The Age of Glass

[foolish_icarus]

The Age of Glass

Everyone knows the Glass. Some villages rest in mountain valleys, others on stilts and planks by the sea or behind rock walls under the shadows of slowly shifting dunes. To every young child, the Glass is simply part of the landscape, silent circles strewn about by powers long grown silent. The Glass outlasts generations, gently rippled surfaces mingling obscured images of sky above and darkened earth below.

Some religions say the earth was born of Glass, and the mountains and plains and oceans were lifted and melted out of the single glowing form of the world-crystal. Others say that nay, once there was no Glass, and the world is being smoothed clean for the use of another race. But there has been no new Glass since memory began--did the gods abandon their plans, or merely pause in their efforts?
In some places the Glass is sacred, in others profane, and in some merely an a-religious nuisance to be ripped up to make more room for pasture.

So humanity huddles in the corners of the world, having lost its godlike powers, possessing only rudimentary technology, once more threatened by the beasts and creeping and crawling things of the wild. Remnants of glorious and horrendous civilizations alike remain, earth and water moved by power of the mind, hand, and machine or perhaps simply the will of the gods? That is where we stand now, struggling to catch the fey spectre of the blessings endowed on a purer line or recall what powers are hidden inside the hand and tool. The riddles of genetics and subatomic physics are completely unknown to these people: The only half-explanations they can wonder at are the shrill rantings of priests detailing their version of whatever sinful offense caused the deities to cast down mankind from his seat of power, mixing mud and ash into a fallen lineage; the unbreachable, monolithic towers and the enigmatic forms of machines half-swallowed, listing into the very earth offer silent testimony to little more than the fact that they once existed, presumably to serve mankind. How, why, and for what end are questions only myths and legends can now touch upon.

[foolish_icarus]

The rules

You write your prose orders, I'll chug out an update. You want something done, you write about it (as much or little as you please). Results may vary.
And here's the most important part--we're working together, not against each other. Now, I'll frequently decide that "working together" means me throwing a nasty NPC horde at you, or some thoroughly unfortunate internal event, and you'll maybe occasionally decide "working together" means invading your fellow players or otherwise perpetrating dishonorable deeds (tsk tsk)--and that's well and good. The point is that this isn't like the adversarial court system, where each side throws the best they've got out there and let's the conflict sort out whose right. Rather, give some and take some. You don't always have to be the best ruler for your nation. Sometimes losing gives your experience some flavor. In summary, you don't just decide which way to trim the sails and crank the wheel, you also get to choose which way the ship sails (and I'll keep changing the way the wind blows to keep things surprising!).


The Statistics

CNS v. 3.3

Nation Name
Player Name
Civil Modernity: Number
Military Modernity: Number
Technological Capacity: Number
Espionage: Number (Support)
Army: Number (Support)
Navy: Number (Support)
Population: Number [million]
Economic Vigor: Status, Number
Median Living Standards: Status, Number
Contentedness: Status, Number
Notes—


Civil Modernity ; roughly equivalent to infrastructure and how common private and public technology is.


Military Modernity Military technology, training, readiness, effectiveness of force projection. A war will usually decrease it as manpower and equipment stockpiles are used up, which may be offset by an increase in experience.


Technological Capacity; Neither your Military Modernity or Civil Modernity may exceed your technological capacity rating. Tech Cap indicates how much theoretical scientific knowledge you possess (or if your society is against science, then it is how much “worldly wisdom has been revealed to your priests”), not how much is actually implemented in your country.


Espionage; measured in number of base of operations: Number you have, (Number you can support). You cannot have more than you can support. If you can support between one and two times as many base of operations as you actually have, the ones you do have will be more effective. Beyond that there is no change in effectiveness.


Army; measured in divisions: Number you have, (Number you can support without strain). Divisions present above the support limit will have lower morale, poorer equipment, and less training. Mobilize to increase the number of supportable divisions.


Navy; Measured in fleets. Works just like the Army does.


Population; in millions of people. If number of citizens, national population, and residents within your borders grow too disparate, I guess I’ll have to keep track of them separately. But for now assume they’re all about the same.


Economic Vigor; the general commercial health of your nation; employment, entrepreneurship, how easy it naturally is to be a consumer or producer at the given time.

Primitive (0), Backwards (1), Poor (2), Struggling (3), Stagnated (4), Decent (5), Good (6), Thriving (7), Exceptional (8), Glorious (9), Feverish (10).


Median Living Standards; Quality of life, primarily the practical availability to the average folk of the necessities and amenities for a given tech level (thus it is measured independently, like economy, of technology, though like everything else they impact each other).

