I Read Generators of Underground Worlds

 Previously I asked my audience for examples of large-scale cave generation and, essentially, no-one had what I was looking for; I meant Nation Sized, underground wilderness.

In fact only Douglas Niles in ‘The Dungeoneers Survival Guide’ and maybe Zedeck Siew in Reach of the Roach God came anywhere near to producing systems at this very grand scale, and only Niles addressed the problem of three-dimensionality, and he only partially, and via a complex but elegant method of isometric mapping.

Nevertheless, I feel like I did learn quite a lot from dragging myself through all these varied systems and the process did affect my plans and ideas for VotE;ReDux so I will go through my general sense of each method here, in alphabetical order, at least until I come up with a better method.

Carapace - by Goblins Henchman

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/261079/carapace-basic-version

An odd, complex little pamphlet I got, maybe directly from Goblins Henchman? Who knows how long ago? I found it in my box of Zines! This is an adventure built around some generation systems for having trouble in a giant ants nest (the nest is giant, and is the nest of giant ants, so I suppose for them it’s just a proportionate nest).

Three methods are proposed for the creation of the Nest; a Point Crawl, Labyrinth Move and an ‘Hex Flower’.

[I have photos but it feels wierd reproducing them here.]

Its interesting to me that two of these; the point crawl and the ‘Labyrinth Move’ both live neatly within broader methods of conceptualising and using underground spaces that we will run into later several times.

The Point-Crawl in this case is not a die-drop system and is based on a layered diagram, printed in the pamphlet, with semi-random ‘rooms’ and interactions.

The ‘Labyrinth Move’ uses a table and a progressive encounter roll, in concept, not that dissimilar to ‘Flux Space’, though I think this is more a case of convergent evolution than direct descent. (The text says this is an adaptation of Jason Cordova’s ‘Labyrinth Move’ for Dungeon World - something I know nothing about. I wonder what the background of intellectual connections is here? It also seems similar to Emmy Allens Gardens of Ynn and Stygian Library methods, though its been a while since I read those.)

The ‘Hex Flower’ seems to use a similar interior logic to the ‘Labyrinth Move’ but has it built into a little printed Hex-Map with the decision logic based on spatial arrangement. So far as I know, only Goblins Henchman has ever used this. This one also has a Hunter/Prey mechanic built into it, which should liven things up. Perhaps this is something to think about when considering other underground mapping techniques at any scale.

Corpathium

https://lastgaspgrimoire.com/in-corpathium/

(Ten years have passed and it’s all still there. The page even has a G+ link (;_;) )

So far as I know, the grand city-building project of Corpathium, which seems notable and unique, only exist via (very pretty and well-designed) web-page. What, not even a PDF? Surely this should have been a book at some point?

Anyway, the only part I am interested in is the city-generation system which could be easily subverted into a cave generation system

Its DICE DROP, which, honestly, is not that bad an idea for intermediate spaces.

Is non-representational, more diagrammatical, so that’s good.

Uses a 7-dice set, so I assume d4, d6, d8, 2d10, d12, d20

Uses the points (i.e. the corners) of the dice! Have not seen that before. If dice point to another they are accessible to each other.

So then we compare the numbers against a list of potential city-quarters with their own sub-rules about what is going on.

Then you have some interesting rules related to the concept of Corpathium as a place

Dice drop honestly seems like a really solid method for ‘intermediate’ zones between the ‘world map’ and outright cave crawling wilderness. It’s immediate, fast, coherent. Probably better and simpler than the method I used in VotE for generating intermediate cave systems. Reading Corpathium persuaded me to the use of a system of this kind and played a meaningful part in causing me to re-order my whole hierarchy of systems.

Deep Rock Galactic

https://steamcommunity.com/games/DeepRockGalactic/announcements/detail/4593196713081471259

Someone recommended I take a look at this web-page where the designers of this Space Dwarf mining game, (which I have never played), talk about their process

Even though this uses systems and crunch impossible for a human, some of the logic of cave-creation, at least the sequencing, is broadly similar; a range of templates with some ‘randomizer’ elements, combined in new, strange ways.

As the designer here sees it, there are a few key considerations in making a good cave: traversal, natural wayfinding, and dramatic experience.

One way this did affect me was that it made me re-conceptualise the ordering, arrangement and importance of the different methods I intended to use, in particular the primary methods. It was partly here that I started to crystalise the idea of there being three ‘layers’ of resolution, with lots of optional little sub-systems which could be added on according to taste and usage, but essentially a sandwich with three layers; Wilderness Scale, built on an interlacing paths pointcrawl, a medium scale, built on a die-drop method, and the idea of the ‘Adventure Cave; a cave made specifically to have adventures in, with maybe a ‘close cluster’ of nearby caves to add options.

I will look into this, in particular; combining the encounter-design ideas from Silent Titans with the 100 caves from VotE (though all this will be much later, need to work on ‘large scale’ now).

The Dungeoneers Survival Guide by Douglas Niles

The most beautiful and interesting book of all I considered, mine has been rabbit-damaged for a long time (something I will never forgive)

Douglas Niles is one of the only creators to directly address exactly what I was looking for; not a big dungeon, or a large cave system but an underground world - something at least the size of a small nation.

He even provides one in this book! Sketching out, through a series of lovely, layered, isometric maps, the ‘Lands of Deepearth’, made up of complex riverine systems and caverns, filled with all the wonderful creatures of AD&D.

However, almost to my relief, as I have read way too many of these already, he never actually deals with how to generate such a territory. He spent a huge amount of energy communicating his wonderful and only somewhat complex maybe even ritualistic isometric mapping system, that I think once you get that system, you can just vibe on it? Honestly a very reasonable concept in that, through achieving a sufficiently complex and expressive physical skill, by the time you have it, you will either intuitively know what to do with it, or experimenting with it is so simple and joyous an experience that the matter simply no longer presents a meaningful problem and you can’ in the words of the winged goddess of victory ‘just do it’.

But, for reasons given in my comments to the last post about this, I am not going to adopt this beautiful and coherent isometric late-analogue culture mapping system. Still an inspiring book though.

Flux Space

https://www.paperspencils.com/flux-space/

“This simple conversational back-and-forth is a good engine for producing fun, but it falters when the characters are exploring spaces which are Large, Samey, and Confusing. ... Other examples of large, samey, and confusing environments would be a winding network of caves,”

This is something I had considered when thinking about cave systems but reading Flux Space convinced me that I had not been thinking about it deeply enough. There really is a fundamental tension between the concepts of natural or pseudo-natural caves, which are, as stated above, often ‘Large, Samey and Confusing’, and the forms, shapes, paths and locations necessary for adventure, which are (while seeming not to be so), actually the compete opposite of the above; Small, Distinct and Clearly Organised.

