Edsel

Re: Shadow Angelus

Remember that the city is capable of slow movement and does move seasonally to place the city in favorable weather patterns. I see the city existing in the area around San Fransico during the Summer and heading down to around LA or San Diego during the winter months. The ability to move also allows the city to monitor developing weather patterns and move from areas that are predicted to be subject to especailly high waves.

Re: Shadow Angelus

Is this more like what you were looking for?

 

 

I'll need to re-draw it a bit but this is a down and dirty rough. More channels? Do you want them thinner? More rounding?

I like this better.

Hydrolizers you can make arguments that hydrolyzers hold up squares or circles. You'd end up with one goofy looking city if you based designs on either. You could make a city out of squares (think ma jong) but it would be extremely geometrical. You could make a city out of circles but there would be lots of holes in it or it would end up square as you overlapped.

I think people would prefer something like your latest outline, it appears more natural and that would appeal to the populace more.

Here are my thoughts on geopolitics and urban design in Angelus. First, if this is anything like Kazei 5 and the Neo York PD Inc - I'll assume massive corporate ownership as well as some form of city governance. You can't really design to 100% capacitance. More like 80% and there are some issues with failed projects (see Rho Sector). There are going to be open spaces for expansion within the city owned by people/corporations who just refuse to sell. Those areas will be water/water channels. Maybe even full on ocean - that was the idea behind the wider channels (that "land" was corporate owned but undeveloped).

 

I am going to assume that a hydrolyzer actually supports a circle since that makes more sense for load bearing. These would see 70-80% utilization and then be cross stabilized with other hydrolyzer platforms. Building in the round is hard. Sure, some buildings - corporate plazas and such - will be round. It is a sign of arrogance (if you can waste space, you're flaunting wealth). Mass residencies would be a polygon (rectangle or square) both for the interior utilization and exterior footprint. You can still have a rounded shape on the shore but that means under utilized space in a city twice as crowded as Tokyo. I'd think that each hydrolyzer must be a massive machine exerting some type of plasma based force field for buoyancy (that explains the rain). Think of a football stadium under each "platform" with significant portions extending into the surface. Maybe a platform is 1 mile across? Remember that there are 50 stories (100 stories?) of buildings on some of these bad boys. Hundreds of millions of tons without considering the organics (billions, trillions of tons?).

 

The plasma fields would need to interact or be completely transparent to one another.

 

The hydrolyzers could also be some sort of weak anti-grav field. To limit them you could basically require that they consume the energy output of a nuclear power plant... each.

Plasma fields mean a lot of heat thus a lot of evaporation and that handles the rain issue nicely I imagine that there are some pretty large steam chimmneys in this city. Most would probably be near the edges of the city but some are going to have to be in the interior. Perhaps they can shunt the steam to the downwind sides of the city at will in an effort to prevent the city being as fogged in all the time.

Re: Shadow Angelus

Yeah' date=' many (most) canals are not going to be visible. I cut down on the number of channels because I thought that you did not want them. I can certainly add channels but scale is a problem - only the major ones should be shown. I can also tighten the big north to south channel. I figured that area for the industrial area so a largish (but not 2 mile) channel would work to help move around heavy equipment. [/quote']

 

When I saw the original Marco City map with the massive amounts of docks and canals, I panicked! I envisioned you making a map with that number of large canals. I agree that we will have several large "arterial" canals and that many smaller ones will branch from them. At this scale those smaller canals would not be visible.

 

It occurs to me the central lake, in addition to being senic might also work as part of the city's fresh water supply. The Hydrolizers cause a lot of rain which falls as fresh water and it collected here (this isn't Silent Mobius with its acid rain problems). That cuts down on the need for costly desalination. The channel that leads to the ocean acts as a flood channel allowing excess water to flow back to the ocean.

Re: Shadow Angelus

Wouldn't a rough circle be more structurally stable?

One thing to think about is the "hydrolizers" that keep the city afloat and provide motive force. It would seem that these things can only keep a certain footprint afloat each. I envision the hydrolizers as being fairly large and each one supports a platform (perhaps round or square) these platforms are tied together to create the city. The question is then just how big are the hydrolizers and how much of an area to they support? One square mile each? Five square miles each? Is each platform roughly circular, square, triangular, etc.?

