tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353391426294254427.post4521000534909367244..comments2024-03-25T22:48:31.750-04:00Comments on Dreams in the Lich House: A Black City Post - Tower of Astronomy, First FloorJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18031181424520125213noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353391426294254427.post-70021985026647345812012-03-16T06:02:38.666-04:002012-03-16T06:02:38.666-04:00Thanks for the tower links, those are really inspi...Thanks for the tower links, those are really inspirational.<br /><br />The Grey observatory here is actually connected to an orbital station (a type of alien satellite) that provides access to a vast swath of night sky; I imagine some of the machinery on the upper levels that changes the view of the starry sky is actually just re-positioning an aperture on the satellite.<br /><br />I don't know if you've seen some of the earlier Black City posts, one I really liked was 'Worm Madness' - the aliens did a lot of bio-engineering, and one of their creations were these prosaic named 'roid worms' that mutate terrestrial life - I use it to explain humanoids in the dungeons and all manner of dire creatures.<br /><br />I appreciate the ideas, feel free to drop a line if any more come your way!Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18031181424520125213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353391426294254427.post-41958137725276516742012-03-15T07:41:03.103-04:002012-03-15T07:41:03.103-04:00I can't stop thinking about this - now you'...I can't stop thinking about this - now you've got me wondering what technology a city might need, and how it might get it magically. Power isn't really a problem if you can maintain a gate connection to the Plane of Fire or the sun or the interior of a volcano; gates to reliable sources of water would totally change sieges. So transport from point to point is easily solved, but for gathering stuff from many points (eg for harvesting) you'd still want vehicles, methods of carriage, organisation. Then there's processing; research; manufacturing; entertainment and social control... I bet there's a hierarchy of needs that informs what the PCs might be able to figure out or profit from. Food for thought.<br /><br />Are you familiar with any historical astronomers' towers, like, say, the Jantar Mantars of Jaipur or Ulughbeg's observatory at Samarkand or Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg? Some linkage, just in case - the visuals are phenomenal:<br />http://www.jantarmantar.org/<br />http://www.connaught-place.com/images1/jantar-mantar-delhi.jpg<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:For_each_constellation,_Jaipur.jpg<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg_Observatory<br />http://www.tychobrahe.com/uk/uraniborg.html<br /><br />...sorry if you've done all this and I'm poking my nose in rudely; just letting you know I find what you're doing really interesting.richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353391426294254427.post-54182879030083483102012-03-14T08:14:29.292-04:002012-03-14T08:14:29.292-04:00Great suggestions, Richard, you're exactly rig...Great suggestions, Richard, you're exactly right - I'm trying to portray what a civilization that had commodotized Mythos magic as technology would look like as a ruined D&D setting. It was primarily motivated by the City of the Elder Things in <i>At the Mountains of Madness</i>, but it's hard not to be influenced by McKinney's <i>Carcosa</i> as well. For instance, the Greys never bothered developing FTL technology because their craft could traverse space through rituals to Yog Sothoth; they had a summoning chamber in lieu of "hyperdrive" or a "jump drive". I really like your idea of including more ingestibles and strange bits of bio-engineering.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18031181424520125213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353391426294254427.post-47785708798502540872012-03-14T03:57:21.409-04:002012-03-14T03:57:21.409-04:00fantastic: the tools of a Cthulhuvian civilisation...fantastic: the tools of a Cthulhuvian civilisation, ready for PCs to fiddle with. Oh the temptation. You've totally outdone a post I've had on the drafting table for some time - now I'll have to try harder and avoid copying this. I wonder if non-human sacrifices could work to power it... and how disposable goblins might become, or stray colour-coded Carcosans, once the PCs figure out they themselves don't need to be sacrificed. <br /><br />It occurs to me that a ritual-magic-tech civilisation probably has a lot of architecture involved in its machines, which brings implications - little mobile technology, lots of labour, especially if materials are important: no steel frame structures if it all needs to be volcanic rock, etc. Also certain stones, woods, crystals, bones etc could become as necessary to their tech as coal is to a steam age or neodymium to computing. <br /><br />What if Yuggoth has the only known source of that particular fungus you need to levitate stuff? If there was extensive inter-world travel at some point in the past-future, there could also be ecology that works across those gates - what if something on Earth only sprouts if it's pollenated by something on Celaeno? You'd probably want to wash the dust off your boots if you knew that. Or if pre-Permian Mass Extinction life had some strange effect on post- or visitors from the future wanted to mine the past or even seed it with the resources they needed (laying down a crop of fossil fuels for later harvesting).richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.com