In my previous post, I described the Modum, a race of creatures that bond with other intelligent beings willingly to grant them access to Hive City, a place for communication among intelligent beings. But what exactly is Hive City? What is there? What does it look like?
Through the use of Modum, intelligent beings can access The Weird and the stuff inside it. Hive City. Hive City is a massive city of huge towers. The landscape may be somewhat bewildering at first. It is populated entirely by the people who use the Modum to reach it, so in all honesty, it can be said that nobody really lives there, they only visit.
The towers in Hive City are constructed entirely of what appear to be bookshelves and doors. All the bookshelves are sorted and categorized by topics which makes an individual, trained in finding information there, easily able to find what they are looking for. There are numerous methods by which information finds its way into Hive City. Many of these books are scribed by individuals capable of adding information into The Weird. Other information gets there by more secret, and sometimes, by more brutal methods. All the numerous tomes in Hive City possess a spirit of their own. When an individual draws a book from one of the stacks, they are actually drawing forth the information spirit that resides in that book and making a copy for themselves at the same time. That book remains on the stack and can be viewed by many people simultaneously. This fact has allowed the spread of information to process very quickly.
Each door in Hive City leads to a small extra dimensional pocket room within the Weird. Some of these rooms may be small in size, seemingly fitting into the space that might belong inside one of Hive Cities great towers. However, other rooms may lead to vast halls or even outdoor gathering places where people assemble in their ghostly Weird avatar forms to speak to one another.
However opening a door and entering its room is not always as simple as it may seem. Although some doors lead to public places, which can easily accessed by anyone, simply by opening the door, many do not. Some doors may even lead to multiple spaces. It takes several valuable pieces of information to use one of these portals.
The three vital pieces of information needed to open a given portal (that isn't accessible to the public) are:
1) The doors location within The Weird - knowing the location of the door within Hive City is a must. Some doors are very hard to find, but knowing its location (a coordinate on a 3 dimensional map) allows any individual within the Weird to travel to that location by thought, simply willing oneself to the location of the door.
2) The name of the doors destination - when opening a door, the individual must know the name of the location to which the door leads and must have that name in their mind when opening it.
3) The key - many doors are locked. It is a simple fact that many locations are not meant to be open by those who do not possess the key. A key within the Weird manifests through the knowledge of a password. When an individual who understands the password to a certain door and enters the Weird, an actual key manifests on their body which can be used to open the door. However some door keys are fake - knowledge of a powerful fake password causes a false key to manifest. Individuals who possess and mistakenly use fake keys often suffer horrible fates.
The world of Hive City is ever expanding. The city itself has a boundary, but this boundary is ever growing larger as information continues to enter into Hive City and new towers must be constructed.
From the last few posts I have provided a basic look at how I have created a fantasy style Internet in my campaign setting. This information might be helpful to those who would like to make similar constructs in their own campaign worlds. In my next post, Ill provide a few adventure hooks for people who might be interested in using something like this in an adventure, but don't know how.
Showing posts with label Modum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Modum. Show all posts
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Accessing the aberrant internet with chibi mind flayers
Yes, things keep getting weirder and weirder in this discussion, but hopefully today, after a little explanation things might be a little less murky. Last time I mentioned how PC's could access the aberrant Internet of my D&D campaign world through the use of mind flayer babies. I guess they aren't really mind flayer babies in the sense of breeding, but they certainly look like it. What would happen if you took the legs and arms and body off of a mind flayer... well, I guess you would have a squid, but what if that squid had a strange psychic connection to a great network of other so linked squid-like-creatures and could symbiotically bond with other races to allow the linked creature to explore and communicate in this distinct and totally different universe, that is known as hive city? You would have a Modum.
The Modum are an aberrant race of creatures in my campaign world which came to the material plane aboard the giant meteor which crashed Milena ago (along with other, less friendly creatures which I might talk about later). The Modum seemed to be an entirely stupid and peculiar race of creature. They appear to be a type of land based squid, with similar features to that of the infamous mind flayer, but lacking the lower body and appendages. A full grown Modum might be only 30 cm long. Modum are incredibly slow creatures; although they are capable of hovering slightly over the ground, they essentially drag along at barely above a snails pace, which makes them very, very easy to catch.
