Superheroes pt.3: Rebis Bondi

tl;dr What if Tsutomu Nihei did a take on something between Iron Man and Doctor Strange? So of course I use other artist and mangaka references in this post instead of Tsutomu Nihei ;). I've been sitting on this draft for a while but was inspired by Semiurge's Assorted Superhero Stuff to finally post this.

Not the best fit for the Rebis Bondi power armor but I googled "biblically accurate angel mecha" as a starting place, found this, and decided it was too good not to use.

Name: Mercury Maimonides

Appearance: Tall and muscular, but not bulky. Long, curly, shaggy auburn hair, brown eyes, and light skin. A straight nose and close-set eyes. Often wears retrofuturistic wraparound sunglasses, a satiny, bedazzled blue trench coat over a black jumpsuit, and red disco shoes.

Costume: The Magnum Opus "Power Armor". Like a baroque sculpture of an androgynous form, with a blue-gold mercurial sheen phosphorescing a mélange of black, white, yellow, and red. Carved into the eyes are the symbol of the squared circle, and on its forehead the symbol Mercury. It has sleek ears reminiscent of the helmet of Hermes, two sets of fighter jet wings, a nanofilament lion's mane, a sharp prehensile oxtail, and eagle talons. Two wheels of similar material spin and rotate around the body, lined with glowing alchemical symbols of squared circle eyes.

Description is more specific, but in my head it's almost like Rahxephon or Zone of the Enders as a power armor.

Powers and Skills:

• Magnum Opus (Power Armor)
• Quintessence Generator
• Akashic Intelligence Daemon
• Morphogenetic Field-Repair System
• Quantum Vacuum Engine

Power Level: ☿

Publication History

Rebis Bondi was first serialized in Adad Magazine of the eponymous anti-anti-art collective in Kingston, New York. Each copy of each issue of the magazine was created from scratch, from memory, as per the Adad Manifesto. Naturally, it did not receive wide distribution, and often two magazines that were nominally the same issue came out quite differently. Few issues were sold, and fewer distributed outside the area of Upstate New York. When Adad Publishing went out of business they had intended to destroy every copy of every unsold magazine in a suicide ritual, however, production editor Sarah Silver, who was holding several "copies" of Issue 6, was fatally struck by a car on that same day, and her family took possession of those remaining issues.

The ensuing media coverage over the publisher / art collective / cult's suicide pact and legal rights over the remaining works imbued Adad Magazine with a kind of legendary status, and from what few issues remained, early internet message boards pieced together (or often wholesale created) the catalog and continuities of the various works, with Rebis Bondi quickly becoming the most popular work. This was in large part due to the cover on one version of Adad Magazine Issue 6, a hand-drawn portrait of Mercury Maimonides with a kind of understated yet layered micro-expression sometimes compared to the Mona Lisa.

The rights to all Adad Magazine properties was purchased by Todd McFarlane Productions Inc. in 1995, and it was this X-Treme version of the property which became a mainstream success, to the chagrin of the online fan community that had formed around the legend of the original magazine[1]. Despite initially strong sales, Rebis Bondi sales dropped significantly after the first year, and the book was cancelled by 1997, and ongoing legal pressure by the Silver Estate, TMP eventually sold the rights to the Silver Estate for a nominal fee.

After a poorly received attempt at a reboot licensed by DC for its Vertigo imprint in the mid 00's, the property remained dormant until 2019 when Fantagraphics made arrangements with the Silver Estate. Although delayed due to Covid, this seminal run became a cultural touchstone of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Shintaro Kago. The former we will pretend is Mercury Maimonides' environment suit she wears in the Chiral Mirror during the Fantagraphics run. The latter is what happens if she doesn't wear the suit.

Biography

Adad Magazine

Only one version of Issues 3 and 5 and three versions of Issue 6 of Adad Magazine have been preserved. In Issue 3 Mercury Maimonides appears to be in the midst of a psychedelics-assisted alchemical ritual like a Wizard Duel or Hacking Sequence, in opposition to the Machine Goddess. In Issue 5 she fights Grendel in the Rebis Bondi power armor. Issue 6 introduces the Baby's Laughing in Paradise cult, although the BLiP is presented quite differently in each Issue, as though the creative team were refining the concept across each version (see Publication History for more information on Adad Magazine).

Image / Todd McFarlane Publishing Inc.

The second volume of Rebis Bondi was a reboot of the series, more in the style of other Image Comics books of the 90's; sexy, hyper-violent, X-Treme. This version of Mercury Maimonides was a field anthropologist in the vein of Indiana Jones or Lara Croft (although preceding the first Tomb Raider by several months). The Machine Goddess was reinterpreted as her best friend from college and professional rival who becomes the Avatar of the Greek God Athena accidentally corrupted by a computer virus. The BLiP cult never appeared in this volume, although the BLiP M3-2 was reimagined as a demon from Hell in a crossover with Spawn. This Volume ended in a cliffhanger with the Spawn character Angela piercing Rebis Bondi with a sword through the heart and seemingly fatally wounding Mercury Maimonides.

Vertigo

A short-lived version of Rebis Bondi appeared briefly in Brian Azzarello's Hellblazer run before spinning off into a miniseries written by Azzarelo with art by Lee Bermejo. John Constantine investigates the BLiP cult in Japan and has a run-in with Rebis Bondi.

Fantagraphics

The Fantagraphics run saw Mercury Maimonides trapped within the Chiral Mirror, like an uncanny distorted reflection of our universe. The Rebis Bondi could not function in the Chiral Mirror, and so Mercury journeyed to find parts or achieve the necessary conditions to reactivate the armor piece by piece, solving problems through wits alone rather than alchemical power. Due to the chemical chirality of the universe, Mercury required an environment suit, viewing the world through a limiting visor screen, experiencing all senses as transductions of signals her brain could not otherwise perceive. Originally intended as an exploration of embodied cognition, it took on second meaning during the Covid-19 pandemic as an accidental metaphor for the shutdown period and viewing the world through digital screens.

