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#1 mindpirate Apr 07, 2011 2:10:27

This turned out a great deal longer then I expected it too so my apoligies if its difficult to parse...         After taking some council and reviewing my own work at a time that isn't 3:00 in the morning I've decided to do some editing to help make this mess of ideas make sense and present what exactly I am hoping to accomplish wasting your time with them.  So here is The Mountain as it exist's in my mind perhaps you all could help give it a more corpreal existence. ___________________ ________ _________ __________ __________ ___________ _________ __________ __________ _________ ___________ ________                                                  A General And Sketchy Backstory         Imagine a wizard, of the mostly mad, mostly evil, variety who builds a dungeon. Now he decides not to build a small dungeon, you know a small cozy place to cast some spells and make a sacrifice or two he has larger things in mind. This wizards takes a whole mountain as his own to mold to his purposes. Workers are enslaved, terrible magics are wrought and in no time at all, a few hundred years at most, the wizard had completed his masterpiece. He had created the single greatest death trap any being could ever hope to concieve. Delicate and massive ecoliigies of the most exotic, strange and dangerous monsters from all of existance filled endless mind bending corridors and rooms filled with everything the deranged mind of the wizard for whom nothing was impossible could dream up. But more then that he took great care to fill his trap with the finest treasures. Magical artifacts of incalculable power, towers of gold and jewels and every other kind valuable filled the dungeons halls. with all this done the wizard had only to whisper to a single man of the riches that lie in the wizards mountain and with that done he retreated to his sanctum high in his dungeon and watched...     It seemed as if it were only a matter of hours before the news spread through the kingdom like wildfire. The first to come were the greedy and the desperate. Almost all of them died, cut down or lost before they even had a chance. But the very few who escaped did so with more then enough wealth to prove that the rumors were true. Then came the pros, they came with weapons and men who made maps and rope, and food they thought they had seen dungeons before. They died just as quickly but as before a few managed to escape. It was not long after that the hero's started coming. foolhardy brave and all destined to greatness...or at least they had been. The dungeon ate them up just the same as the rest but hero's are unusualy persistent and where the greedy had moved on, the desperate had given up and the pros turned to other less instantly lethal jobs the hero's kept coming. For nearly a hundred years it stood mocking every last one of them with its history, with its prizes with its glory no other had yet attained. And all this time the Wizard sat and he watched and he chuckled to himself.     But nothing lasts forever, and a time finaly came when a group of hero's who were the dungeons equal apperad. And they were clever and strong enough to fight and lucky enough to live. So this band of hero's finaly stand before the great wizard, after fighting so long to find him they have almost forgotten what the sun looks like. There is no epic struggle, the earth does not shake the heavens do not tremble the wizard just sits and laughs as the greatest of the hero's drives his blade deep into the wizards chest. There are no magic defence to stop the blade, no clever trick at the last moment that saves the wizards life he just dies. But just as nothing lasts forever it is equally inarguable that wizards love to make a grand exit. The leader of the hero's was unfortunatly incinerated on the spot, turned to so much dust as the wizards last toy takes effect, A lance of light that pierces the sky it is seen form continents away. for almost all of those people it will be the last thing they see.     For nearly ten thousend miles in every direction the landscape is turned to flat black glass. No life remains no structures stand there is only desolation and empty ness. With one singular exeception. The wizards mountain still stands and the land for nearly a mile remains unmolested.  So this leaves only a few hundred people left alive and several tired hero's. The earth outside of the safe area is roamed by unspeakable horrors and a village finds themselves without any resources or help of any kind. At this point there is much lamenting and many take their own lives seeing no possible future. And once this deppresson seemed all consuming, that there were none who could still face the bleakness the hero's who remained emerged from the mountain. When the hero's told them that all was not lost they laughed at them for what hope could there be? there was nothing left they cried. But with a glint in their eye the hero's told them this was not so, for did they not still have the mountain?     The going was slow and many died but slowly they accomplished what generations before them had failed they began to tame the dungeon. The hero's took all of those who remained under their wing and taught them all they had learned and because there was no other choice they learned well. but cleverness alone would not let them survive. as they probed the dungeon and more died it became apparent that they could not support their own growth. Gold was in massive supply but gold is useless if there are no laborurs to work for it and to spend it. Further more there were jobs that simply couldn't be done by men alone. Great excavations to undertaken, massive stones to be moved and dwellings to be built. With all of this they found themselves with a unique problem, so badly they craved to bring about civilization as they remembered it, but they could never do all that was required. The food they had begun scavenging from the dungeon seemed to be in no danger of running out so long that is as one didn't mind the taste of roasted glow slug. Thankfully for the people who remained one of the hero's was a great mage who was a disturbingly clever fellow. The first time the people saw a creature follow him docile as a cow out of the dungeon and begin plowing the field's with its great tusks at his command they were fear-full. The mage's explinations of his magic collar did little to settle them at first. But his calm voice and demenanor soon brought them around as he explained how the collar's could be adapted to any creature at all. It didn't take long for the people to see the benifits, they might never need work again! They worked with vigor, Days on end where they did not eat nor sleep. They had a goal and hope and it drove them with fury. It was only a matter of months before they began to have enough creatures that it was almost unnessecary to enter the dungeon. For a time it was good, one hardly even had to eat glow worm ever.     