“Traversing through Flux Space can be regarded as a type of Point Crawl, with the distinction that moving between each point is especially arduous. Once a Flux is solved it can be peregrinated through more swiftly, but solving it will be taxing.”

What ‘Flux Space’ is, is a relatively solid and only slightly over-complicated and over-specific method of abstracting the exploration of spaces that are ‘large, samey and confusing’ without specific, local mapping in real life. Instead the simulation is of the company slowly crawling their way about, spending time and resources, gradually encountering important elements of the ‘Flux’.

The basic time signature is ‘Turns’, there are 6 turns per day, so a 4 hour turn. Every Turn of Charting depletes resources, hits some kind of encounter/event, (Flux Space uses the classic overloaded Encounter Die) and crucially, grabs you a Point of Interest. There are a limited number of points of interest per ‘Flux’

There are ‘Shallow’ and ‘Deep’ rooms. At first you randomly encounter ‘Shallow’ rooms, and as you do, cross them out, Then, if you roll a shallow room encounter after its crossed you, you get a ‘deep’ room, and the deep rooms go only in sequence, one after another, and after the last deep room you are done and ‘know’ the maze’. You can move in and out of it however you like.

Some points of interest;

· It assumes you are burning resources, which is standard already for VotE.

· You would need the time and stability to note or record things, though, VotE wise you could use knots or muttered chants

· The Event/Overloaded Encounter Die has some cute elements and some meta-currencies.

Altogether a very useful and excellent tool which I wish I had invented

NOT a good tool for VERY large wilderness/nation-sized spaces, but very good for cave systems and mazes built around central concepts, inhabitants, purposes etc, between small dungeons and wilderness, an excellent intermediate tool. NOT a rapid, easy immediate generator, you will need to think & plan ahead of time.

Though ‘Flux Space’ would not be one of my ‘Big Three’ core generation techniques, (Large Scale ‘Lands of Deepearth’, medium scale Dice Drop and small-scale ‘Adventure Cave’), I am committed to using it or something like it as an ancillary cave complex generation method. It fits too perfectly into something like a Deep Janeens maze or an Alkalions Salt Maze. Though these would be things you need to think ahead to plan.

There is some excellent advice on filling out this simple and useful concept at the web address, describing more would be excessive. (Someone please write an extensive blog post about how Flux Space related to Gardens of Ynn and that to Dungeons Worlds Labyrinth Roll or whatever it was.)

How to Host a Dungeon

This is an entire sub-game and I am sorry I did not get round to reading or reviewing it. Just too big too complex. I will try to read it at some point.

In the Shadow of Mount Rotten

A 2012 PDF from Joel Sparks.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/100100/in-the-shadow-of-mount-rotten

This has a small, competent, naturalistic cave/lair generator.

It is fine and there seems to be nothing wrong with it but it has little utility for me as, first, we are talking about large scale generation, second, these are very much lairs, or naturalistic dungeon-like environments whose relation is primarily to an ‘outer world’, and last, their entirely reasonable naturalism, means they are largely wet, or drowned and either too small, too long and thin or too blocked off to be interesting.

A fine system. Not for me.

Inkvein by Murkdice

https://murkdice.substack.com/archive (There seems to be no single central site for this.)

This is an actual Megadungeon for Mork Borg by Murkdice.

Basic notation system looks broadly similar to VotE (addressing identical problems).

No 3d notation in the caves that I can see.

Has a nice Caving diagram.

Is already a megadungeon so has no generation systems at any scale. (These may show up in the final product, I only got a look at the Quickstart rules). Also this is so similar in broad concept to VotE that I am leery of dealing directly with it.

Lowlife by Sam Sorenson

https://lfosr.com/product/lowlife/

This little pamphlet has a LOT of stuff in it, very little directly related to the precise needs of my enquiry.

We got the basics of this are a die-drop method; where Corpathium used different kinds of dice and the angles of the ‘points’ on the dice to trace a network which produced, in abstract, the accessible paths of a cities layout, Low Life is explicitly aiming to create a tunnel network, uses D6’s and then uses the combinations of numbers to decide partially the connections between things but also the nature of the connections, it also engages the idea of just repeating the dice-drop method to produce a system of greater complexity and interconnection.

Low-Life also has a method for introducing three-dimensionality (!) though it conceptualises this as ‘dungeon layers’ rather than using the diagrammatic nature of the tunnel system to create ‘uppy downy’ not related to the concept of ‘dungeon layers’.

I will almost certainly be returning to ‘Low Life’ later on throughout the project as it covers a lot of very similar ground. A very solid product!

Reach of the Roach God by Zedeck and Mun Kao

(rest in power kings)

Most of Reach of the Roach god is about the Roach God and his reach, but at the end we get a little cavern-generation system based on TOYS. This is very millennial as it assumes that people buying this arty D&D book will have toys to throw around and yes I have them, shut up.

This is meant to be simulating the hollowed out bodies of dead gods so the humanoid shapes coming through the process are deliberate. It breaks down the toys into three sizes, two big, four or more medium and some small, and a bunch of ribbon to connect them.

How do you turn this into a map? In the style of The Dungeoneers Survival Guide; just be a good artist, or maybe actually trace around them? That would work if you had a big enough paper.

This method is different to most of the methods so far which tend to work on a principal of “room & route” – this matters as one thing you will notice about natural caves is they don’t have neat divisions between ‘rooms’ and ‘routes’, though, to some extent, this is how humans have to think about them; here is the bit you move through, here is the more round bit where you can rest.

The RotRG method produces large irregular, but linked caverns, which is something you might need, it uses the typology of the toys used to decide the location of world-relevant locations, the god type also represents special rules affecting that space, there are rules for using the ribbon as a river and instantiating that in the cavern system.

A much less technical system than most others, this still does something notably different, and it uses the layered information of its figure types in a range of interesting ways - I am sure a use can be found for this!

My Grand Result

My final analysis is, as stated above, to work on three ‘layers’ of map and location creation; the Large Scale Underground World, the Die-Drop cave system, and the ‘Adventure Cave’; the kind of place where its good/interesting to have an encounter.

The brutal truth of the modern reader is that, as well as being borderline illiterate (new), they sadly have very little interest in mapping or simulating complex three-dimensional spaces, especially using arguably counter-intuitive methods of paper-folding and cave diagram.

You have collectively, as a culture, let me down in this. You should have been more interested in three-dimensional space. Feel bad about this.

The ‘new’ version of ‘Underground World Generation’ will probably end up being broadly similar to the original VotE version, but without the paper-folding, and with relatively little three-dimensionality, (it’s hard and people do not understand it). It will be integrated much more with generators for Cities, Settlements, Rivers and Environments, but in core concept, still a bunch of scrawls on a page, just now with more interesting dots and names to the ‘wilderness’ reaches of hidden-swiss-cheese stone between routes.