Abysmal (0), Squalid (1), Poor (2), Unacceptable (3), Constrained (4), Tolerable (5), Good (6), Very Good (7), Exceptional (8), Utopian (9), Material Paradise (10).


Contentedness; it speaks for itself.

Open Revolt (0), Extremely Displeased (1), Worrisome (2), Significant Discontent (3), Restless (4), Just Satisfied (5), Conformable (6), Happy Enough (7), Optimistic (8), Quite Pleased (9), Exuberant (10).



Things to keep in mind (i.e. you may address them in orders/stories and they might be written about in updates or specific nation notes).

Government.
Culture/Society.
Economics/Taxation/Commercial Efficiency.
Liberties.
Conscription/Military Spending.
Social Welfare.
Socialized Services.
Nationalized Industry.
Industrial Grants.
Corruption.
Police.
Protectionism.

Bureaucracy; this is largely outside of your direct control. It will reflect to some degree your actual play style. You can order reductions in corruption or programs to improve efficiency, and they might work.

Independent (0), Local (1), Autonomous (2), Functioning (3), Sleek (4), Rooted (5), Sizable (6), Bulky (7), Burdensome (8), Monolithic (9), A Society Unto Itself (10).


Education; not just public education or institutes of higher learning (though those play the largest roles); can also be nontraditional education methods; influenced by freedom of speech and extent of information availability and public discussion.

None (0), Dismal (1), Ineffectual (2), Basic (3), Limited (4), Decent (5), Respectable (6), Quite Well Rounded (7), Very Well Informed (8), Excellent (9), Just…A lot (or variations thereof) (10).


Environment; the world is recovering from ecological catastrophe and is still unstable; may change due to human-caused activities or simply factors beyond your control.

Wasteland (0), Devastated (1), In Crisis (2), Inhospitable (3), Marginal (4), Hospitable (5), Healthy (6), Vital (7), Pristine (8), Pleasant (9), Well Tended (10).


Health; self explanatory.

Unhealthy (0), (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), Moderately Healthy (6), (7), (8), (9), Extremely Healthy (10).


Public Safety; (from crime); street crime as well as corruption, organized crime, and white collar crime can contribute to low ratings, as can, for example, an enemy army smashing through your territory (unless it is a courteous and well behaved enemy army).

Very Unsafe (0), (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), Moderately Safe (6), (7), (8), (9), Extremely Safe (10).


Now then, the starting stats. Fill it out, choosing from the ranges given (and choose a starting location, [see guidelines in 'FYI']:

Nation Name
Player Name
Civil Modernity: between 0 and 1000
Military Modernity: between 0 and 1000
Technological Capacity: between 800 and 1500
Espionage: 1 (1)
Army: 1 (1)
Navy: 0 to 1 (0 to 1)
Population: .1 to .5 [million]
Economic Vigor: 0 to 3
Median Living Standards: 0 to 4
Contentedness: 0 to 7
Notes—
{a few IC sentences on your country concept}

[foolish_icarus]