Re: Shadow Angelus

We will go with the 100 + 100 in Disads that we currently have. You can get the bonus XP using the DEX rebate rule. I think that I will use the generous XP option for the first several sessions as we experiment with what does and doesn't work. Of course extra-game work (like making city maps, writing side stories, etc.) will likely earn extra XP as well.

Re: Shadow Angelus

I have spent a lot of time today reviewing proposed character histories from some of my players. Here is something that the people following this thread might be able to help me with...

One of the characters has included in his background a bombing that hit one of the regular police precincts in Angelus on April Fool's Day 2110. This bombing was carried out by an underground militant Clade rights faction. In the character's history this group is called RIGHTEOUS but no definition for that acronym is offered. I think it would be cool to either figure out a logical meaning behind that acronym or replace it with another one that does have a logical name behind it. You know something like FAD (Folks Against Discrimination) -- but something much cooler than that. Anyone care to make some suggestions?

[Not to say that I am not arrogant.. I am. A little. However' date= I try and maintain some perspective and humility. Did I mention that I am a math Tard and I suck at spelling? I'll stop before I spill all the dirty secrets.]

At least he quit making us call him Your Lordship at the gaming table.

Re: Shadow Angelus

A couple of questions to those involved in the original Shadows Angelus I and II campaigns, I am pretty sure these can be answered without giving my potential player's any spoilers:

1. Were there any rules, like the resource pool rules, from Dark Champions for equipping the characters, or was it just handled at the discretion of the GM? Personally I am leaning toward the latter.

2. Were there any particular Damage Class, Active Point, Combat Value limits, etc. Imposed during character creation? Did these values change during the course of the campaign?

3. What were the Lace & Steel games all about? Was this some sort of gladitorial combat?

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

Ever notice that when you start a project that you want to work on everything that can possibly gobble-up your free time decides to suddenly happen?

Re: Shadow Angelus

A few comments on the map. I am coming around to Eosin's way of thinking on it. In the original campaign the timeline lists a completion date for Angelus. This makes it sound like the "platform" for the city was created as a single massive unit and then the city was built atop it. Over the years more "urbanization" has been added as additional population and industry move in.

A more realistic model would be that the original platform was built, which probably is the nucleus of the city that exists in 2112. As the city needed to expand, the platform was probably extended as needed. In this theory a circular shape would not be very realistic. Where an expansion takes place would define the shape of the city.

"We need to expand. We'll have to buy out the docks in sector 23 since we can get them for the lowesrt cost. Then we'll add another 180 acre expansion in that area."

The city ends up being a hodge-podge assembly. Not ugly by any means, but probably of a non-geometric and somewhat random footprint.

Eosin I like your map design pretty good. I think that almost all of the outer perimeter of the city would still be docks and the like. The section you have ear-marked as the Omega Sector makes since. It was a suburban area at the time of the event, so likely near the edge. After the event nobody wants to build adjacent to it so it remains on the edge to this day.

Re: Shadow Angelus

The blue steel special was built as a vehicle, although the way power armor works in Shadows Angelus is a bit different. Most powered frames that are NOT for military or security use have simple analog control systems, meaning that they are powerful but slow and often clumsy.

 

Security and military sets of powered armor clone a section of the pilot's spinal cord and extend it into the armor's control systems. The pilot essentially "plugs in" via this cloned nervous system and thus is controlling the armor like it is his own body, making those powered armor suits far more agile and quick to respond. The downside to this system is that the suits are more "sensitive" to damage, meaning that the pilot takes a portion of the STUN damage inflicted.

So since the armor was specifically "wired" for a particular pilot does this mean that any sort of Perk or Talent was required to hop in a suit of armor and go? I have looked over Tyger's character sheet and it doesn't seem so.

Important setting rule: Take 20 STUN in one lump sum' date=' take 1 BODY. Doesn't matter how you took that 20 STU, could have been an NND or an Ego Attack, but you're taking 1 BODY. That rule nearly killed Jama once... or was it twice?[/quote']

 

I have already decided to use this one.

 

I like that rule and the TK rule you imposed. Too bad I am playing a normal.

 

What TK rule? What did I miss?