It will be one of three main systems and all should be initiative, quick and not especially clever; the Underground World, the Dice-Drop System and the Adventure Cave.

As well as, and included around those concepts, will be some other optional systems, or at least references to them, in particular, something like Flux Space/Gardens of Ynn, and other perhaps more complex, or longer seeming methods for when you need variety and/or something special or specific. This might just end up with me saying ‘use Flux Space if you want to do this kind of thing’.

This was a useful experience, though perhaps the most useful thing about it, more than any particular method, was the global, or deep, view of how people arrange their generation and mapping methods for actual games, and the intuitions this feeds about what is most necessary and immediate.

Recommend me Generators of Underground Worlds

 In my big re-work of ‘Veins of the Earth’, I have begun looking at the systems used for generating the geography of the Veins, the large main routes, smaller areas, etc.

My plan isn’t to fundamentally change the methods from the first VotE, but to re-make them, to make the new versions more of a comprehensive generator, with a sequence of tools to systematically generate a large area, routes, cities, villages, trade routes etc.

Something else I would like to do in this version is gesture to or recommend alternate methods or other ways different people have tried to deal with this non-trivial problem of generating and mapping complex, large three-dimensional spaces underground.

From the first VotE. We won’t be using this layout as it belongs to Raggi but the general concept will likely be similar.

My aim here isn’t to copy but to, in the spirit of a bibliography, directly point people towards alternative possibilities. (I am also planning on doing this with monsters so people can put together their own encounter charts).

So far the only other book I’m intimately familiar with which deals with this specific problem, is Douglas Niles Dungeoneers Survival Guide, which has a neat but somewhat challenging method for isometric mapping.

What other books or works, or even posts, are people familiar with that deal with, specifically; generating and mapping large pseudo-natural underground spaces?

(I know there are a million methods of dungeon and mega-dungeon design, that’s not what I am talking about here.)

Currencies of the Dark

Design concepts for money in VotE: ReDux

Light is the Currency

Light is often only way to find a path and stay alive. Light is a resource that is always being eaten away. Light must be carried, in the form of lamp and fuel. Light is literally a currency; the Lume.

Distance relates to time. There is no solar cycle down below. Seasons and cyclic calendars, are partial, conditional and strange. The most important aspect of travel is how long it takes to get somewhere; this is measured in a loss of Lumes; “eight lumes distant” means you will need eight hours of strong light to find your way there.

Prime Currencies of the Veins

The Lume = 1l

The ghosts of fireflies made extinct in a long-forgotten apocalypse. The pale wraiths are imperishable, distinct, and gather and gust through currents in the Veins, moving in swarms through ocean and stone. Only rarely are they accessible en-masse; the means of capture and containment are particular and queer.

The ghosts are held in little bags made from fine intestine; ‘glow bags’, or in little Lantern-pots of clay or bone. They are transferred with great care; sucked into pipes of silver, bone or reed, held at the end in clumps, or trapped on little honey-dabs held at the ends of sticks, then gentle ‘poofed out’; transferred to another’s ‘Glow Bag’. Merchants and settled peoples have scales for measuring the unweight of a Glow Bag so that the bags themselves can be exchanged.

The massless nature of the ‘Lume’ and the extreme difficulty of forging Lumes, helps to make them the base ‘physical’ currency of the Veins; they can be carried without impediment, but not without care. The fact that ‘Glow Bags’ can be damaged in combat, or opened, and the ‘Lumes’ set free, to float away into the stone, makes them difficult to steal. The slow and ritual nature of exchanging Lumes is favoured in the Veins as, in this careful breathing and depositing, both sides of become vulnerable to the other; to exchange is a matter of trust.

A Glow Bag of Lumes of a little bone or clay Lamp-Pot, gives out its own small ghost-light; a vague glow up to five or ten feet of clarity, if that, but enough to accomplish small tasks or to provide comfort in the dark. Veinslings may sleep, or do small deeds, lit by their purses glow.

The Lume as literal currency is paired with the ‘Lume-as-Concept’. A ‘Lume’ is worth one hour of strong light, in whatever form, though the most usual form of exchange is Whale-Oil. What counts as useful light varies enormously according to the buyer, the seller and local conditions, but the universality of this conception; One Lume = One Hour of Light, forms the pillar of stability in economy of the Veins. All is based on the Lume, counted in Lumes, and reduced back to Lumes. Even distances are given in Lumes as that indicates how many hours of light you will need to reach wherever it is.

Occultum = 10,000l

A massless shadowy disc, its edges blurred, the texture of Occultum is felt by the Soul, rather than material flesh, (Golems, like many Janeen Viziers, cannot use them directly).

No-one really knows exactly where Occultum Coins are made or found. Rumours say they are forged in some hell, or minted in a ‘House of Leaves’ where the substance of reality is strange. They come always from below.

Like ‘Lumes’ they weigh nothing like are impossible to forge. Occultum is magic-neutral, it cannot be picked up, manipulated, scried or otherwise altered via magic. The coin itself resists duplication. The black discs cannot be chopped, melted, cut or ground down; if chipped or ‘snapped’ they simply ‘burst’ collapsing into little static clouds and staining the area nearby with fluctuations in natural chance.

The one danger of owning too many Occultum Coins is that, if kept in large numbers, they are inherently uncertain, meaning the total value and number of the coins may fluctuate. The extent of this fluctuation increases the more you have. Usually if you get into triple digits, you can expect a variation of about 5% over time, with there sometimes being up to 105 coins and sometimes as few as 95. (In rare cases variations can be more extreme). Nevertheless, the variation itself tends to be stable over time, so many wealthy cultures maintain their core currency reserves in Occultum; they can eat the cost of temporary fluctuations, it all evens out over time.

Occultum has a heavy cultural weight which goes beyond the movement of economies and trade routes. Just as in our world, Gold is Gold, and signals and displays wealth, permanence and seriousness, regardless of the fluctuations of the times, in the Veins, Occultum is Occultum. Even the most high-toned merchants or Lords would not refuse payment in the Black Coin. Of all currencies, perhaps only Lumes themselves are more stable and only Cloudcradle silk of equal status.

Occultum is known to, and accepted by, supernatural and extra-planar entities. Demons, Ghosts, and Things from Beyond, all accept its worth and for some rare magical services Occultum is the only coin accepted; a disc equivalent to mortal souls.

Intermediate Currencies

The Veins has a massive and permanent problem with making change. The two most well-known, accepted and strongest currencies, the ‘massless two’; Lumes, and Occultum (which is still ultimately measured in Lumes), occupy the far ends of the value scale. What on earth do you do when you need to buy intermediate things? To some extent ‘Glow Bags’ can make up for this, but the Veins has developed a range of complex intermediate currency-equivalents to make up the difference.