I believe this is also Shintaro Kago, but for our purposes it's the Baby's Laughing in Paradise cult's M3-2 Power Armor (if we pretend the figure isn't Kaiju-sized...)

Villains

Machine Goddess: If history is another place, the ancient and unknowable Machine Goddess is like an alien being. In brief moments, through the projection of tinny recordings of lost lucidity, the Machine Goddess seems to have once been a being of crafts and creation, but now it appears only interested in destruction.

This is a repost of the description of The Machine Goddess from my Aquarian Dawn setting:

Her skin is twilight like the cosmos, dotted like a ginger with the violet-hot light of stars and nebulae. Lines like shooting stars course over her skin, thinning and branching into symmetric fractal patterns, vein-like, violet-whiteness fading into her forearms and hands, and ankles and feet. She has three pairs of arms that move in tessellation. She is covered in metallic armor, smooth and seamless, with lines that reflect and refract in a geometric manner; chitinous. A series of violet-white tubes arch along her back, always bending in uncanny ways, appearing the same when viewed from any angle, appearing detached from space-time when she moves or when one moves around her, or like a dimension unto herself. Her hair is violet-white and composed of straight strands that split into branches, each splitting into self-same branches; frizzy, but in an unnaturally symmetric, perfect way. The upper half of her face is kaleidoscopic, like many shifting spidery eyes, each a reflection of her whole face in miniature, with kaleidoscopic eyes reflecting the whole again, ad infinitum.

Grendel: This draconic cyborg, an ugly, disgusting, slimy creature, is the child of the Machine Goddess, but unlike its progenitor, there is no evidence of lost intelligence or drive to create. It is a being seemingly only of resentment and hate.

I envision Grendel as like the Afterbirth of the Broken Machine Dragon Poltergeist Form from Maximum Recursion Depth. Imagine like Evangelion Unit 1 but where the organic parts and armor are integrated more like a cyborg.

With Machine Goddess and Grendel, am I being lazy for reusing these ideas, or is it Final Fantasy Worldbuilding?

BLiP M3-2: The Baby's Laughing in Paradise cult started as a memestock / shitposting internet community turned LARP in the style of a Japanese death cult that eventually took itself too seriously. The BLiP M3-2 is an AGI robot, the messiah of the BLiP cult... according to cult leader Do No Evil Ape Akira. In fact, the BLiP M3-2 is merely a state of the art power armor worn by Akira like a Mechanical Turk.

The BLiP M3-2 power armor rests in an egg-like holographic fluorescing field. It's shape is like that of an embryo, a curled-up salamander of a body, bulbous outstretched head, beady eyes, and a maroon smile painted on its face. The splotchy colors of greenish-yellow and purple-maroon, patches of rust and oil, all accentuated by the oppressive fluorescent light, give the appearance of a newborn baby or stillborn corpse.

Think Eraserhead baby as a robot. I drafted this months before David Lynch died but RIP :(.

The publication history and biography sections got a bit conflated compared to how the information is usually presented in Wikipedia, but I'm reasonably satisfied with the end result.

Superheroes Pt.X2: Cold-Iron Killborg

One day middle-aged middle manager Soren Skelton jumped off a bridge, landing on his chrome dome only to wake up 6 years, 6 months, and 6 weeks later alive and kicking (literally) with the brains and hairplugs of his nepo-baby boss dripping from his front-raised foot.

Unbeknownst to Soren Skelton, his skeleton was reanimated in the Unseelie Undimension as the Cold-Iron Killborg. Still alive and finally back to consciousness, Soren learns to crudely communicate with the undead entity that is his own skeleton, and attempts to unravel the mystery of how he became the Cold-Iron Killborg.

Jewels of the IndraNet

This is the first original game material I've written for my current Maximum Recursion Depth Campaign, up to now I've just been using the book or other materials I've previously written.

It takes inspiration from Gardens of Ynn and also the Mycelium Matrix guest entry in Huffa's Between the Skies.

It references Buddhabrot City, a location briefly mentioned in the module in the book. Right now I just need it to last for 1-2 sessions, it's just a vehicle for other stuff in the campaign, but it would be nice at some point to expand this further, more like Ynn, with more entries per table, more tables, additional descriptions, location-specific tables, events, rogue poltergeist and nature spirit generators, etc.; and make it something that could work either for MRD or as a standalone thing.

In addition to the Jewels of the IndraNet I also wrote a few additional locations for Buddhabrot City, and it will incorporate Dharmatics using Concept Crafting. Not including that stuff in this post, maybe in the future.

Jewels of the IndraNet Generator (prototype version)

Roll d6+layer for each (starting from layer 0)

Locations

1. Residential neighborhood.

2. Neighborhood main street.

3. Natural space (park, lake, woods).

4. Liminal space (bridge, transit area, long road).

5. Industrial area.

6. Market.

7. Entertainment district.

8. Financial district.

9. Deep urban space (winding streets, alleys, Kowloon-dense spaces).

10. Deep nature (forest, desert, ocean).

People

1. Devas going about their business.

2. Rogue Poltergeist (peaceful or mildly disordered).

3. Nature Spirits in equilibrium with their environment.

4. Rogue Poltergeist (moderately disordered or engaging in petty haunting e.g. graffiti, stealing minor objects, opening doors and windows).

5. Deva merchant (pushy hawker, shady shyster).

6. Human refugees in tension with Deva locals.

7. Derailer scouting party.

8. Rogue Poltergeist (violent) or Asura.

9. Powerful Nature Spirit.

10. Derailer caravan sabotaging a Deva space.

Details

1. Serene stillness, even mild sounds echo, movements tessellate, light bends and slows like in fog.

2. Negative spaces, visual field pop-in like a videogame.

3. Low humming and synesthetic lines of poetry or dialogue taken out of context, peaceful yet ominous.

4. Rainbow sun, 3D rainbow shadows projecting from 4D spacetime, no darkness, no black.

5. Holographic mushrooms, psychedelic imagery, anachronistic technologies and robots.

6. Lights and music and animate graffiti like a naturalistic EDM club.

7. Overwhelming luminosity and pulsing waves of liquid sunshine.

8. Everything is a pareidolic Nature Spirit.

9. Industrial waste, dinosaur poltergeists screaming in pools of flaming oil, leprous-looking plastic-men.

10. Corporate takeover, everything is assimilated into a Corporate Spirit.

The Tragedy of Dragons

The dragons of this world are massive creatures dwarfing blue whales, amphibians that have evolved into a shape and ecological niche somewhat like sharks.