Re: Shadow Angelus

We always seem to have the most interesting posts just when I should be trying to get some sleep. I gotta be up for work in 7-hours. I'll have to digest the city design and post when I have more time for coherent thinking.

Re: Shadow Angelus

I have been trying to figure out if there were any special rules or concepts that were used for magic in the original SA campaigns. Of course I have examined Jama's character sheet, her spells an the session story "All In The Family."

Jama calls upon the spirits (Hantu) that dwell in all things. But she also states that that is how all magic works. All sorcerers, regardless of their tradition, call call on or borrow powers from spirits of one sort or another. Being primarily an Animist Jama calls upon nature spirits. She says that Hermetic magicians borrow the power of the "Celestial Angels." I'd like to know how that worked, if it ever came up in any of your games. I am assuming that this would be a classical western world wizard. If so, what sorts of game stipulations were made regarding how their magic worked?

My guess is that our sorcerer player will be likely to go the Hermetic route, if I am understanding all of this Juju stuff correctly. I am going to have to set forth some guidelines for how to do that sort of magic once he starts asking.

How did the Power Armor Blue Steel Special work in SA as compared to the rules in Kazei-5? Should it be simple powered armor or should it be built as a vehicle? Personally I am leaning toward the latter.

Re: Shadow Angelus

I cannot imagine that most of the public would not travel by means of some mass transit system. A subway seems out on first blush so a raised rail system certainly seems like a way to go.

 

I actually picture many of the canals being used for waste transport. It isn't like there is a city dump - all the used garbage has to go somewhere. The regional distribution centers would likely refine it down to sludge and then load that into waste ships that transport it to land. It would also be hella expensive to truck it in, refine it, truck to the docks, pump it into ships and then out. Instead, I see a "local" collection point. Short transit to a refinery and then the refinery dock loads it daily into ships for transport to whatever the final resting place of the refuse.

 

As to the waters - yeah, I figure it is pretty much off limits save for this area in the upper class district which would be a city wide resort/attraction. Lake Angelus would be regular sand filtered water (no salt) with swimming areas and other attractions. The Marcos map will have to be "filled" in with some construction - it would only make financial sense - but figuring on each "district" have a de-salination tank will add several largish bodies of water (the tanks are above ground expand the size of the city and provide an emergency reserve. If we put them below ground they are effectively off the map and increase land utilization which shrinks the size of the city area)

 

We can always do hand-wavium but, personally, I like to at least believe it could work.

This sounds pretty much like what I had in mind.

A few notes -- it's been established that Angelus has a mass-transit system. Some sort of monorail or the like.

 

It's possible Angelus doesn't ship its waste anywhere. Organic sludge might go into some huge reprocessing center, where its used for fertilizer, or is poured into nanofactory tanks and used to make Clades and other lifeforms.

With the futuristic tech at their disposal this sounds like a good plan. With enough high-technology (or nano-tech) I figure that just about anything can be broken down to its base components for re-use. The waterways of the city make convenient routes for shipping imports into the heart of the city, shipping exports out of the city to the docks, and also serve as transport lanes for things like waste products which ends up a assorted reclamation centers throughout the city. Reclaimed materials produced by the recycling centers then ship back out to various consumer industries along the same water ways. Heavy barges will still likely (in the 22nd century) be the most economical way to ship bulk goods like this.

Some sort of a high speed tube system makes sense for mass transit. Such a tube system could be elevated in areas of the city and even dip down into the steam tunnel levels in other areas. Probably some sort of enclosed maglev system.

Re: Shadow Angelus

I figured on a square but I am a math tard so it could easily be bad math. Still' date=' I'd leave the population density up above 60,000 which is double New York City. There are several ways that you can alter things to keep the size largish while keeping the population density up. Of course, you will have some park areas and "green areas" some of those could even be quite large. A "Central Park" like area with accompanied biome's could occupy a 5-ish mile hunk of land in center of the city (a reclaimed area project from one of the earliest districts). Waterways could be more prominent than we discussed last night - maybe not to the full Marco extent but somewhere closer to Marco than what we had imagined. Hydrolizer farms could require several city blocks and be spread throughout the city.... i.e. we increase the non-inhabitable spaces. With these kinds of adjustments the city size stays stable as does the population density of the inhabitable areas but the actual size of the "residential" habitation goes down a bit.[/quote']

 

I am still not keen on having a massive amounts of canals throughout the city. I don't want it to become a futuristic Venice. Yes, I agree that it should have quite a bit of water area in the city, I just want the primary means of transport for the general public to be ground vehicles and some air. It could be that the canals are mostly relegated to commercial use and city services. The docks the ring the periphery of the city could load and off-load cargo from with in the city that is carried by commercial or automated barges that ply the canals. Civilian water traffic in the interior could restricted to specified areas.

