceptions. The broad Macrine plain is a land of city-states who have spent millennia conquering each other. Each city had its own pantheon: the gods were nearly identical, but the names and relationships differed. When one city rose to dominate the rest, it declared its own gods the "real" versions and the gods of the conquered peoples were versions of them. After many millennia of this, the Macrine people stopped giving their gods names and just refer to them by the roles: the Thunderer, the Emperor and Empress, the Hierophant, the Overseer, the Priestess, the Charioteer, the Star-Maiden, the Fool, and so on.
 
Nonhumans have different models of authroity and, consequently, different pantheons.
* The region's dwarves seem to have a divine family -- but the other gods aren't the children of the dominant creator-god; they were made in the creator's forge. Dwarves take the artisan, rather than sexual reproduction, as their model of creative power.
* The region's elves have a pantheon of deified heroes whose deeds made them living expressions of the Archons: for instance, the great general Ferrai became one of their war gods, while the mage Eboriax became their God of Magic by codifying the eight schools of wizardry. Most of their gods are deified elves because, well, obviously no one is more perfect than an elf (Admit it. In your heart you know it's true.) But not all.
* The gods of the gnomes are also deified mortals, but they are gnomes who ascended to divinity through various comical or unlikely means; they are modeled on the Chinese Eight Immortals.
And so on.
 
Prophets are important in this system, because they shape mortal belief and so change the nature of the gods. This may result in radical re-interpretation. For instance, the cult of Jeduthon Soteira turned a randy and temperamental sun-god into a figure of mystic enlightenment. Many people worship Jeduthon Soteira who don't give a rat's ass about the rest of the Yidmiri pantheon. Another prophet re-interpreted the Drohashi sun-god Sorath (son of the primordial god Suzeratos; "active" ruler of Heaven to his passive authority) as the true and supreme god whom all must worship; and invented, basically, Jihadism.
 
Conversely, there's also a lot of syncretism, as believers in Macrine gods assimilate gods from other pantheons to Macrine deities: as the Marolici storm-and-war god Talse and the Drohashi storm-and-war god Barakel are assimilated to the Thunderer.
 
All this is in support of a campaign whose premise is one of mortals being responsible for the world they live in. There is no supernatural Big Bad, whether Satan, Sauron or Cthulhu, to blame troubles on. And if mortals get it wrong, there is no Daddy in the Sky to save them. Or even to tell them what the right course is.
 
This is of course not suitable for every campaign. (And I threw out most of the bog-standard D&D cosmology.)
Dean Shomshak