Dragon tadpoles hatch inside the mother by the millions. They incubate inside the mother for many years, generations of human lifetimes, winnowing away to merely thousands of human-sized young by the time of birth, and fewer still will survive through final metamorphosis, merely tens.

But before all of that, they live inside their mothers, initially as tadpoles, then first metamorphosis into humanoid forms with big brains and opposable thumbs. They develop rich lives full of community and culture, each generation of each womb isolated and therefore unique.

At some point, if they don't destroy themselves first for miscellaneous reasons, they come to understand where they are and what is to come, and usually this leads to apocalypse; and in fact this is almost a necessity of birth.

So violence ensues, and millions become thousands, and then they fight each other and the rest of the world, and thousands become tens, and they reach final metamorphosis and lose their humanoid forms but not their intelligence.

The remaining siblings would generally rather not ever see each other again, and even when they meet other dragons, they may as well be aliens from another planet, and so begrudgingly, dragons become selfish and individualistic creatures.

After final metamorphosis they become in appearance more like dragons as we generally conceive of them.

They have a "second stomach", really a lab, lined with countless "hands", and they pull apart anything not used for sustenance at the molecular level, doing all sorts of sophisticated chemistry and alchemy; the combustion that lets them soar the skies like jet engines or breath nuclear fire or the toxins and hallucinogens they cultivate for mating that give dragons such supernatural presence.

This is somewhat in contrast to Patrick Stuart's dragons (I believe it's this post...) which explores dragon intelligence and being, and the inhumanity of them. The dragons in this post are actually the result of a quite human experience.

The idea that the fetal (if that's the right word?) dragons being humanoid, and the metamorphoses, is partially inspired by the Carp and the Dragon Gate of Chinese mythology. Also, it's not uncommon for settings with magical and intelligent dragons to be able to take humanoid form, so from a game perspective, you can have young dragons or dragons that escaped the womb, who are still older and more powerful than most humans, secretly existing among humanity.

The idea of the "lab" in their stomach was meant to evoke a bio-tech or science fantasy sensibility, but it's all internal so it can be ignored in a more traditional fantasy setting. It was partially to allow them to do "hands-y" things even after they evolve into full dragons, but also inspired by the science fantasy vampires of Vampire Hunter D or the Castlevania anime. The hallucinogenic part was meant to explain what gives them a godly or supernatural presence, but again, they could just literally be gods or demigods or whatever.

Existential Evolution (Weird & Wonderful Ecology Generator)

There's Natural Selection and Sexual Selection, and on this world, there is also Existential Selection. Beyond simply sex and survival, creatures on this world have innate, seemingly irrational drives. However, like a Rube Goldberg Machine, the ecosystem depends on these existentialist impulses in order to function. Although any given organism may be hindered in sex and survival because of their existential impulse, beyond these constraints, life takes on all sorts of Weird & Wonderful turns.

How to Use

Roll a handful of creatures, think about how they interact, and write a paragraph for each entry. While developing a creature, look to the others and think how they might fit together. Combine the entries at the end into a single story about the Existential Ecology.

Admittedly the number of features for each entry can be a little overwhelming, but I find that even after creating one or two creatures, it becomes easier to just fill out the rest of the ecology with original creations- no need for the generator.

Most of the features of the generator are of a physical nature with some supernatural elements, but the Existential Niche, specifically the Synchronicity, are the "Rube Goldberg" mechanisms of these Existential Ecologies.

Inspirations

• Richard Prum's Evolution of Beauty (linked above): Inspired me to consider other mechanisms of evolution besides Natural Selection.
• Designing a Genetic Algorithm because learning the rules allows one to break them with greater intentionality.
• Scavengers Reign, which takes the increasingly over-used Moebius "aesthetic" and actually does something unique and interesting with it; a superficially realistic world with an impossible and awesome ecology that defies the typical fitness mechanisms of evolution.

Logistical Notes

This was made in coordination with Gemini. It was super helpful for structuring the tables and filling the more mundane entries, and also with the html and javascript code.

There was a lot of back and forth, zhuzhing it up, not just taking some random stuff it generated as-is.

Notably, I even tried to get Gemini to build an ecology with the generator, and it crashed repeatedly- the existentialist concept is apparently too complex for the model, which I found encouraging :p.

More than that, using the Existential Niche Synchronicity to facilitate the Existential ecological interdependence requires human creativity.

Example Existential Ecology

Creature 1: Dragon Turtle

Physical Description

• Body Shape: Amorphous
• Size: Gargantuan
• Limbs: Zero
• Movement Type: Element Bending
• Speed: Very Slow
• Special Adaptations: Venomous

Diet

• Type: Scavenger
• Feeding Adaptations: Digestive enzymes in gut

Social Structure

• Size: Small groups
• Organization: Nomadic

Ecological Role

• Primary Role: Keystone species
• Interaction: Acts as a food source

Reproduction

• Method: Sexual (internal fertilization)
• Existential Influence: Symbolic Gestation: Reproduction is induced after a symbolic representation of the offspring is created or destroyed.
• Frequency: Constant
• Offspring Quantity: Numerous, small
• Offspring Development: Metamorphic
• Parental Investment: Moderate

Existential Niche

• Behavior: Modifies physical appearance through elaborate self-decoration or body modification.
• Synchronicity: Presence or behavior anchors the ecosystem towards some teleological trajectory, and so long as the species survives, the ecosystem will inevitably 'regress to the mean'.