 

PS - here is the image I was talking about last night that should be in the heart of the upper class area.

 

 

You always seem to find the most amazing pictures. This is beautiful.

Re: Shadow Angelus

PS - I borrowed Silent Mobius (Animated TV) from Edsel. Neat stuff' date=' I really liked the Wire/Kitty episode.[/quote']

We're turning Eosin into an anime fan. The end times are upon us.

 

PS - Wanton display of Anime-Fu... It's Kiddy, not Kitty.

Re: Shadow Angelus

I am guessing that watson is the name Ross goes by on these forums? If so I will send him a PM.

Re: Shadow Angelus

I'll see if I can set something up later today. What do you want me to call it? (Aside from Shadows Angelus). Is there a subtitle for the game? Or should it just be SA III?

There is no hurry. Things are still in a state of flux. I spend as much time editing the stuff I have already done as I do expanding on things that need it. SA III would be okay.

I really wonder if it will have enough variety to warrant a page of its own. I am even going with the 9th Squad of Precinct 13 for the character's group. It might almost be more of a rerun, than a different campaign.

Re: Shadow Angelus

As for Angelus itself Eosin and I have been trying to calculate a possible size for the island city. Agreeing with some of Eosin's calculations here: I think right now we'd go for about a 28 or 29 mile radius city with a population density of about 100' date='000 per square mile. Tall buildings can hold a lot of people and still leave room for parks and other areas. This would give a population that tops out in the 75,000,000 range. About 800 square miles of city.[/quote']

 

I re-examined the math in this post. To get the area of a circle the formula is Pi x Radius^2. So if we have a city with a 28 mile radius the math would be:

 

3.14159 x (28^2) = 2463.0065 Sq. Miles (quite a bit bigger than the originally quoted 800 Sq. Miles.

 

If I assume a population density of 50,000 (less than originally planned) we'd still end up with a population of 123,150,320 people. That is a hell of a lot of people! It is almost the entire current population of modern Japan! We might ought to drop the density even more (put in more park land, golf courses, etc.) in order to lower that population figure some.

Re: Shadow Angelus

I'll point out that SA uses the cyber and esper rules from Kazei 5. Also' date=' I plan to mention SA as a possible alternate setting/set-up in the GM's section of the new Kazei 5 book.[/quote']

 

Slaps self in head... And of course I have that book / PDF (purchased legally) and have been so busy with things that I forgot to look at the Esper stuff in it. But I'll certainly look at it now.

 

I just thought of something -- Edsel' date=' would you want me to create a third SA page so you can host all of your game data, maps, characters, art, and stories?[/quote']

 

That could be nice. I have a 24-page campaign document already though a lot of it was simply cut & paste from the first two SA books, then formatted nicely and saved into PDF. Of course there is some of our own slight modifications to things. I generally keep a campaign log for my games that are akin to the recaps you have for the first 9 sessions of SA I. All of the characters are required to have a background and history (technically not required but you can't earn XP unless you have them). I don't know how prolific additional side stories and the like will be. In my Dark Champions campaigns some of the players and me did an occasional foray into side stories but no where near the level of SA I.

 

Looking at the few "Start of Game" character sheets from SA I, It seems that the campaign was based on characters with 100 points + up to 150 in Disads. though it seems none of the characters took the full 150 points. Did I guess right?

Re: Shadow Angelus

Since I have a good trustworthy group who have promised to not look at the stuff on Mike's website, don't be surprised when I borrow a lot of the plot material from the original campaign. I mean its a darn good story so if my players are completely unfamiliar with the plot it is silly not to take advantage of it. Of course how the players choose to deal with the various plots will likely cause the story to take different twists and turns. In intend to start off with the first plot pretty much as the campaign recaps portray it. I do have other material that I intend (at this point) to use for additional plots later on.