Enter a population explosion. humans being as they are mammals breed well when the times are good and that's exactly what happened. The problem is it kept happening, the population rapidly doubled then tripled. There was no problem of providing housing, again not at first and a city slowly bloomed from the side of the mountain. but that kind of growth couldn't be sustained and as the population grew the food supply dwindled the poeple began to falter. disorder crept up on the once peace full people were now confused and afraid. But they were saved at least in a manner of speaking. The hero's still appearing as they had the day they stepped out of the mountain to save the first people gathered to them those of influence and power and they bound them together in service to the Party of six. And on that day the people of the mountain had a goverment. Order was restored quickly and with brutal force. The food began to be rationed out but not without cost. A person would have to work for one of the guilds of the six. for their efforts they would be issued a small gem with the sigil of the six floating inside it which could be exchanged for a ration of food. And with that The mountian had the begining's of an economy...     Finaly we have the Mountain as it it is. The six now so old they should have faded to a story told by dieing grandfather's hold power greater then ever before. The city is a thriving organism. The Six rule from on high with their nobilty and lackeys crowed around them, Below them are those who have earned a place among the city through the sweat of their backs(or others) and have escaped the dungeon delving trap of the lower classes to earn enough gems to keep their place. Finally their are the low class, they are the ones who work on the behalf of the guilds. Constantantly sent into the uncharted depths in search of anything of value to their noble overlords. Creatures of great power to be captured, troves of wealth and artifacts of awesome power to be found and "put to use in the best intrest's of The City" buy those in power. All this simply to get enough gems to secure their own meals and that of their familes never mind the few luxury's availble. _______________ __________ ____________ __________ ____________ _________ _________                                                                  A FEW CORE ISSUES So as you can see I have the core concept hamme- well perhaps not hammered out but at least put it in a presentable-ish state. But there are a few issues in paticular i would care for input on, and in no paticular order here some of them are. firstly  the monsters. In paticular which would be captured for their abilities, what exactly would those creatures be? what monsters would actually be useful? I've thought of minitours to do the heavy lifting some kind of kobold or goblin like race used for meanial, unpleasnt and unsafe jobs. some kind of mushroom people who put off spores that produce edible fungi the glow slug a small fat worm like creature eaten for their high protein content.     a few others but nothing worth metioning. I've already decided the names roles and jobs of the six guilds to a greater or lesser extent but I want  to know how they sound. Is there too much overlap? also the realationships between the guilds are as of yet unthought of and any ideas would be welcomed greatly. So here is a basic outline of each of the six guilds. The Delvers guild: Their job to go into the deepest parts of the dungeon and explore, to map and to return alive. The Handy Men: Experts with the mechinisms that run the various traps that help make the dungeon so deadly. They take care of the problems that kill too many men and no one else can figure out. The Mutes: Members of this guild are taken at birth and have their tounges removed. Then they are trained their whole lives to be living weapons and they are used as such, when a creature is too powerful to be captured a team will be deployed with a mute to dispatch it. The The Black masks:  The black masks are the doctors you never want to call, their methods are painful often as much so the original injury but they are quick and the victim will live even if for a time he wishes he hadn't. Tempests. The Tempests are the closest thing to mage's on the mountain aside from the mage among the six. Among the first people their were none with the spark of magic and the mage has given no son's or daughters. But Magic always finds a way. Between the magics that ended the rest of the world and the aimbiant magic of the mountain itself it began to seep into some of the population. These people become raw fountains for magical power seeking an egress. They use their powerful albiet unpredectible magics to help subdue the firecest of beasts. Unfourtunatly the magics often drive them slowly mad as they use their powers more and become more powerful meaning that the most powerful Tempests need constant babysitting. Handelers: Handelers are the experts on the life that populates the dungeons and how to deal and capture them. Called in for the more exotic cases involving creatures previously unknown. But another job is placed upon the shoulders of the Handelers. One of them must escort a Tempest wherever that Tempest may go, to keep them safe from things their fractured minds leave them vulnrable too and also to put them down if they become dangerous. finaly there are the free lancers working through back channels and by dodging the guilds whenever they can the free lancer seeks fame and wealth with out having to sell themselves to a guild. If they get lucky on a big score they may have enough to bribe the right people and insinuate themselves into upper class. But the penalties faced by a freelancer if caught are harsh, unbending and final. Also I should make some mention of the mock economy that has arisen in the city. The small crystals that were once mere tokens that a man had earned his days bread became the defacto cuurrency among the people. The Six and their nobles quickly took advantage of this regulating the flow of crystals and releasing more of varying colors that represented diffrent values. THis allows one more lever to control the surpisingly large population of The City. heres how I generally imagine the currency would work out. Red gem(the most basic form of money) Orange Gem= 10 Red gems Yellow Gem=  5 Orange gems Green Gem=  2 Yellow gems Blue Gem = 10 Green gems violet Gem = 20 Blue gems     obviously any thoughts would be greatly appricated. Also the collars will need to be rather intergal to this community and there are a few deatails i have to hammer out conceptually. Such as this, How easy are the collars to make? how hard is it to get one actually on a creature? I was thinking it would have to be unconcious a'la pokemon but perhaps it could be handled better... Also should the collars work on poeple? it would make an effective form of controlling crime and dissidents and the like. and that's the world as I have it so far deeply flawed but i think there's somthing worth running in here. So to reiterate I'm hoping for any opinons ,comments, help with the concept, vehement hatred you know whatever you have the time for....