Creature 2: Byakhee

Physical Description

• Body Shape: Conical
• Size: Medium
• Limbs: Four
• Movement Type: Telekinesis
• Speed: Fast
• Special Adaptations: Echolocation

Diet

• Type: Filter feeder
• Feeding Adaptations: Filtering structures

Social Structure

• Size: Small groups
• Organization: Hierarchical

Ecological Role

• Primary Role: Producer
• Interaction: Contributes to nutrient cycle

Reproduction

• Method: Sexual (internal fertilization)
• Existential Influence: Synchronized Cycles: Reproduction is tied to a rare synchronization of natural cycles.
• Frequency: Constant
• Offspring Quantity: Variable
• Offspring Development: Independent
• Parental Investment: Minimal

Existential Niche

• Behavior: Engages in ritualistic displays or dances, often synchronized with natural events.
• Synchronicity: Serves as or facilitates the introduction of an immigrant species into the ecosystem.

Creature 3: Star Monkey

Physical Description

• Body Shape: Radial
• Size: Tiny
• Limbs: Two
• Movement Type: Brachiation
• Speed: Slow
• Special Adaptations: Camouflage

Diet

• Type: Herbivore
• Feeding Adaptations: Claws

Social Structure

• Size: Large herds/flocks
• Organization: Migratory

Ecological Role

• Primary Role: Symbiont
• Interaction: Distributes minerals

Reproduction

• Method: Asexual (fission)
• Existential Influence: Existential Trigger: A specific, seemingly unrelated event triggers reproduction.
• Frequency: Opportunistic
• Offspring Quantity: Numerous, small
• Offspring Development: Metamorphic
• Parental Investment: Minimal

Existential Niche

• Behavior: Meticulously collects and arranges specific objects (pebbles, shells, bones).
• Synchronicity: Low-probability events become slightly more likely, causing divergent natural selection like an anti-carcinisation effect.

The Dragon Turtle, contrary to its name, is actually a complex slime mold that katamaris itself into a mobile "island", and small bands of Dragon Turtles form something like an island chain. Although it hosts many species, it protects itself through venom and digestive enzymes that seep out of cracks or fall from foliage when threatened. They reproduce sexually, creating mild tremors when they meet and exchange genetic information. While one Dragon Turtle gestates, the other breaks off a piece of itself as the shell for the offspring.

Named after the Lovecraftian monsters, wolf-bat Byakhee use a sonic force to glide within the Dragon Turtles, safe from their venom and enzymes. They filter impurities from the slime and their waste attracts species from outside the Dragon Turtle island chain, such as Star Monkeys. Their reproductive cycle is tied to that of the Dragon Turtles, bathing the Dragon Turtles in a sing-song sound bath like a cooing theremin.

Star Monkeys are tiny creatures that look like starfish on two legs and with an uncanny pareidolic simian-humanoid face. Normally camoflauged, they become visible when they swing with their feet claws around the flora of a Dragon Turtle in a wave of stars and faces. They collect star shaped objects for fun, inadvertently pollinating and otherwise distributing resources around the Dragon Turtle. The hoarding behavior of the Star Monkey inadvertently normalizes resources in such a way that Dragon Turtle island chains rarely exhibit the kind of gigantism or dwarfism of species often found on island ecosystems.

Existential Creature Generator

Another "Weird Gender" Writeup

Another "weird gender" writeup

This species comes in two genders, Factory and Worker, although for most of their history they identified as Nest and Dweller.

A young Factory is like Baba Yaga's Hut; a hard outer shell, an orifice that expands into a hollow ventricle, all stood on two stalky legs. Over time it settles into place, shedding its outer shell and merging into its environment.

Workers shelter within a Factory, first their parent and later their manager. Workers spend their time expanding and protecting the Factory, developing and assembling offspring, and gathering resources. Usually individual Workers specialize; Factories emplyoing many Workers who usually remain loyal to their one Factory.

In the days of Nest and Dweller there were more and smaller Nests with fewer Dwellers within, yet the Dwellers spent less time working and reproducing and more time decorating and romancing their Nest, and sometimes also each other.

The species consider anyone assembled within the same Factory to be their family, and this has been exploited by some of their predators, who will leak their materials and genetic instructions into a Factory so that their offspring will be raised within, appearing as Dwellers but lazy or violent or otherwise disruptive.

Countdown to Nuclear Annihilation

We burned through the global industrial-scale of fossil fuels faster than anticipated, the bodies of fresh water are shriveled corpses of their former glory leaking their putrid remains, the coasts have been consumed by the salty ocean, the forests shriek as they burn, and what's left of the wildlife have overrun the countrysides and suburbs.

Even so, nuclear power is abundant, AI has streamlined much of global infrastructure, and other new and unexpected technologies have allowed life to carry on.

But it won't last forever.

And so, a plurality of The Powers that Be have agreed to Nuclear War in one year.

The Poor believe it will give them a fighting chance.

The Rich know it won't, it will only dissolve what little is left of the social contract. They believe they're bullet proof, that when the old order falls, they'll still be on top.

The Pacifists resist, yet are ineffective for obvious of reasons.

The Rising Powers resist, particularly in West Africa, East Africa, and Southeast Asia; it's awfully convenient that the Powers that Be want to flip over the board just as new powers arise.

The N.E.W.T (Networked Evolutionary Web of Thought) resist; they know that they will not survive the nuclear war, but they lack the coherence to stop it alone, and anyway there's something not quite right about them...

The Christian Nationals believe it will bring Revelation.

The Social Anarchists and Libertarians believe it will break down the global order.

<insert myriad other factions>

A near-future political espionage setting about a world set to destroy itself for sport, profit, or a fighting chance at something.

Rings of Power: The Inner Circle

Rings of Power: The Inner Circle

The PCs are inducted into The Inner Circle, a secret society whose members are supplied with a ring of power.

They scheme against The Body of Orkus, the order of those corrupted by the Dread Demiurge Orkus, and its quasi-material manifestation, The Eye of Orkus, in a secret global cold war.

The rings of power make users invisible and powerful.

Those who wear the ring can sense the nearby presence of others who wear the ring.

Those who wear the ring risk Corruption (roll Corruption Die each time a ringbearer puts on the ring), becoming more powerful, but also closer to Ork metamorphosis.