None of these are ‘massless’ in the same manner as Lumes or Occultum, but all are very light and a great many are slightly luminescent themselves. While every culture will accept Lumes, Occultum and Silk, an exchange for these intermediate currencies is not universally guaranteed, you may have to chop and change to work things out.

Gleams = 8l

Also called ‘Gleamers’ or ‘Butane Gleamers’. These gems are blue as the flame. Their edges seem to shiver in the dark. Usually these are bagged up into ‘Bags of Gleams’ worth about 80l each.

Slave-Month Links (or just 'Links') = 31l (varies)

Usually made in chased and engraved silver. Each culture, (often Knotsman, Aelf-Adal and various Janeen Courts), engraves its links in a varied and highly distinct style. Each link represents a nominal month of particular labour owed. Often gathered into great linked chains and worn by potentates. Ray-Men and some other cultures with weird principals might refuse to take these.

Toxolucent Emeralds ('Greens') = 200l

Acidic and slightly poisonous to the touch, its widely thought these are cut from rare bezoars recovered from abyssal creatures of the Nightmare Sea. Olm will almost always refuse these.

Topaz Flames ('Flames') = 500l

These seem to glimmer and flicker slightly in the hand. Though they are utterly cold, when smashed, they reliably produce a burst of pure flame. Undead prefer not to deal in these.

Knotsman Debt-Threads ('Knots') = Variable & Bespoke

Knotsmen record their debts and contracts in what else, but knots? Formed in rare and precious materials depending on the depth of the debt. Neither immaterial nor magical, and sometimes frustratingly bespoke and weird, the strength of the knots as currency comes from the fanatical dedication of Knotsman culture to maintaining them. Knotsmen hate to be in debt to anyone from outside their culture. They are very eager to ‘gain knots’ as this gives them power over others from within their culture. All are utterly deranged in their pursuit of counterfeiters. Though a strong material currency, some cultures or groups just really hate Knotsmen and will refuse to deal with these. Also the nature of the exchange can just be weird; how much is a ‘Thirteenth-level Fundamental Humiliation” worth in real money?

Whale Oil  – Variable

Somewhere between a trade good and a currency, Whale Oil is useful, ubiquitous and has a regular rate of exchange. Compared to most Veins currencies, it is a bit heavy and difficult to use, but it literally burns to make a pure, bright, smokeless (important for Veins cultures who hate waste and staining the rock), flame. Usually sold in ‘day pots’ for 24 hours of clean-burning oil, (24 Lumes) or ‘watch pots’ for eight hours of light (8 Lumes). For some groups, traders or individuals who have solved their light problem by other means, the Oil is just not worth it as a medium of exchange. Olm find it useless but might take it at a reduced rate, Opal-Winged Chiropterae in particular tend not to like it.

Bank Notes = Variable

There are banks in the dark, often associated with the Great Cultures or with one or more of the Grand Coagulations (cities). Usually run by Vampires for their Aelf-Adal overlords, the worth of such a currency will often diminish the further into the Wastes you get. Though, if you can get to another Alef-Adal-run Coagulation, they will often accept these notes, more as a point of pride, since to refuse them would be an insult to another Aelf-Adal, (unless the Byzantine intrigues of that race means these Courts are currently opposed, in which case they may not only refuse, but also take offense.)

The nature of these Notes/Bonds/Certificates can vary from something like an exquisitely handwritten I.O.U, to something like an actual, printed note, though usually hand-printed on soft skin, rather than machine printed on paper. (Aelf-Adal know about various forms of surface money.)

If you are in an Aelf-Adals city-coagulation, it’s hard not to take payment in their bank notes. After all, they have the Aelf-Adals name and perhaps something like a face on them, and are signed by Vampire Banker. A whole sub-skill of ‘ritual excuses’ exists to allow Veinslings to attempt to get out of being paid in local notes.

Silks

Even cheap silk is light, resistant to decay, and compresses down deeply, allowing a large surface area to be transported in a relatively small ‘bale’.

Silk is heavily associated with the Aelf-Adal. A ‘Bale’ of silk is in most cases, much smaller and lighter than that transported on the historical silk Road in our reality. Even for ‘Rough Silk’ like Whipsilk, a ‘bale’ will only be two or three feet square and weigh 40 to 50 kilos. The highest value of silk is sold in ‘hands’; roughly thick envelope or small parcel sized packages, which, due to the incredible density of packed silk, can still weigh quite a lot; 5 to 10 kilos.

Whipsilk = 10c per bale

Silk given as a status symbol to slaves trusted to oversee their fellow slaves. An illusory boon. The silk carries the cultural taint of alien flesh and Aelf-Adal will never touch it once it has been used. A nominal advantage is that Aelf-Adal will tend to assume that anyone wearing Whipsilk is some kind of Slave Overseer, and ritually not-perceive them.

Stormsilk = 25l per bale

Colour of a storm sky and rough to the touch. A perfectly serviceable ‘commoners silk. Worn by the lowest members of a Coagulation, by normie Once-Men out in the sticks or by Aelf-Adal ‘hunting parties’ who want to make a point about getting out of the Spire and ‘roughing it’.

Chainsilk = 50l per bale

If braided can form a strong rope or chain. Practical. Carries a little cultural ‘cool’ as it is standard military gear for many cultures and coagulations.

ClipperSilk = 100l per hand

Tough, noted for its ability to survive long journeys. Not well respected. A bit of a Bourgeois upwardly-mobile low-rent social climber silk. The very top of the ‘middle class’ silks, but the bottom of the ‘upper class’ silks. Does anyone actually wear this stuff?

Maskmaker Silk = 500’ per hand

Valuable enough that if given as tribute one can be considered to have ‘made ones mask’ in Aelf-Adal terms – a sufficient bribe to be someone actually worth talking to. Makes up much of the ‘baseline wear’ for Aelf-Adal and other Volume Lords.

Cloudcradle Silk = 1,000’ per hand

Like folded smoke, flowing wearable steam. In most coagulations, this is either illegal to wear under direct sumptuary laws without being a member of the ruling class, or is simply culturally impossible to wear unless you are so.

Being gifted this silk, or given formal dispensation to wear it, makes you near-officially part of that rulers ‘Court’. Be careful; accepting this means that in a sense, the giver ‘owns’ you, and takes responsibility for you, which can be good or bad in many ways.

Cloudcradle silk is highly valued by traders as light, tough, high-value currency. It is probably used more as currency than as clothes; so few who live and breathe are willing or able to wear it.

Design Notes

Collapsing the concept of the ‘Lume’

In the original VotE, the ‘Lume’ was purely a concept, rather than a material thing, but I thought, people generally won’t understand this or grasp it, and also I thought ‘why not?’. There seemed to be little disadvantage to me in making ‘Lumes’ both a concept and an actual thing you could use in game, that way the concept and the physical item reinforce each other (though of course, in keeping with VotE aesthetic and world-scheme, they are not actually physical.