FYI

Civil Modernity, Military Modernity, and Tech Capacity are in numbers that are roughly equivalent to conditions present in European/Mediterranean civilization by year. A gross simplification, and there will be exceptions, but that's the gist of it. Higher is better. (Note that higher is always better even if Europe in AD 600 wasn't in real history better than AD 1. For a situation like that, look at conditions in Africa/Near East to get an idea of what they represent.)
----
So, a little bit about the Glass, since it's such a major landscape feature. About a third of the world's land surface is covered by Glass. It's not evenly or regularly spaced, nor is it laid down randomly. There are no large areas that are either completely devoid or completely covered by Glass. All the Glass circles are almost exactly the same size, a little less than a kilometer across. They follow the contours of the land to a small extent, that is, they are not exactly flat or circular, but pretty close. Almost never will you see something sticking out of the Glass that was there before the Glass, unless it was something once truly solid and massive, like a huge sturdy rock, in which the surface will be smoothed and glassed (the object underneath partially revealed because some of the glass has by this time flowed away).
----
The Glass varies in thickness by how far from the center the spot is and the composition of the stuff under it. It is a few inches thick at the edge and rapidly increased to several or many meters thick near the center (it extends underground; at the time the Glass was laid down the top was level with the surrounding land). Often the edges of the Glass have been broken up by roots, erosion, landslides, or farmers. Depending on the area, Glass circles may lay under several inches or many feet of dirt or sand or mud. Because of the layers of soil that cover some of the circles, it seems like rather less than a third of the land surface is covered by Glass, but that's how much there really is.
----
Much of the rest of the land surface is covered by desert or swamp. Rainfall hasn't changed a whole lot, but due to various factors there are still large swathes of land that can't support much life. There are strips of livable land strewn about here and there, often in highlands or hilly terrain, but also some in flatlands.
----
Now some more OOC knowledge that will nonetheless be useful:
The disaster took place in what is from now the relatively near future. So you're not going to find any futuristic technology, no matter how hard you look :P I'll throw in some stuff, but futuristic goodies are 100% at my discretion! But you can find old stuff on your own. Like the barrel of a rifle. You're not going to find usable equipment for the most part, but you could scrounge together enough broken antiques to get some idea of how to put together your own.
----
I've decided to stick with the real world sea level, more or less. It has varied before the time when this scenario starts, but has come back to current levels. Just assume low lying coastal areas are usually swampy (or full of dunes).
----
Oh yeah, I guess obviously we're starting in North America. There's a whole world out there, but you know nothing about it yet. I strongly encourage you to start in the continental United States, between the Atlantic and the Rockies, probably near a coastline. You can start inland, but it'll be tougher. If you really want to, you can start in Canada or Mexico or the Caribbean, but I think it'd be best for the PCs to be within easy contact/travel distance.
----
The Glass is just glass. Not that your little tribes know what radiation or mutations are, but there aren't really any signs of either. Health is about what you might expect for small, isolated, technologically societies.
----
Here's another thing: Food variety could be very important. The biosphere is in rough shape--that is, life on earth in general is in no danger, and in fact most species aren't really doing any worse than they usually are (species go extinct from natural causes frequently), but your access to nutritional variety can be limited, especially in harsh winters, and diseases will sometimes creep through your livestock, or a blight will hit your orchards, that kind of thing.
----
The other thing is that hitting any kind of industrial age again is going to be hard--even recovering pre-industrial metallurgical techniques is going to be difficult, because usable ores aren't just lying around on the ground or near the surface like they were the first time we developed metallurgical advances.
Right now you're in a bizarre wood/stone/scrapmetal/basic alloys age. It's going to take determination, wits, luck, and time to get any kind of a significant industrial production up and running (if that's the direction you choose to take; you might find other, better ways to make your people happy).
----
The damage done by the Glass is 'abrupt': almost everything within the radius of the Glass circles is destroyed without a trace (as mentioned above) but immediately outside of the circles, it appears little or no damage was done. It's hard to tell, because surely other calamities accompanied the age when the Glass came, so chaos, scavenging, and time have broken down most artifacts from the past, but in quite a few places you can find relics that exist in part outside of the radius of the Glass, and go right up to the edge, where the other part of what they once were completely ceases to exist except for, sometimes, a pattern in the Glass.


Hmm what else. I'm sure I've forgotten a few things, I'll add them as I remember them or they get asked.

[foolish_icarus]

Countries
Rather important: The stats you see are from what is in-game public knowledge. As the game moves on and secretive doings are about, the truth may not match up with what is apparent, i.e. other people's stats won't always be correct. That won't start to happen for a little while, and I will of course PM fully up to date info to thems that knows it, and best-guess estimates to thems that uses spies to finds it out!

As of 310 ACC (update 3)


Doverian Harmonium
Cyclotron
Civil Modernity: 845
Military Modernity: 650
Technological Capacity: 1015
Espionage: 1 (2)
Army: 1 (2)
Navy: 1 (1)
Population: .7 [million]
Economic Vigor: 2
Median Living Standards: 3
Contentedness: 4
Notes—
{The Harmonium is a strictly ordered community, structured into various caste “societies” (one for each principal trade or occupation) that, theoretically, know their place and exceed in that one area. Formed as a response only a generation ago to brutal strife between tribes and bands of violent cultists, the Harmonium has recently come under the rule of the Harmonarch, the military-political head of the state, who has implemented changes that may end up going very deep. The Harmonarch's policies have seen the increased equalization (that is, moreso than before but still a long way off) yet also improvements in organization and efficiency of the caste Societies. Is it a worthy trade off that these things have come at the expense of increased political tensions?...}


Shenandoah Confederation
Appleciders
Civil Modernity: 665
Military Modernity: 675
Technological Capacity: 1235
Espionage: 1 (1)
Army: 1 (2)
Navy: 0 (1)
Population: .8 [million]
Economic Vigor: 3
Median Living Standards: 3
Contentedness: 4
Notes—
{Located in what remains of the Shenandoah Valley, the Shenandoah Confederation remains a largely agrarian society. A tight-knit union of communities does cause some political infighting, but such infighting is a small price for the close contact between communities, which has saved the Confederation several times, both from outside assault and famine. The central government is small and wields little actual power; it serves mainly as a forum for the leaders of individual communties to exchange information and coordinate large projects. Shenandoah has for generations been expanding its borders and populations by taking outsider tribes into its Confederation, for the most part successfully.}