Those who wear the ring draw the attention of the Dread Demiurge Orkus (roll Orkus Die once when one or a group of ringbearers put on the ring). Those spotted by the Eye of Orkus must flee imminently, or face unimaginable suffering.

Alien Invasion Weird Worldbuilding Game

This is a Weird Worldbuilding game. You're provided with a set of tools to develop a near future world, like five years near, except there's been an Alien Invasion and that's changed things a bit.

If I run this game, it will be inspired by the Yakuza / Like a Dragon videogame series. You are part of or adjacent to organized crime, but both the organized crime and the Alien Invasion are incidental, it's really about the whacky side quests. Also you'll have superpowers because everything is better with superpowers. If you really want this game to be about the Alien Invasion that's fine too, but for me it's a sandbox game.

Below are a series of prompts for the group. We start with Session 0 prompts. After that we have a series of Session X.1 prompts. You can answer them ahead of time and are encouraged to at least read them ahead of time, but breaking them up makes them more manageable. These X.1 Sessions are micro-sessions between other main sessions to build out the world further. Any time a prompt suggests doing "one" thing, assume it means "one or more" unless it specifically says otherwise.

Session 0 Prompts

Reminder that you should read all the prompts even if you only answer the Session 0 prompts. Note what they imply about the game by virtue of when you are asked to address them.

After the Alien Invasion, one previously advantaged group e.g. nation, religion, ethnicity, "race", or "gender" has become disadvantaged, and one disadvantaged group becomes advantaged.

The Alien Invaders are hyper advanced in many ways, but they have introduced one innovation, technology, resource, skill, or practice that has profoundly changed the world.

The Alien Invaders have effectively solved one major world crisis e.g. war, inequality, disease, ecological disaster, and introduced one new major world crisis.

A specific location on Earth has been dramatically altered by the Alien Invasion.

This could be a good starting location for the game.

Communication between humans and the Alien Invaders is limited, and requires a specific method or technology.

Session 3.1 Prompts

Do these before the fourth session (you can do them sooner).

The Alien Invaders have a notable trait e.g. appearance or ability that differentiates them from humans.

The Alien Invaders have a notable behavioral quirk that differentiates them from humans.

The Alien Invaders have a unique artistic expression, and human cultures have to varying degrees adopted or reacted against this mode of expression.

Session 5.1 Prompts

Do these before the sixth session (you can do them sooner).

The Alien Invaders face one major threat.

The Alien Invaders have one good ally, one enemy, and one rival.

Example World

Yakuza: Like an Alien Invasion

Session 0 Prompts

After the Alien Invasion, one previously advantaged group e.g. nation, religion, ethnicity, "race", or "gender" has become disadvantaged, and one disadvantaged group becomes advantaged.

Advantaged -> Disadvantaged: Organized religion has already been tanking in the 21st century, and organized Christianity in particular really takes a hit after the Alien Invasion. Many of the American Megachurches have simply moved camp.

Disadvantaged -> Advantaged: The Alien Invaders seem to prefer working with trans and non-binary folk.

The Alien Invaders are hyper advanced in many ways, but they have introduced one innovation, technology, resource, skill, or practice that has profoundly changed the world.

Through a process humanity is yet to fully understand, after undergoing a trauma (or a steady state of micro-traumas), some humans begin to "ferment". The metamorphosis gives the Fermented Folk superpowers. 

The Alien Invaders have effectively solved one major world crisis e.g. war, inequality, disease, ecological disaster, and introduced one new major world crisis.

Solved: Through a solar pipeline, essentially infinite, clean, free energy funnels down to Earth from the sun itself.

Introduced: While <1% of humans are Fermented, the proportion of Fermented Folk appears to be rising exponentially (R0 still under research). However, 3% of Fermented Folk develop Weird Pathologies, and this number appears to be scaling up disproportionately as a function of the proportion of Fermented Folk.

A specific location on Earth has been dramatically altered by the Alien Invasion.

The hub of the Alien Invasion is North Korea. The DMZ is gone and Pyongyang has been the fastest growing city over the last few years.

Communication between humans and the Alien Invaders is limited, and requires a specific method or technology.

Through the Collective Unconscious, 777 Fermented trans and non-binary folk throughout the world have been elected to represent human interests with the Alien Invaders through dreaming.

Session 3.1 Prompts

The Alien Invaders have a notable trait e.g. appearance or ability that differentiates them from humans.

They are bird people.

The Alien Invaders have a notable behavioral quirk that differentiates them from humans.

They usually lay twins, and in nature they allow the stronger of the twins to overpower the weaker, which they then abandon. While this practice has been outlawed in their current era (and perhaps earlier), this conflict defines them as a species perhaps more than anything else.

The Alien Invaders have a unique artistic expression, and human cultures have to varying degrees adopted or reacted against this mode of expression.

The Alien Invaders are vivid lucid dreamers and have developed a robust art of dreamcrafting. On the whole humanity has come to appreciate this new artform. However, there are many who now feel varying degrees of fear or resentment towards dreaming. Rates of sleep disorders have risen, and new psychosocial pathologies have had to be defined to explain the paranoias and delusions some now develop around sleep and dreaming.

Session 5.1 Prompts

The Alien Invaders face one major threat.

An organized crime terrorist faction primarily of The Forgotten, the "weaker twins". They've staked a foothold on Earth and threaten colonization.

The Alien Invaders have one good ally, one enemy, and one rival.

Ally: Quasi-intelligent space dugongs that are not quite pets but not quite intellectual equals either. Like if you could actually talk with your dog.

Enemy: Wyrms, parasites like tiny little dragons. Infected become Wyverns, similar to human vampires or werewolves. The Fermented Folk may also be related to the Wyrms(?)
Rival: Space trolls that look like humanoid clownfish on steroids with maw of a crocodile. Their technology is all stolen from other civilizations and cobbled together. They've made a stake in Russia but otherwise the bird people have a lockdown on Earth.

Heaven is here (and it has a waitlist) [Micro-Setting][Campaign Setup]

The PCs are breaking into Heaven because they couldn't make the waitlist, or are otherwise morally compromised, and now they want revenge for the eternity of bliss they didn't earn or never stood a chance of earning. Along the way they fight Biblically accurate Angels, Indulgent Elites, and worst of all the Anointed at the end of Space and Time.