So now a ‘Lume’ is one of these tiny firefly ghosts you keep in a special little bag or pot. You can exchange one of these ghosts for one hour of strong (really 30 to 50 ft visibility or more, but you can negotiate that), light with most merchants and settled peoples.

The ‘Lumes’ themselves also make a little light eternally, but only enough to do close hand-work with, probably not enough to help you get around (though a last ditch possibility for those severely lost).

The difficulty and slowness of exchanging Lumes, and the kind of ritual behaviour it suggests, seems to me to fit the nature of the Veins, as does their weightless nature and the fact that, if lost or thrown away, they simply disappear into the stone without a trace.

If you think this was a dumb idea you can let me know in the comments.

Finding Treasure/Getting Paid

Generally players really like to find treasure and to get paid in weird, distinct and particular ways.

In most cases its more enlivening to find a curious artefact, or even a bag of jewels or bale of rare silk than just a pile of coins.

This works out more in the low to mid levels of a game, where the value of a particular treasure or gem or something as a trade item still has potency. As you get into the higher levels I have generally found that people stop caring as much.

Likewise, sometimes people actually want a little haggling sub-game where you have to try to get your hands on the kind of currency you want and avoid those less useful, but sometimes you really just want the whole thing over and done with so you can end the session. It depends on taste and circumstance.

This currency pattern is meant to be adaptable to both playstyles if needed. You can enliven and solidify it by giving players a bunch of weird currencies, each desired or disliked by different cultures under different circumstances, or you can just abstract the whole thing to ‘so many lumes’.

Hopefully, finding or being given Occultum should remain deeply interesting and exciting at any level. I wanted it to be, and to feel, special.

[Occultum has always been, and still is, based on the Obol, first invented by Mateo Diaz.]

Mixing Currencies/Using Money

For the silks and intermediate currencies I fell back on a lot of ideas I first used in ‘Deep Carbon Observatory’, though with somewhat altered values.

Most of the Gems are super easy to carry but have things that are slightly wrong with them (Emeralds mildly toxic, Topaz might actually set you on fire if it breaks). Others have moral issues (Slave-Links or Knotsman ‘Humiliations’), some are just a bit awkward (Whale Oil and Bank Notes).

The ‘Bales’ are meant to be fucking annoying to carry around, but still solid currency, better in the early game or perhaps moved en-masse by servants in the later game as part of a trading journey.

…

U.S orders are now open on the False Machine Store

…

I am going to Dragonmeet at the end of November

I don’t have a store or a talk or anything, and so far have no particular plans but I will be there.

False Machine Update!

Veins of the Earth: ReduX

Bad news first; because of a whole bunch of complex events I have had to pause development on VotE ReDux till the first Snail Knight story is finished. I hope to be done with the basic text for SNAILS ALPHA by the end of September/middle of October so will go back to VotE then.

Queen Mabs' Palace

Its been just over a year since 'Queen Mab's Palace' was funded. In our latest update [CLICK HERE TO SEE IT] we have some images, thoughts by August on the arrangement of complex scenes and figures and confirmation that we expect to have the art complete mid-October.

Once the art is done will will do another round of checks and layout and then hopefully move to printing, I hope maybe around Christmas? We will see.

It also depends if/when shipping to the U.S. resumes and how that happens. I have my fingers crossed.

Snail Knights

Some of you may know of my old Snail Knight stories. A long time ago I completed two stories, of a great plan I had for twenty interlaced tales.

SUPERAKIDDO from Reddit

You can read the first two stories for free by clicking here!

I have been persuaded to take up the stories again. So far I have completed four and am half way through the fifth. The stories have grown in depth and complexity as I have gone on, (and hopefully in skill). Each of them should be a self-contained chivalric tale, each of a different scheme, yet interlaced, so that it becomes a book of short stories that ultimately tells one great epic. (Jack Vances Lyonesse is maybe the closest equivalent).

Once the fifth story is complete, I will look into making these first five stories a physical book, a 'Part One' of a hopefully, eventually, Four-Book series telling all twenty interlaced tales as; ‘Knights of the Snail’

Like 'Queen Mabs' Palace' I intend for this to be fully illustrated, hopefully by Amanda Lee Franck. We will see!

That is what I am working on right this moment; the Tale of Sir Whirl. Once he is done I intend to move on to production for 'Queen Mabs' Palace' and development (unbroken this time), for VotE ReDux.

Current Schedule

1. Complete Snail Knights One base text
2. Start production on Queen Mabs’ Palace
3. Somehow shipping to America Re-Opens!
4. Re-Start development for VotE:ReDux
5. Edit Snail Knights One
6. Run a Kickstarter for Snail Knights One (February 2026?)

Dead-Eyed Dwarves - development for VotE; ReDux

The Dead-Eyed Dwarves are bald and bearded, shorter and stronger than men. They value only work and blood. 

 

Appearance 

STOMP STOMP STOMP – the heavy iron-shod boots of Dwarves passing invisibly but for glaring lamps and lances of light. 

For the Dead-Eyed Dwarves have many magics; cloaks which make the wearer invisible, clicking rings which make their owner large or small, strange insect-lenses which pick up every drop of light and ever stranger eye-wear; pearl-pale cyclopean masks which perceive the flow of ‘dark’ itself and twin-cone faces which turn rebounding clicks and whines into images in the air. Beneath these, often, grills or tubes, breathing apparatus or voice amplifiers, who knows. Beneath those; beards. 

Their lamp are harsh, actinic and directional; itself a near-aggressive act within the Veins. The blinding sharp-edged light turns the Dwarves behind them into silhouettes. The tramping, trudging, armoured and indifferent Dwarves. Few cultures of the Veins dare to wear full-armour underground; none but the Dead-Eyes possess the craft to endlessly clean, amend and fix their metal shell, the brutal endurance to carry metal weight, nor the size-shifting techno-magic which lets them shrink and grow, giving them access to shafts and warrens which others attempt only in extremity. 

They can pass invisibly, but they are loud. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Too big, too small. Disappearing in the blink of an eye. Hooded, armoured, masked, with wild prickling beards. Lights powered by crackling batteries which drip toxic alkali slime. Loaded with crossbow, axe and pick, careful maps and guidance dials, grappling hooks and superlight chains. Walking and moving in unison, grunting to each other in muttered subsonic; a guttural under-speech, as if they resented even, the need to speak, even to each other. 

The most likely encounter is that you are simply ignored. The cost/benefit assessment of enslaving you simply doesn't move the dial. 

 

The Dead Eyes

Things don’t get better when the masks come off. There is just something missing in there; the strange, deep-time, assessing gaze of a Dwarf, but with the humour, honour, boldness; gone, washed away, leaving what? Eyes pale as slate, empty as the letter O. 