Society of Holy Diviners
General Ludd
Civil Modernity: 600
Military Modernity: 400
Technological Capacity: 1305
Espionage: 1 (1)
Army: 1 (1) [city militias]
Navy: 0 (1)
Population: .4 [million]
Economic Vigor: 4
Median Living Standards: 3
Contentedness: 6
Notes—
{It may be hard to define the society as a nation, as it is only a small collection of decentralized and mercantile communities. There is no enforced hierarchy within the society, but still, nothing is done without first consulting a diviner. The people believe that the diviners are capable of seeing everything that every has been, is, and will be, and are thus given the greatest amount of respect. The diviners have a hierarchy amongst themselves however, starting with neophytes all the way up the the high council, which is made up of representives of each community.}


NPCs...estimates only!

Macry
Civil Modernity: 600
Military Modernity: 860
Technological Capacity: 905
Army: 2
Navy: 0
Population: .9 [million]
Economic Vigor: 4
Median Living Standards: 4
Contentedness: 5
Notes—
{}


Mastay
Civil Modernity: 925
Military Modernity: 890
Technological Capacity: 1005
Army: 2
Navy: 2
Population: 1.3 [million]
Economic Vigor: 4
Median Living Standards: 3
Contentedness: 2
Notes—
{}


Filodelia
Civil Modernity: 715
Military Modernity: 770
Technological Capacity: 835
Army: 1
Navy: 1
Population: .4 [million]
Economic Vigor: 3
Median Living Standards: 3
Contentedness: 5
Notes—
{}


East Ilk
Civil Modernity: 785
Military Modernity: 655
Technological Capacity: 905
Army: 1
Navy: 2
Population: .8 [million]
Economic Vigor: 5
Median Living Standards: 4
Contentedness: 7
Notes—
{}


West Ilk
Civil Modernity: 755
Military Modernity: 690
Technological Capacity: 890
Army: 1
Navy: 2
Population: .6 [million]
Economic Vigor: 4
Median Living Standards: 4
Contentedness: 6
Notes—
{}


Risen
Civil Modernity: 795
Military Modernity: 650
Technological Capacity: 840
Army: 1
Navy: 1
Population: .6 [million]
Economic Vigor: 5
Median Living Standards: 4
Contentedness: 6
Notes—
{}


Silverdy
Civil Modernity: 555
Military Modernity: 740
Technological Capacity: 780
Army: 2
Navy: 0
Population: .9 [million]
Economic Vigor: 4
Median Living Standards: 5
Contentedness: 5
Notes—
{}

[foolish_icarus]

Sample Map, to give you a feel of what an average area might look like.



the initial map/part of the world you'll be interacting with. Note that there are NPCs beyond the borders, and after PCs have been set down upon this good grey earth, NPC tribes will also (kind of retroactively, story-wise) appear amidst you



map for update 1!



map for update 2!



der los map de la update san!

[foolish_icarus]

Links and other things of interest.

Update 1

Update 2 is on the same page as update 1, towards the bottom

Update 3 (post # 55, partway down the page)

Here's a comparative chart of some society indicator estimates:

{this is really tedious. MAYBE i'll work on it later}

..............Civ Modrnty | Mil Modrnty | Tech Cap | Army| Navy | Popltion | Econ Vig | MedLiveStan |

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doveria | 840...... | 640...... | 1010......| 1...... | 1...... | .6 mil...... | 3...... | 4...... | 5...... |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shenan |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Diviner |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Macry |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mastay |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Filo |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E Ilk |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
W Ilk |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Risen |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Silverdy |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------

(just so you all know, the fact that this condenses white space pisses me off. A lot.)

Commence with the postery!

[Cyclotron]

OK then! A few Qs before I go:

- How complete should our notes be at then end of the nation stat block? I mean, a "few sentences" can't cover all the topics you said we should consider. Are we assuming that the full picture will come out over the course of orders/prose?
- Can I reserve somewhere around Delaware (specifically, the Delmarva Peninsula)? Of course, I know nothing about the climate/terrain of the east coast, but it looks like interesting geography there.

[appleciders]

Likewise, a couple questions:

-In picking places to settle, can we assume a roughly equivilent climate/rainfall/temperature to what we see today? I mean, Kansas hasn't suddenly become a swamp, and New York's not tropical, right?

