Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

i am so freaking excited, love what people have done in response to this

busy workweek so i probably won't do much with it until the weekend if at all, but i wanted to let you know i have definitely not forgotten about any of it, the notebook file for the campaign has already been created and your PC concepts pasted in <3

@monsterblue honestly i was a little bit iffy on the concept fitting in moodwise with something so dark and this picture sold me on it :>

Just tossing jello at the wall here... I would this in my old notes and it's another pretty good summary of what's going on here.

I left the "1988" in even though it looks like this is gonna be set in 2071. It fits the retro-themes I'm going for. The campaign setting is basically "when the 1968-1988 phase of the American Bullshit Cycle repeats itself."

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Imagine an alternate-universe 1988 drawn right from right-wing moral panics, where furry fandom has connected with the corporate self-improvement scene and morphogenetic fringe science, and mutated into a New Age transformation cult backed by West Coast IT money. Basically Yoyodyne, except you have furry TF cultists instead of Red Lectroids. :>

The PCs start as captives in a secret biolab on this transformation cult's hidden compound. Their creators are trying to bridge the gap between human, animal, and spirit and basically reverse engineer angels.

They're also trying to meet their creations halfway. This mostly involves stalking around the compound in creepy animal masks, injecting themselves with untested mutagenics, and speaking in tongues while tripping balls on acid.

The PCs must not only struggle to escape alive, but to maintain their sense of self, stay connected to their fellow specimens, and understand why they're being manipulated. The longer they stall, the faster reality and autonomy slip away from them...

@JulieSqveakaroo Dorsai, turns out!

@dodec YES, that's the one, thank you!

Incidentally, you all get an A+ so far because you clearly get EXACTLY where I wanted to go with this thing.

Even if I don't get to follow-up on any of it-- and I feel VERY motivated to do so right now, even if it might have to wait until next weekend-- you've already proved this is EXACTLY the right crowd to pitch stuff like this at and I am so excited. <3 <3 <3

Quoted from a DM thread, thought it might be of value:

There's that one line in Sandman, and I'm paraphrasing wildly, about the scariest people in the universe being the people who think they're hurting you for everybody's good including yours...

That's Artemus. Imagine the most gobsmacked, cognitively dissonant furry ideologue you've ever met (it's OK if that's me <3 ;) ) and give them a blackops R&D budget.

I am stoned as fuck and can't remember something. Please be my auxiliary brain. That cadre of sci-fi nerds that did con security and named themselves after a corps from a sci-fi/fantasy novel, the ones that did so many furry cons. What were they called?

@Cerulean @eredien I also found both these factoids very charming:

@Cerulean @eredien OK, the Wikipedia summary of Scotland, PA won me over no later than "three stoned hippies, one a fortune teller..."

@zx3 Also I must say that I'm very impressed that you understood the importance of voyvening the GLAYVEN!

@zx3 *listens too* Oh, yeah, you obviously got where I'm going here. I also recommend the following:

Broadcast (esp. the Berbarian Sound Studio soundtrack)
Demdike Stare
Belbury Poly
The Advisory Circle
The Soundcarriers
Pye Corner Audio
Goblin
BoC's Geogaddi of course
Locust Toybox
General Mumble's "Moonmadness"
Burial
The United States of America
and just for shits and giggles Hans Reichel

@eredien Oh great, now I'm gonna up on a multi-hour research crawl on sci-fi slang philology, thanks a LOT. ;p 'Cause I could have sworn I'd seen same portmanteau earlier than that, but I think I'd actually seen "geneered" which is not half as good...

(No, seriously, thanks a lot. <3 )

OK, here we go.

Zero guarantees of ANYTHING here. But it's been a rough year, I've had the energy, I know I' no the only one, and I want to at least say I TRIED.

So.

The year is 2071.

Trumpism, global warming, and pandemics all did their damage, but we're finally seeing our way past them.

Now there are other problems.