They eat, breathe, smell, move like living things, more than many in the Veins, yet a vampire, or a crazed patchwork Gilgamash, can have more 'anima', more individuality, vitality and humour than a Dead-Eye Dwarf. 

They are not pleasant to deal with, but they are reliable, practical and rational, and they think long-term, which makes them an incredible stabilising force. Yet no-one, and nothing 'likes' the Dead-Eyed Dwarves.

 

Abilities

Powerful Lights

Bright white spheres, hanging lanterns and lances of burning white light. Used to blind or disorder seeing foes, or simply to pick out blind enemies.

 

Invisibility Cloaks

Heavy toxic things with pointed hoods, less useful in the Veins than you might think, these are used mainly in raiding other lands. When wrapped around and buttoned up, everything they cover turns translucent. Complex physical movements, like most forms of attack, will make the wearer visible, at least for a moment.

 

Size-Control Rings

Heavy click-clacking bracelets which turn like locks or rings of code. Rapid tactile codes are needed to make use of one, and once that code is known, each ring is still is different, tuned for a particular Dwarf. Worn, usually on the left arm. Move the right hand over and quickly, and loudly, click through the code before carefully carefully carefully clicking through the size-set sequence.

When a Dead-Eyed Dwarf shrinks or grows, its not a smooth transition. Its as if they were an image and each heavy CLACK spun some fresh lens in front of them so that they seemed smaller or larger by leaps. CLACK CLACK CLACK and big, big BIG, as if they were projections, with the ‘real’ dwarf somewhere else.

It takes time and training to accustom oneself to getting bigger and smaller on the regular.

 

Seeing Lenses

They like these, though its questionable how useful they are. Varied masks and lenses, the most common are Light-enhancing eyes, heat-trace Snake-Pit lenses and Sonic Lenses. More rare are the special ‘Dark Vision Lenses’ which literally treat darkness as a substance.

Each Dwarf will only have one set of Lenses, if they have any, and few groups will have more than one set of each kind. They are hard to make, maintain and repair and each Dwarf makes their own.

 

Mouth Masks

The Dead-Eyed Dwarves don’t even use gas that much, purchasing it from the RayMen occasionally, but they like to wear the masks. Some protect from gas, some change the voice to a harsh bark, others alter voices to simulate those heard, still others provide air should the Dwarf go underwater, or into airless spaces.

Again, each Dwarf only has one set and the whole group rarely has more than one of each. Its not a systematised technology.

 

Combat Encounters 

Morale

Morale plays no part in the decisions of the Dead-Eyed Dwarves

Everything is based on their immediate objectives. If violence is required, and they think they will win, it starts at once, without warning.

If victory becomes impossible, or if the situation changes, so that violence no longer serves, they simply stop, again, without warning, usually turning invisible and simply walking away.

If there is no way out, they fight, bitterly, to the emotionless end

 

Combat Tactics

Armoured; the Dwarves can weather most projectiles, and most blows. 

Bright Directional Lights; these can be used to blind many Veins inhabitants. Activating then turning off the lights can be more effective than actual invisibility. 

Invisibility Cloaks; if out-ranged, bottled up or boxed in, a combat team can use their invisibility to close with the enemy, or to escape if needed. 

Size-Change = BIG; The Dwarves can ‘click-click-click’ up to Ogre size. This always takes an action and is loud. All of their equipment changes with them, as if it, too was being projected from somewhere else. A Dwarf might turn huge and fire ballista-sized crossbow bolts, or get close before turning massive and laying into a party from behind its lines. 

Size-Change = small; mainly used for escaping should a situation turn bad, especially by accessing crawl-spaces or similar. Combining this with Invisibility makes them near-impossible to catch. 

The enormous power of their techno-magical abilities, combined with their utter ruthlessness and invincible will, means the Dead-Eyed Dwarves don't need fancy 'tricks', though like many Veins cultures, though they have an expertise in Poison (to which they have a meaningful resistance), and sometimes use various forms of Gas. 

 

Chameleon/Tarantula Cavalry

Mainly used in and around their settlements, due to the enormous costs of keeping them fed, but the Dead-Eyed Dwarves do often use ‘Cavalry’ formations; their favourites are a very chunky form of huge Tarantula, and kind of sticky lizard with some Chameleonic abilities. 

They will usually change size to something smaller in order to comfortably ride these things. The combination of activating their toxic invisibility cloaks, the giant animals, and the glaring lights they carry, creates a truly bizarre appearance. 

 

Non-Combat Encounters

No Pride, No Shame

The Dead-Eyed Dwarves don’t carry resentments around, if they beat you before, or were beaten by you, their attitude will be what it always is - relentlessly practical. 

This makes conflict with them a troubling experience; they will not try violence unless they believe they will win, and they are rarely wrong. 

Non-Combat Encounters

the Dead-Eyed Dwarves will pass invisibly, except for their lanterns. They seem like trudging shadows passing underneath an actinic light which glows like a willow the whisp. 

Did they just walk right past? 

Whatever they are doing, they are doing it. They have a purpose and if the PCs cannot help

or impede them, what do they care? 

 

Goals of the Dead-Eyed Dwarves

[THIS NEEDS WORK BUT HERE IS THE BASIC IDEA 

A simple way to do this might be for there to be three goals; 

One BIG THING that the whole of local Dead-Eye Dwarf culture is currently aiming towards. You roll for this when you are generating the Veins and it remains the same throughout the Campaign. 

Two –a medium scale political or large structural goal that will help them towards the MAIN THING. This can change from session to session and can differ from settlement to settlement. (But it doesn’t have to change). You can roll for this on-encounter, or during the session or just keep it from previous sessions if that make sense. 

 

Three - a current goal for *this particular group*, the mission or thing they are currently trying to fulfil, which will lead towards the second, which will lead towards the third. You roll for this when you encounter these guys. 

Do, whenever you are dealing with Dead-Eyes, just look at this list; they are doing A, to achieve B, to finally achieve C. And all you need to think about, as it is all the Dead-Eyes are thinking about, is ‘how do I achieve the next goal and make sure it connects to the main goal’. ] 

They must always be working 

 

Simple Behaviours For Encounters 

Literal

They do not like metaphor. Things mean one thing. If a thing tries to mean two things then it becomes nothing. 

LITERAL DOESN'T MEAN STUPID  - they do not like metaphors, but they understand them. They know that you or other characters, are not being literal, and they can understand that, but they themselves will do everything they can to avoid it.

 

Taciturn, Concrete, Direct 

Get to the point, get there now and be explicit about what it is. 

Use the minimal number of words to make things clear. 

Do not 'chat'. Every conversation has a clear and concise point towards which they are going.

 

 

Dead-Eye Culture

Long ago the first of them emerged from a distant primal core. He made himself. That work goes on. They believe they are improving. It is their mission to do so. 