Modums themselves have virtually no combat capabilities of any kind either. They do not have any powers or attacks and by all accounts are virtually harmless. The only thing that helps maintain their population levels is the fact that they cannot be eaten. A Modum's body and blood is extremely poisonous and so most animals and other creatures avoid them fiercely; they taste horrible to everything and eating one poses a greater threat than simply ignoring it. However, some Modums, though lacking combat abilities, do possess some ability at teleportation, which they use profusely in order to preserver their life if threatened.
Modums do not have any fear of being possessed by an individual. In fact, most Modums will actively seek out an individual to "bond with". The reasons for this are unclear, but some have considered that Modums actually feed off of the act of communication and it provides them with an odd form of nutritional sustenance. The bonding process occurs by placing the Modum at the base of the skull and allowing the modum to affix its tentacles to the bonded's brain - although some people have considered the process to be very disturbing and disgusting to watch- it is actually quite painless and leaves very little after effects. The Modums tentacles possess a type of anesthetic which helps to totally take all sensation out of the process and also to help isolate the bonded during the process of crossing over into Hive City in the Weird. While in the Weird, the bonded's body is more or less helpless, but simply thinking of rejecting or ending the bonding process, the Modum will relax and disconnect, severing the bond and allowing the individual to regain freedom of movement and return their consciousness to the material world.
Some magical scholars have likened Modums to a cross between pets and Ioun stones. They require very little upkeep and the level of the Modum is very much tied with color. Every Modums color is quite different, some colors of Modums being quite rare. The color of the Modum indicates what kinds of activities/abilities the bonded will possess inside the weird. The most common, light brown Modums, simply allow the bonded to send their avatar into and out of the Weird granting access to Hive City and allow the bonded to interact with the environment there, i.e. moving about, reading and finding tomes of information, opening and closing doors, and entering rooms.The most powerful Modums, which are actually capable of granting the ability to shape the entire world of Hive City are extremely rare. Most of these creatures are extremely hard to find and possess no material price.
Next time, I'll talk about the world that Modums allow access to and describe more fully exactly what Hive City has to offer.
The Modum are an aberrant race of creatures in my campaign world which came to the material plane aboard the giant meteor which crashed Milena ago (along with other, less friendly creatures which I might talk about later). The Modum seemed to be an entirely stupid and peculiar race of creature. They appear to be a type of land based squid, with similar features to that of the infamous mind flayer, but lacking the lower body and appendages. A full grown Modum might be only 30 cm long. Modum are incredibly slow creatures; although they are capable of hovering slightly over the ground, they essentially drag along at barely above a snails pace, which makes them very, very easy to catch.
Modums themselves have virtually no combat capabilities of any kind either. They do not have any powers or attacks and by all accounts are virtually harmless. The only thing that helps maintain their population levels is the fact that they cannot be eaten. A Modum's body and blood is extremely poisonous and so most animals and other creatures avoid them fiercely; they taste horrible to everything and eating one poses a greater threat than simply ignoring it. However, some Modums, though lacking combat abilities, do possess some ability at teleportation, which they use profusely in order to preserver their life if threatened.
Modums do not have any fear of being possessed by an individual. In fact, most Modums will actively seek out an individual to "bond with". The reasons for this are unclear, but some have considered that Modums actually feed off of the act of communication and it provides them with an odd form of nutritional sustenance. The bonding process occurs by placing the Modum at the base of the skull and allowing the modum to affix its tentacles to the bonded's brain - although some people have considered the process to be very disturbing and disgusting to watch- it is actually quite painless and leaves very little after effects. The Modums tentacles possess a type of anesthetic which helps to totally take all sensation out of the process and also to help isolate the bonded during the process of crossing over into Hive City in the Weird. While in the Weird, the bonded's body is more or less helpless, but simply thinking of rejecting or ending the bonding process, the Modum will relax and disconnect, severing the bond and allowing the individual to regain freedom of movement and return their consciousness to the material world.
Some magical scholars have likened Modums to a cross between pets and Ioun stones. They require very little upkeep and the level of the Modum is very much tied with color. Every Modums color is quite different, some colors of Modums being quite rare. The color of the Modum indicates what kinds of activities/abilities the bonded will possess inside the weird. The most common, light brown Modums, simply allow the bonded to send their avatar into and out of the Weird granting access to Hive City and allow the bonded to interact with the environment there, i.e. moving about, reading and finding tomes of information, opening and closing doors, and entering rooms.The most powerful Modums, which are actually capable of granting the ability to shape the entire world of Hive City are extremely rare. Most of these creatures are extremely hard to find and possess no material price.
Next time, I'll talk about the world that Modums allow access to and describe more fully exactly what Hive City has to offer.
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