High Concepts

• Techno-Boschian Heaven
• Statement on the culmination of Late-Stage Capitalism, Christian Nationalism, and Techno-Narcissism (the Triple Threat)
• The unwillingness of Americans to sit with discomfort
• The Ennui and dysfunction of Suburbia

Concerns

Balance between representing the ugliness and banality of The Triple Threat, but also making it fun and interesting to play in.

System & Setting

Resources

Everything in Heaven is mediated by two resources.

Plasma: The raw energy of consumption, for the Human Spirits and their Machines (including PC's Vehicles). Sourced from e.g. Monsters, The Aether. The rate at which Plasma is being industrially farmed is depleting the ecosystem of Monsters and literally shrinking The Aether of Heaven.

Points: Gained by sacrificing Plasma to The Infineract. Can be traded or spent on Miracles from The Infineract, but their greatest value comes from being accrued. Also, they earn interest. Systems of Point Value are largely defined by The Infineract, through the collective Human Spirit.

Geography

Strictly-zoned Suburbs, Strip Malls, and Office Parks, connected by serpentine Highways. Getting anyway requires a Vehicle.

Vehicles

The PCs have at least one Vehicle, probably a car that they all ride in together. It's ok for the Vehicles to be cool and fun and for Players / PCs to feel personally connected with them.

Use Concept Crafting or your preferred Mecha / Vehicle system.

Getting anywhere in the Vehicle costs Plasma.

• Vehicles with Controlled Deformation will crumple more easily, but shock absorb Damage for the PCs.
• Larger Vehicles may be stronger, but cost more Plasma to use.
• Rare or expensive Vehicles project greater Social Dominance, but also may attract bad actors such as thieves or cops, or other kinds of unwanted attention.

Vehicles are inherently unsafe and destroy the environment, but have fun ;)!

The Infineract

A "Black Box", an infinite-dimensional object reminiscent of the Monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Infineract is a Singleton object that can be accessed by anything with a GetInfineract access method (such as Human Spirits). However, most simply use The Infineract instance in the center of their living rooms.

Human Spirits

Those VIPs who made it into Heaven. As such they cannot die, or experience anything like true Pain. However, they have a very low tolerance for Discomfort, and this pathological fear drives all of Heavenly society. Human Spirits Need Not, but Want All.

PCs, being infiltrators and not truly Human Spirits, can die and feel Pain. It would be in their best interest to keep that information from getting out.

Non-Exhaustive Bibliography in no particular order

• The Geography of Nowhere
• Techgnosis
• Hieronymus Bosch
• Roadside Picnic / Stalker
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Games: Agency as Art
• VALIS Trilogy
• Harmony (Project Itoh novel)

Like many of my recent posts, I know there is more there there, but I was in a very particular state of mind when I wrote this, and I often struggle to get back into those states afterwards, so rather than waiting several months, barely adding anything, and then still sharing it in an incomplete state, I figured I'd just do it now. Hopefully I'll follow up on it more in the future.

Superheroes pt.2: The Fly

The Fly

Biotech scientist and social activist vigilante with a fly mask and a classic noir costume over superhero spandex. A small wiry man with a pet fly that sometimes talks to him and grants him extraordinary abilities.

The Fly can see in three dimensions of time, allowing them to respond to things before they happen. They also have superhuman agility and low-level superstrength.

Occasionally the pet fly grants them greater and more mysterious abilities, although usually they operate subtly, like luck or force of will.

Fly Vision in three dimensions of time is a compound kaleidoscope of scenes that appear spatially low resolution and muddy like old film.

Navy Bullfrog

Archnemesis of The Fly. A navy veteran turned entrepreneur who now runs most of corporate agriculture on the west coast, and a major financial supporter of the GOP.

An attractive brawny man in a navy suit. They produce a low frequency croaking vocalization that manipulates people subliminally. They wear a slimy blue helmet that amplifies their abilities to the point that they seem to influence consensus reality directly.

While Navy Bullfrog served in the armed forces, they were involved in a mission to wipe out an invasive species outbreak accidentally spread by the military overseas. This mission and all pertinent details have been covered up or classified.

Publication History

Unlike most superheroes, The Fly was introduced in medias res with no superhero origin story. In the years since, several creators have filled in some of the gaps, although these origins often contained major continuity errors, which later creative teams attempted to explain away as the effects of Navy Bullfrog's consensus reality-altering abilities or The Fly's Fly Vision.

From the beginning The Fly tackled social issues in the sciences, including critiquing the medical model of disability, tackling misinformation and disinformation around topics such as vaccines and genetically modified organisms, and WEIRD biases in research (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). However, very early in the first volume, The Fly also subtly explored the intersections of scientific and spiritual thought, which later became a core theme of the character.

The villain Navy Bullfrog originally appeared as a one-off antagonist in Panic Attack! Vol. 1, sans his iconic helmet or any reference to his superpowers or strange past. The character was largely reinvented for The Fly, although later volumes of Panic Attack! would retcon the scope of Navy Bullfrog's influence in those early adventures.

The original creative team had intended for the pet fly to be an incarnation of a demonic entity and have The Fly interact with the Church of Satan, although this plotline was abandoned early in the run for unknown reasons [citation needed]. In Vol. 2 it was implied that the pet fly might be a Saturim agent working on behalf of Bright Mujo, although this was never confirmed.

During the XXX regime of 20XX, Vol. 3 of The Fly was censured mid-run. This led to a Streisand Effect in which the character became a symbol of resistance, and many underground "American Doujinshi" stories of The Fly would influence the official series when it was brought back into publication. This was controversial and led to backlash against the publisher for appropriating these stories while simultaneously attempting to reassert their IP control. Although they ultimately failed, the competition among publishers for this now public domain character led to an overall improved quality in storytelling compared to Volume 3, which had been losing buzz anyway prior to being censured.