Kids are playing with their genes like 1970s kids played with payphones. Smartphones reside in your forebrain and tap into 11th-dimensional geometry. A second wave of Bad Memetics is about to hit, the biggest since the Internets of old. And an obscure physics paper has just provided the first solid explanation for the exploitable glitches we've recently found in reality.

It's OK. The Artemus Corporation is way ahead of it all. And they're our descendants, so it'll be fine... right?

The psionics renaissance started ten years ago. Just like everything else, weird gay furries wandered in and did it better, taking the work of mere neurohackers and turning it into a bulldozer for superstrings. Nobody's good at it yet, but there's absolutely no doubt: magic happens and it all happens in Dimension 11*.

*registered trademark of the Artemus Corporation

Unfortunately, furries are only human. Now they're the power structure. The Artemis Corporation is what happened when they sold out. Now they're the fastest-growing neurotheological corporation in America, selling transcendent identity change and a share in the cosmic lottery.

You were a perfectly content resident of Terra's recovering biomes, eating and/or avoiding being eaten as you found appropriate. Now, thanks to the Artemus Corporation and its fervent quest for the psionic Holy Grail, you've got a forebrain, *neat* little opposable thumbs, and opinions about economic policy.

You live in a twelve-story office complex on the US West Coast. You spend a lot of your time hooked up to machines. The humans in charge spend a lot of time staring intensely into flashing screens, injecting things into themselves and you, and fucking each other. Thus far, you have not been invited, though you have had some fascinating conversations about why. You fear they may be some value of "insane." You also fear that they, and you, might be on the verge of a terrifying power. You do not understand this power, and it's becoming painfully clear that they don't either.

You suspect that all the information about the outside world, in that little squeaktoy version of the Internet they've given you, is a great big lie.

You recently learned what demons are and are seriously afraid they might be trying to put one in you.

This is an RPG about a "psychotronic" retro-horror future where psionics are real, leftists were right about damn near everything, and furry has spawned a genuinely dangerous Scientology-like cult that is on the forefront of terrifying reality-breaking technology.

Pitch me a character. Feel absolutely free to invent new details of this world, as long as they fit the above reasonably well. You are a captive of the Artemus Corporation. Animal-brain architecture is the hot new frontier; you are an genetically "uplifted," brain-grafted animal captive with a human intellect. They intent to use you to study psionic technology; they are convinced you are their path to godhood. They throw swinging parties but they scare the fuck out of you. You're starting to see things that aren't there.

Influences: John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, Altered States, Stranger Things, Upstream Color, A Cure For Wellness, Suspiria, This House Has People In It, Us, Children of the Mirror, The Prisoner, They Live, Buckaroo Banzai, Liquid Sky, In The Mouth of Madness, Cabin in the Woods, The Shining, Beyond the Black Rainbow

Please assign your character 30 points in the following traits: Lust, Avarice, Greed, Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth, Pride.

Be warned that EVERY POSSIBLE content warning applies to the potential content and its replies. This, if it goes anywhere at all, will be a psychedelic horror story.

(oh, and just as a creative aid/for shits, here's the list of themes for this RPG experiment from my notes:)

THEMES:
* paranoia and delusion
* hyperreality
* institutional power
* observation
* identity loss
* transformation
* hazardous knowledge
* altered consciousness
* parapsychology
* technological alienation
* repression/assertion of biological imperatives
* social control
* alienation
* transcendence via existential horror
* media simulacra
* broken geometry?

@JoyfulSkunk *cackles madly for around thirty seconds* XD XD XD <3

the ongoing revival of the conversation around identity play and stuff is the first thing that's really brought me intense joy in the last few months that wasn't peggy or one of our cats so thank you <3

a quick insight into my very sophisticated satirical methodology

@Leucrotta Nice try there, Philip K. Dick. Tell it to the gal with the coyote necklace, selling tactical miniatures door to door. :> <3