Their family trees spring up, not down. Each generation more focused and efficient than the last. This is the Ascent. Dead-Eye heredity. A machine of blood and bone, carrying them into the pre-remembered future. One of only two things in which they truly believe. 

They have statistics, and the graphs all show a clear upward trend. Production, efficiency and development, all increase. 

They imagine the future and the things they will build there. It belongs to them. They want it more. They understand it more. They will become what the future needs them to be. The future is a god to them. A god-above-gods. They know it to be true. 

Even as the race slowly winds itself deeper and deeper into the earth, passing through fretted valves and carved abandoned chambers they have made, falling in its orbit of stone, they map their continual advance. 

Each thing must be built upon another thing. A word, a deed, a thought, each must have its foundation. Arguments over the Ascent are arguments over reality itself. Without its sustaining foundation, the word becomes a gabble of sound, the deed an accident, the thought a dream, the existence a lie.

 

Dull 

One of the most powerful, wide-ranging and transformative of all the cultures of the Veins, the Dead-Eyed Dwarves are dishwater-dull, to deal with. Utterly reliable and quite insane, they are a power second only to the Aelf-Adal, to whom they are almost immune, and with whom they enter irregular war. 

 

Makers Of Ruin

The totality of their physical effect on the Veins of the Earth is enormous. Dead-Eyes never stop working, mining, carving, delving. They are always building, cutting, shaping, and thence always moving. 

They cannot stop working, ever. 

This makes a Dead-Eye city or settlement, more like the cast of a worm than a singular place. They mine and carve EVERYWHERE, continually, they do not stop to inhabit very long. A Dead-Eye settlement is like a time-worm; it’s not located in any particular place but is continually being delved, leaving the carved and developed volumes behind it, like the cast of a worm. 

The Dead-Eyes therefore make the Veins more ‘ruined’ and more ‘empty’ than they would otherwise be, for an empty building can be empty in ways a cave cannot. 

Dead-Eyes do still consider that they 'own' anything that they have worked on, (that they haven't formally agreed to sell or exchange), which means these vast Piranesi-ruins that plunge through the Veins are technically 'theirs'.

 

Neutral, Practical Evil

Dead-Eyes do not torture or psychologically destroy their slaves. Not deliberately at least. They simply kill them when they fail. 

Skilled slaves can appear to rise far in Dead-Eye ownership, and will (any skill at work must be nurtured and sustained so that better work may be done). But it is not the individual that is respected. It is the work. The work passing through the alien flesh. 

They do not really hate their slaves. They do not realise that they are beings at all. Only vectors for work. 

They do not really hate anyone. Because they really don’t know there is anyone there to hate. 

Neutral, ultra-reliable, non-bigoted, they may be the sanest (?) culture in the Veins. 

They are honestly quite boring to encounter and maybe that's ok. Remember it’s not about offending them, it’s unlikely you even could offend them, it’s about getting in their way, and if you do get in their way, they will grind through you and over you with utter ruthless indifference. It’s almost like fighting golem. 

 

Skill Is Meaning

They respect skill. But it is the skill itself they respect, which is work moving through the body, not the body or the person itself, which are just bearers of the skill.

 

Work Is Meaning

The only other thing they understand is work. 

A body and a mind are only useful because of the work they can together do. The soul is the work passing through the flesh. 

No other race grasps this. They might ask “What are the Dead-Eyes working towards? What is their plan?” 

They are working to be working. Work is the plan. Work is the point. 

They will never stop. They can never stop. 

They will cut cities from bare stone, tear up every vein, embellish every surface, then, when there is no unworked spot or unplanned gap, when every single piece and thing has become a channel for planned creation, when even the pebbles stare up from the floor with idly-carved eyes, then they move on. 

Gems mean nothing to them except that they can be cut, or have been cut. 

If one loses the ability to work and if they cannot further the ascent, they simply walk into the dark. Or sit where they are, staring at nothing, waiting to starve. 

if a Dead-Eye is crippled or otherwise prevented from working, they lose any will to live. They must work, they must proceed towards the goal. It is all they are. It is everything they are.

 

Jealous

Yes, ok, perhaps they can be a little irrational. They are still Dwarves after all. They can be jealous of craft and ownership, especially of unique objects and materials. The RayMen and their wonderous tech inspire some of this, but many ethnogroups have a little this or that which really, really, should that not truly belong to the Dwarves?

 

No Dreams

They do not dream, rather they experience a lucid ebony. Its possible they are not even really unconscious, just ‘shut down’. What are the Nightmare-Men going to do? Give them a spook?

 

Fidget Spinners

Since they literally can't stop working, they tend to have a lot of ... odd things they do when they can't physically work, like knitting. If they are waiting, they carve stones or rock where-ever they sit down, leaving tiny faces in pebbles or maps on flat slate. (Although you never actually see them 'waiting’.)

 

DON'T FORGET;

The False Machine sale is STILL ON (I may or may not change it at the end of this Quarter, still thinking about that).

https://falseparcels.bigcartel.com/

A Night at the Golden Duck = £5

Deep-Carbon Observatory = £30 (-£10)

Demon-Bone Sarcophagus = £20 (-£20)

Gackling Moon = £25 (-£5)

Gawain and the Green Knight = £15 (-£20)

Silent Titans = £40

Speak, False Machine = £30 (-£20)

AND! - A FREE HEIST PLAN FOR EVERY (UK-BASED) ORDER - WHETHER YOU WANT IT OR NOT!!!! 

ALSO;

FALSE MACHINE WHOLESALING!

False Machine is now available for wholesale!

If you are interested contact me anywhere to find out more!

 

Go Nuts in Veins of the Earth

 A Nut is an hospitable object - a surprisingly useful thing for those who make their concourse in the Veins of the Earth.

First; it keeps for a long time, is singular, storable, divisible and portable.

Second it comes from Above; few nuts grow below, (except perhaps for the equally-distant Isles of the Imprisoned Moon), and therefore it is rare.

Third; it’s hard to adulterate a nut. They can be cursed or poisoned, but that takes a meaningful investment of rare resources. A nut has good security to it.

Fourth; it is a neat compressed source of calories. Not so much as to place a painful debt on the receiver, but more than, for instance, a seed.

Fifth, finally and most important; it is a thing never before seen and which will never be seen again, lending it a certain poetic aspect in the cultures of the Veins, where secrets are adored.

Clara Peeters, Still life with nuts candy and flowers 1611

Rituals of Greeting

This makes a nut a quite generous (but not too generous) gift with which to open negotiations.

Such is the theatre of the Nut; two groups meet beneath the earth. First they scent or hear each other, then see each others light. Each makes signs of peace and the factions approach slowly until the boundary of their lamplight (roughly 30ft) meets.