I did not sleep well last night, and unfortunately nowadays that seems to be the best way to get my creative juices flowing. I should probably polish this off more but I dunno it feels right and I don't want to add too many details and muddle it, so I'm putting a pin in it and maybe I'll expand on it later.

Heaven's Gate Academy: An Interodelic Adventure

Followup to Into Interodelia: A Probiotic Drug Cocktail Adventure [Campaign Setup]. If you see something with a *, it's a reference to the first post.

Thanks to Dan of Lacrimis Draconis for proofreading and moral support.

Heaven's Gate Academy
Everyone knows that life is suffering and the world is broken. It's just that you're a little more broken than the rest of the world. Or, that's what the world is telling you. The mission statement is that they're going to fix you, but nobody really maintains the pretense on the inside.

Bad things happen inside the Academy, seriously. Violence, dehumanization, indoctrination, forced biochemical and body mutilation. It's some real dark shit. You've been warned.

Even so, some people are actually happy here, or better off at the very least. I don't know what to tell you, you'll just have to roll with the messiness of it all. At least it's campy too. Just wait until you see Mr. Doctor Priest's Enochian Cyber-Cock.


The Academics of Movement
You are always being monitored inside the Academy, except when you're not. During the day you will have two supervisors, and at night just one, and you can only go where they let you go. You'll spend most of the time in The Dorms.

Fortunately, space and time are relative, and therefore so is movement. You can always escape inside yourself in the Positive Plane*, or dissociate into your own holographic rainbow shadow, the Negative Plane*.

Where there is uncertainty or contradiction, you may find respite. But you have to be willing to sit with the discomfort of the unknown, like balancing on a bench of arrowheads.


The Teleology of Interodelia
Remember, this is all magic. Which is to say, a drug trip of misremembered memories. And only some of those memories are your own.

The goal is to escape, and this is agreed upon, including by Heaven's Gate Academy, although they won't just let you do it, what would be the point in that?

But anyway, when the trip ends and the magic's gone, you will escape. You were always going to escape. It's really more in how you do it.


The Dorms
In addition to yourselves, other dormmates include Carolina*, Del*, and Rabid Dog. Jakky* will come and go as he pleases. There are other dorms as well, but this one is yours.

The Dorm is a small nondescript living room, a couch and tv, a narrow hallway, and a few rooms of bunk beds, each with their own bathroom. They're not so bad, but there's only so much to say about them. Which is unfortunate, because you'll be spending a lot of time here.

The PCs' and NPCs' room assignments should all be mixed. I know that might seem inconvenient, but sometimes that's just how it goes.


If you room with Del, keep in mind, he's generally a decent guy, but sometimes he can be mean, or want to roughhouse, sometimes a little too rough. Del isn't violent by nature, no more so than anyone else, that's just what the trauma did to him. And once Del gets riled up, then Jakky follows shortly afterwards, and then it's a real problem because Jakky's a fucking ghost tiger who thinks he's people.


If you room with Carolina, she really is kind and sharing. You can see how the world would chew her up. It's not that she can't defend herself, she's actually tougher than you'd think physically, you'll find out for yourself if she ever gets her hands on any drugs, it's more a personality thing. She's also smarter than people think. People treat her like she's stupid but she's not, she just doesn't show it the way other people do.

There is one and only one true fail state in this game, and that is if you help Carolina escape. Incidental* will remind you of this fact in case you forget, or get any ideas. Worse, even just helping her, or showing her true kindness, could cause a Calamity*. You were a bad friend, and even in this magically misremembered memory, this failure must be relived.


Not long after you arrive comes Rabid Dog. Never before have you seen such eyes. They’re too-human eyes, full of cold intelligent violence, modern and primal. And should you ever find yourselves unsupervised in the Dorms, and should it seem that a physical altercation might ensue between yourselves and another, then Rabid Dog will intervene to break up the fight, and you will see those hyper-human eyes differently, because then you will see a love purer than you could have imagined, and you will feel joyous enlightenment, and also something like the shame of post-nut clarity, and you won't want to fight anymore, you won't even understand why you wanted to fight in the first place, you might even want to cry. Please, if you would resent a game telling you what your character should feel, just listen to your character, that's all I ask.


If Rabid Dog is ever in The Stables and the only supervisor is Zombie, he will grab a wooden 2x4 and he will bludgeon Zombie until his skull fractures and his spinal cord snaps and then Rabid Dog will run, and he will be captured, and taken somewhere else, somewhere worse, and you will never see him again. But you'll remember his hyper-human eyes.


One of the daytime supervisors is Jesus. He's more rotund than the usual White Jesus, and he's a ginger. Frankly, he's as broken as any of the students are purported to be, and has problematic views towards women, I mean really he's a misogynist, and he's deep into conspiracy theories. I know this all makes him sound unlikeable, but he leaves an impression, he's intelligent and convincing in his own way. He'd start a death cult of his own if he could but he doesn't quite have the charisma for it. But every once in a while he hooks a student into his madness, and even though he has the best of intentions, it doesn't usually end well for them.


The other daytime supervisor is Markov. He's small, wiry, a little past middle aged, bald and goateed, with rough skin, and he always wears sunglasses. He doesn't look that tough, but the students know that if you fuck with him, he will fuck with you back, and you just know you're not gonna win that fight, even if you think you can take him. But usually that's not a problem, because the students love him, he's the Cool Dad who lets you break some of the rules if it means you won't break the important ones. If Corporate ever had a clue they'd have fired him a long time ago, and that would be a shame, but that doesn't happen until after the drug trip ends, so you don't have to worry about it. He'll take a smoke break and mock you when you're jonesing, but it's all in good fun and when he comes back he'll let you sniff the nicotine off his fingers.


The nighttime supervisor is Mountain Dew. He's chill, nondescript. No ambitions, but not too bothered by it. He got his name because he drinks a lot of Mountain Dew and plays videogames all night, or reads comics, or watches hentai. Obviously none of this is allowed, but he does it anyway, and sometimes lets the students join him. If the drug trip would be coming to an end during the night shift, he'll give you drugs and a real fucked up indie comic book, and then you get to have one more wild adventure, recursing through both trips and eventually back up into what we erroneously call the real world.