-How much land can we reasonably claim? I mean, here I was ready to claim Michigan, and that's a little off-scale with Cyc's Delmarva.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by appleciders
-How much land can we reasonably claim? I mean, here I was ready to claim Michigan, and that's a little off-scale with Cyc's Delmarva.

Well, it's not altogether off-scale. I assumed we were starting fairly locally (Civ style) but maybe not.

[appleciders]

I'm actually thinking you're a little closer to the facts. Dibs on the Shenandoah Valley!

And one more thing- how radioactive is the Glass at this point? Can we expect actual radiation burns, maybe just lower life expectancy from the people nearby, or is it just plain glass by now?

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by appleciders
I'm actually thinking you're a little closer to the facts. Dibs on the Shenandoah Valley!

Moving in on my turf, are you? Get your own estuary!

[foolish_icarus]

How complete should our notes be at then end of the nation stat block? I mean, a "few sentences" can't cover all the topics you said we should consider.

well Eventually you're going to have written a whole bunch of escriptive prose, but initially just a few sentence summary that I can put in the stats. The "things to consider" are more for orders (of course you don't need to address each and every one of those, only as many and as often as you feel like)

Are we assuming that the full picture will come out over the course of orders/prose?

this is what I was going for

Can I reserve somewhere around Delaware (specifically, the Delmarva Peninsula)

yep

In picking places to settle, can we assume a roughly equivilent climate/rainfall/temperature to what we see today? I mean, Kansas hasn't suddenly become a swamp, and New York's not tropical, right?

yep...things are typically going to be harsher weather/climate wise, sometimes only a little bit so or not at all, but there aren't any radical climate shifts

How much land can we reasonably claim? I mean, here I was ready to claim Michigan, and that's a little off-scale with Cyc's Delmarva

Cyc's claim is the right size. Few dozen villages, ony a few real cities (per player).

Well, it's not altogether off-scale. I assumed we were starting fairly locally (Civ style) but maybe not.

I'm actually thinking you're a little closer to the facts. Dibs on the Shenandoah Valley!

You don't have to start so close together, but you certainly can if you want to.

And one more thing- how radioactive is the Glass at this point? Can we expect actual radiation burns, maybe just lower life expectancy from the people nearby, or is it just plain glass by now?

Ah, that's something I should have addressed--I'll add a few more pieces of information to the FYI soon. The Glass is just glass. Not that your little tribes know what radiation or mutations are, but there aren't really any signs of either. Health is about what you might expect for small, isolated, technologically societies.

Here's another thing: Food variety could be very important. The biosphere is in rough shape--that is, life on earth in general is in no danger, and in fact most species aren't really doing any worse than they usually are (species go extinct from natural causes frequently), but your access to nutritional variety can be limited, especially in harsh winters, and diseases will sometimes creep through your livestock, or a blight will hit your orchards, that kind of thing.

The other thing is that hitting any kind of industrial age again is going to be hard--even recovering pre-industrial metallurgical techniques is going to be difficult, because usable ores aren't just lying around on the ground or near the surface like they were the first time we developed metallurgical advances.
Right now you're in a bizarre wood/stone/scrapmetal/basic alloys age. It's going to take determination, wits, luck, and time to get any kind of a significant industrial production up and running (if that's the direction you choose to take; you might find other, better ways to make your people happy).

[appleciders]

Originally posted by Cyclotron


Moving in on my turf, are you? Get your own estuary!

Tsk, tsk... So much anger! No, I just got to thinking that we need to be close enough to support each other, and yet leave some room for expansion. The Shenandoah and James rivers empty into the Chesapeake, which should allow trade and other supports.


Shenandoah Confederation
Appleciders
Civil Modernity: 600
Military Modernity: 650
Technological Capacity: 1200
Espionage: 1
Army: 1
Navy: 0
Population: .3
Economic Vigor: 2
Median Living Standards: 2
Contentedness: 5
Notes— Located in what remains of the Shenandoah Valley, the Shenandoah Confederation remains a largely agrarian society. A tight-knit union of communities does cause some political infighting, but such infighting is a small price for the close contact between communities, which has saved the Confederation several times, both from outside assault and famine. The central government is small and wields little actual power; it serves mainly as a forum for the leaders of individual communties to exchange information and coordinate large projects.

[foolish_icarus]

This starts some time between five hundred and ten thousand years after the catastrophe

I'm thinking 25 year updates for a while.

We need a calendar...ACC (Ab confederation condita) sounds good to me; ciders, how long has the confederation existed as a political unit?

[appleciders]

Oh, let's say....400 years recorded history. Supposed founding of confederacy 250 years ago. If we're still actually calling it the "Shenandoah" valley, there can't have been too much linguistic drift.