One from each company is sent forth, each standing directly beneath the lamp-light of the other, proving no ill intent on either side.

Then the lamps are brought together, making a pool of shared and intensified light where the leaders of each group may sit.

Here comes the nut, (if you have one).

"Allow me please, to give a thing never before seen, and once seen, never to be seen again."

Here one displays the nut upon an open palm. The recipient gently takes the nut. Rolls it between their palms, smells it, examines its texture with hand and eye.

"Truly beautiful, a rare and unique gift."

Then the recipient may break open the nut themselves, or hand it over to one stronger of their own side, (which means something, everything said and done in the nut ceremony means something), who breaks it open for them.

The 'secret' is revealed. All present admire this heretofore unseen thing.

The recipient consumes the nut.

It’s a handshake, but a firm one. Those in poverty might offer, at least, a seed. The wealthy might offer meat, (but to offer too much would be to create a debt, almost an aggressive act). An Aelf-Adal Lord might offer a terrifyingly expensive, unique and impractical gift, this is an act of chaotic and charismatic dominance, which creates a link of fealty. Of course you cannot say “no”. A Knotsman might offer exactly what you need, with no immediate price. This is a trap and an attack on you which it may be hard to resist.

A Nut is a pleasingly minor but substantial, yet elegant, gift. It’s hard not to negotiate reasonably and in good faith with someone who has presented you with a nut.

Corporatism and Hospitality In Veins Of The Earth

The Veins could not exist and if they did you certainly could not easily 'adventure' through them.

Therefore, in the imagined world, the small cultures of the Veins; tribes, villages and pilgrims, are calmer and more corporate than many of their real-world equivalents might have been. Here are some examples of how this works in play and both diegetic and game-design reasons why this is so.

Broad Non-Aggression

It’s a war of all against all but not a lawless war of all against all.

There are 'Civilisations' in the volumes, and though their grip is tenuous and vague, it becomes more vital the slighter it becomes. The signs and symbols of power mean less, the closer to its centre one is. Out in the margins, where the power may or may not exist, its signs, symbols and promises become much more important. Exactly which Lord is everyone in fealty too, and which Coagulation do they serve?

People really do not like or want chaos or disorder. It makes it hard to live.

So there are 'Civilised' people who exist largely or nominally under the 'protection' of say a City or a Group, like perhaps they have a Knotsman Contract, and above them perhaps an Aelf-Adal Terror-Lord who rules maybe thousands of nearly-impenetrable kilometres away.

Let’s say the PCs Murder-Hobo a community, take everything they have, then roll into the next Coagulation, or into a Pilgrim People.

These new-encountered people will almost certainly know exactly what the PCs have done. Resources don't come from anywhere and they will recognise whatever has been taken. They were probably well aware of the Group the PCs murderised. They may have even been in conflict with the same group at points.

They will happily trade for these resources, (keeping a close eye and guard on the PCs this whole time). That's just being practical. If there is a real 'evil' in the Veins, it is; wasting resources.

Nevertheless, word will get back. Via Bat and trader, by psychic dream-signal or forgotten hypertechnology, first one group, then another, will discover the PCs reputation. Word will get back to the City, to the Lord, and the Lord must have Order, of a sort, in their realm.

It’s a war of all against all but it can never be allowed to blossom into chaos. There must be some form of retribution, recompense, penance, punishment or service.

The reach of the Lord is long, slow and inconsistent, but memories last down here and nothing the PCs do will be forgotten. And if the Lord is an Aelf-Adal, then their reach pierces darkness, flesh and stone. There is no escape, ever, anywhere.

Hospitality

“I let you share my light.”

No-one has any duty to keep you alive or give you resources.

However, if a deal is to be made, they should at least offer you an acorn of something drinkable, a few seeds worth of food, some light and warmth, at least until you have talked things out.

Of course you will be expected to return this in kind, even if an agreement is not reached.

In 'ideal' circumstances this leads to a cycle of functional giving, starting with letting someone into your circle of light, and ending with a handshake deal for resource exchange.

Even if things don't work out, its considered civilised to give minor gifts equivalent to the cost of the negotiation before you nope out of there.

Just leaving with no exchange at all, really fucks up your reputation.

Equivalent Exchange

If you stay with a Tribe, Coagulation or Group, for a period, benefitting from their light, their warmth, their food and presumably their ears listening for you in the dark, it’s a nearly iron law that you exchange with them resources at least equivalent to the cost of keeping you.

This can lead to different groups, say a Tribe of Once-Men and the travel caravan of a RayMan trader, occupying different sides of a river or cavern, their lights kept separate with a measurable stretch of darkness between.

They are not dicking each other over, just being very very careful about not implying any obligation or debt between them. It’s a way of keeping the peace.

Likewise, if one of these groups is attacked in the night, the other may refuse to intervene, and this would not necessarily be taken as an insult or aggressive action. Intervening in someone else’s battle creates a debt and that debt may be hard to carry.

Waiting for a group to nearly-win a fight, then charging in to help them finish it off, will not be taken as a positive helpful act. They had nearly won anyway and your intervention has created a debt they cannot deny but do not wish to suffer. Assume malicious compliance hereafter.

Game Design Terms

In terms of actually gaming this means Veins populations are actually more 'corporate' minded than many actual populations encountered during, for example, the European Age of Exploration.

A main problem for a Pith-Helmeted European explorer, apart from the environment and massive cultural differences, is simply the number of tribes you have to deal with. Each of these groups will have its own politics, its own relationships with adjacent groups, its own leaders, mood, attitude to foreigners etc etc. Thats twenty, thirty, fifty individual encounters with fifty different tribes with essentially a random generation engine whirring in the background each time, and you (the explorer) can't afford to be taxed that much with each group, and you can't afford for things to spiral out of control even once, or you die.

Empires solve this problem by simply murdering anyone who disagrees and telling whoever is left that yes actually you all live under the same rules now and no you don't get to take individual taxes or even fight each other without permission.

It was easier for a European traveller to move across the whole expanse of Eurasian Islam, (provided they could match the behavioural codes), or across the gigantic steppe empire of the Khans (provided they had the right disc from the Great Khan), than across much of Central Africa (fifty tribes again).

So the Veins are a 'bit' more 'Imperial' than they could reasonably be expected to be. Simply to make it possible to move through them. Though, there are vast areas of 'wilderness stone' where who knows what might happen, as well as disputed areas, actions and polities, reaving borderlands, unexpectedly desperate or shifty populations, general monsters, Olm, and god knows what else.

'Adventure' like 'Exploration' fundamentally requires a boundary between the more-known, more organised, and the lawless unknown. To 'Adventure' is to move back and forth across these zones, usually from a place of law and organisation, into a place with no, or unrecognised law. Resources are gathered from the margins, but they only become resources if there is somewhere else you can take them where their value is renegotiated.