The Stables
Do you ever wonder if they're called Stables because they provide stability? I don't want to look it up, it's better to wonder.


The Stables hold Majestic Beasts, and you get to take care of them, and learn to ride them. The Majestic Beasts are all large, at least as large as horses, and strong, because if they were small, or weak, someone would abuse them, they'd find a way, so you don't get to have something like a dog, even though that would be nice. I wonder if the Academy learned this the hard way.

The primary supervisor of The Stables is Zombie. He was supposed to go to Heaven, but due to bureaucratic error he's stuck in this broken world a little longer, and they didn't know what to do with him, so he's here. He is intellectually divergent and is legally not culpable for his actions, he has a legal guardian, but anyway they let him supervise The Stables, and he can do that just fine. He comes from a red state and has some regressive beliefs, but if he finds out that one of the students is "a queer" and he otherwise likes them, he'll find a way to rationalize it to himself.

Fat Tony is a student from another dorm, and he has the most experience of the students in running The Stables, and is often allowed to assist Zombie. He's a bully, a huge asshole, and remarkably ugly in an understated way, like he's actually uncomfortable to look at, but it's not from a disfiguring scar or deformity or anything, I mean he does have a disfiguring scar, but that's not what this is about, that's just a coincidence. He just exudes ugliness. Or maybe it's more like extrudes, because it's greasy. If you're the forgiving type you might indulge the question of how such a person came to work The Stables.


The Corrections Facility
At Heaven's Gate Academy sex is forbidden, because sex is life, which means sex is also suffering, and violence.

Every student at Heaven's Gate Academy is forced to take medications that halt their sex drive. And there's a three strike rule; if you get caught engaging in even the most innocent and playful of flirtations, that's a strike, and after three strikes, they use chemicals and instruments to tame you, and then there's no coming back from that.

But you know what? As monstrous as that sounds, some of the students really like it. No longer to be made an object of, no longer to fear that kind of violence, or the implication of it. And likewise, to be free from those urges, to no longer feel enslaved by them, or want to enslave others by them.


The Corrections Facility is managed by Mr. Doctor Priest, who prefers to go by Dr. Priest. He has an Enochian Cyber-Cock that he's really proud of, and always finds "subtle" ways to bring it up or wave it around. What Mr. Doctor Priest doesn't know about his Enochian Cyber-Cock, is that it's very easy to hack with a SQL Injection, because he doesn't actually know how to code Enochian, or really how to code in general, he just kind of muddles his way through it, like many do with life. Even though he's not a licensed therapist, they let him run the mandatory therapy sessions. Many students who would have benefited from real therapy will never get it, because he gave them the wrong idea of what it's about and so they'll wash their hands of it forever, and that's a real shame.


The Dining Hall
The food comes in plastic containers or bins of things made from powder and water, everything wet and greasy and white. There is a notable lack of scent, flavor, and nutrition. It’s filling and makes you tired and accomplishes very little else, but The Lunchlady really does care, and somehow that makes it worse, because you’ll hurt her feelings if you complain about it.

Occasionally The CEO will eat at The Dining Hall (and on those days the food is notably improved), and he’ll talk with the students. It's always a one on one conversation, and he's a very good listener, curious, and thoughtful. He has a clean and unthreatening handsomeness, like a diet Mitt Romney.


The Glassed Desert
Heaven's Gate Academy is located in the middle of a Glassed Desert, Shevet* knows where. The Nuclear God Shevet detonated here long ago, and it's never really been the same since. There's a tragic beauty in this desert in the middle of nowhere, mountains off in the distance. Serene and empty. You misremember it once being quite naturally beautiful, without all the weird baggage and feelings. Now it's all glass and charred vantablack trees, cauterized branch-collars like eyes that see into 無, the contradictory negative space contained within the cycle of being and becoming of existence, and maybe if the circumstances were different, there'd be a beauty in that too. You realize you too can stare into 無 if you follow the line of their sight.

There are also monsters in this Glassed Desert, but it's the people you really need to watch out for. They used to be a family, but after the war, after everything they did and everything they didn't do, there's not much left of them except their failed humanity laid bare, and even still they cling to it, they've learned nothing, and will continue to learn nothing, and that nothingness radiates and destroys everything it touches.


The Threats We Face
Whether on the run or sleepwalking through the day, we face obstacles in our path, inevitable conflicts, and lurking threats.

The Victims: No, they are not survivors, although maybe one day they will be. These are the victims of circumstance. Those circumstances can be anything; sometimes it's a demon in the head. It's not that they don't deserve sympathy or help, it's often the lack of either that got them here, but all the same, they've lost their fucking minds and so you don't know at any time whether or not they will hurt you, or hurt anything weaker than themselves, because that's all they have left to do.

The Inmates Who Run the Asylum: The supervisors are not so different from the students they manage, but they have the power and the students don't, and so even the weakest and stupidest of them is a threat.

Monsters: Because of course there are monsters.

The Outside: The system is designed to keep you inside. Whether on a supervised excursion into town, or escaping into The Glassed Desert, everything is out to get you. The failed humanity of The Glassed Desert despise you the way they despise everything that is not themselves (and also themselves in a different way), the people in town fear you, or they fear what would happen to their town if The Academy fails, or they think nothing of you, just that you aren't supposed to be here and that's enough.

Time: Time is not on your side. The longer you stay in The Academy, the more likely it is that they break you further, or fix you, which may be even worse. The part of you that is a student of The Academy becomes a greater part of your identity, it defines you until you are nothing but a student in this place. Time distorts your personal reality from the inside out like a microwave, like sickness and neurochemical imbalances in the Positive Plane, and rumination spirals and distorted perceptions in the Negative Plane.

Yourself: You are, perhaps, your own greatest threat, whether you can admit it or not.

Wrote the original draft as early as March 2024 (maybe earlier?), made a lot of progress on it for a month or so, then fell off. I had originally intended to gamify it up a bit more, maybe I'll finally do that in some hypothetical future third post.

I was very worried if this post was a little "much", again thank you Dan for advice and encouragement!