One thing that has amazed me is how some of the characters my players are planning have remarkable similarities to some of the characters from the original campaign. The closest is probably a female Crusader who is actually sounding very similar to Carpenter (aside from the gender issue). Eosin is basically running a highly talented normal with some interesting things I can exploit in his background. I need to work with the player who is wanting to be the Esper since it sounds like our views on how one should work are not jiving too well. The player in question is pretty new to the Hero System so I need to have a discussion with her about her character. One character will be a male sorcerer, another is likely going to be a male cyborg.

In summary it looks like the group will be 2 females (one played by a male) and 4 males. A crusader, an esper, a sorcerer, a cyborg, a very talented normal and one who doesn't neatly fit into a classical archtype. (Sort of a semi-mystical melee specialist, I worry that he and the Crusader may be too similar). Of course it is early and this is subject to change. One concern I have is that the group seems to be a little too heavy on the supernatural side and too light on the high-tech side.

1EyedJack (on these forums) has been running a Champions game for us. Since it seems that everyone is liking the set-up for Shadows Angelus we will transition to that game before too long. We only game once every two weeks. It will probably take our current GM a game or two to put his campaign at a good stopping point. This means it'll probably be May 2nd, or more likely May 16th before we launch the Shadows Angelus campaign. This is fine by me because the more I plan and figure the more I realize just how much work I need to do to get things setup the way I want them.

A final Note: Please be careful about posting links to the Shadows Angelus stuff on Surbrook's Stuff. I don't want to tempt my players or inadvertently have one of them learn something they shouldn't know.

Re: Champions Pronunciation Guide

Yours is definitely better.

Re: Shadow Angelus

My espers are more like Akira.

Re: Shadow Angelus

Eosin, I can loan you Silent Möbius or Black Lagoon or Witch Hunter Robin or any of a hundred others. If you recall you saw the first Episode of Black Lagoon and I don't think you were very impressed.

I particularly recall Eosin didn't like the freeze frame action in the anime. Revy flying through the air in the bar fight not moving as she did. Appleseed and Appleseed Ex Machina he liked but then the CGI was fantastic and it was further away from anime style. I heard rumors a while back that the success of the two OVA was going to lead to a TV series but I haven't heard much else.

I am currently re-watching Silent Möbius to help keep me in the right frame of mind (and shucks I like anime). I am just about to start disk 5 of the 6.

As for Angelus itself Eosin and I have been trying to calculate a possible size for the island city. Agreeing with some of Eosin's calculations here: I think right now we'd go for about a 28 or 29 mile radius city with a population density of about 100,000 per square mile. Tall buildings can hold a lot of people and still leave room for parks and other areas. This would give a population that tops out in the 75,000,000 range. About 800 square miles of city.

I have also thought about making a map of the new west coast area of North America post cataclysm. Then I could plot the general route that the city follows north and south during the summer and winter. I could also plot out locations of artificial Islands and such in case I need that data during the game.

Re: Shadow Angelus

That's not my creation. Well' date=' actually, Ross Watson based it on my [i']Kazei 5[/i] material, but it was heavily inspired Silent Mobius as well. So I had a hand in creating it, but only in a limited fashion. Also, a lot of the credit needs to go to everyone else involved in the game -- Ross, myself, Steve, Nestor, Yar, Josh, and Grady. Well all came together to make Shadows Angelus an amazing gaming experience.

Well, thanks to you all. I am borrowing heavily from the stuff you have posted but of course I am filling in the blanks on my own and adding my own twists. I am pleasantly surprised how well my gaming group is embracing this idea. Their input (their character concepts and backgrounds) are causing me to expand on a lot of stuff. The group seems pretty pumped I think it will develop into a splendid campaign. Our earliest possible start date is April 18th.

Fortunately I am the only one in the group who has read through all of the Shadows Angelus stuff (I & II) and I can rely on my players to steer clear of the area. I will be using some of the scenario ideas as well as some stuff from other sources.

Re: Champions Pronunciation Guide

I like this artwork. Purple, red, black yellow. Attractive colors.