Food and Water Part 1 of ?

Greenshafts, an introduction.

One of the primary reasons that people tend to stick close to the cities is the easy availability of edible foodstuffs. Consumables found in even (if not especially) the most fecund parts of the wilderness are often unsafe to eat (for an in

depth look at how unsafe, see Part II).

Agriculture is predominantly practiced underground in natural or fabricated subterranean complexes known as greenshafts, which are usually located within cities or in close proximity to the same. Because of the frequency of curse squalls in most areas, this is a necessary and beneficial practice. However, it is unknown which came first curse squalls or greenshafts.

To put things in perspective, outdoor agriculture is unknown in most places, and you might have trouble convincing people that anyone has ever engaged in it. At best it is viewed by civilized people as something that was left behind long ago.

Within the greenshaft, agricultural production is accomplished through a variety of technologies, the power for which is usually drawn from the earth itself in the form of geothermal heat.

Areas of the greenshaft hold corral pools for hron, a species of domesticated aquatic mammal. Hron are valued for their milk (and the cheese that is made from it) and meat. Furthermore, hron hide can be used to fashion both warm and water resistant clothing. Hron meat is mostly a luxury of the elites. Additional meat is grown in vats.

Dungeon Design, Metal Earth style

I've been sick (yay! spring break :/), so I'm breaking my private "no drawing, no post pledge." Depending on how you feel about my "art", I either owe you an apology, or you need to thank me.
Also, as an art related aside, I'll mention that I'm supplying Blair with some art for the planet Algol booklet. Whether or not he's desperate enough to make use of it is another matter entirely.
Also, also, nothing about porn stars here today. I will, admit, however to liking boobs. A lot.
So anyway, dungeon design:
Some points:
1. I have to be able to halfway convince myself that the place could be real.
2. I like coming up with convoluted logic for why things that should never be could be. This entire blog is devoted to that enterprise. The entire Metal Earth is made with dungeon/ adventure/monster justification in mind.
3. These crazy rationalizations help me design the dungeon- or whatever.


I have to have something like this written or thought out:

The combined cavern/room complex beneath the tower of the changer was constructed in stages. During the waning epoch of the Minotaur Empire, a disgraced imperial aristocrat and his retinue came to the Crumbled mountains looking to create a new summer labyrinth far from the intrigues at court. Unfortunately, the aristocrat in question, a man whose name has long since been forgotten by history, had in his employ a shae sorcerer, who, not long after the completion of the complex, manifested an unexpected desire for power, coupled with a previously unexpressed talent for necromancy and a rather excessive amount of bloodlust. Anyway, good times ensued, which ultimately resulted in an empty complex- empty of the living, that is.

The next to come were a group of reptarch farmers from Ssaur who were trying to create a utopian colony. Although they installed many grow-vats and laid the foundations for a bitchen’ subterranean ecosystem, they were eventually, after a years long battle driven out or destroyed by the undead. The undead, however, were decreased in number by this conflict, and since that time, as a result, several attempts have been made to re-inhabit the complex; a few groups, as well as many animals (eager to access the food that grows within) have made some headway, but no one controls the space.

There are four basic varieties of Architecture- natural, reptarch, minotaur and lich; although, some other groups and individuals have made modifications as well. Minotaurs like to decorate, so there are a lot of minotaur busts, murals, busts bas-reliefs. Minotaurs also like to bathe, so there are lots of baths, some of which were converted into vats or something else by the reptarchs. Furthermore, the reptarchs planted a lot of food fungus and algae on the walls, they also seeded pools with plankton, algae, fish and other stuff. They constructed mostly with metal and plastic, their machines are everywhere. Strangely, enough they were also fond of murals.

So, any thoughts? Where do you stand? Do you have a stance? Does one even require a stance? Is this even an issue?

Metal Earth Religion

Religion is fairly rare in most parts of the Metal Earth.
Why is this?
There are two things to keep in mind the age of the culture in question, and the means of food production.
Big organized religion comes in with agriculture- or possibly just sedentisim (In the upper paleolithic there were several areas of the world that were productive enough to support large sedentary population without the agriculture; for what is worth, these were mostly ecotones). In our world, and in many fantasy settings, agriculture has been around for a comparatively short period of time.

In the Metal Earth agriculture has been around a very long time (millions of years maybe) and, therefore, so has religion. However, in the Age of Lead (and for eons previous to it) agriculture takes place mostly underground and is controlled more by technology than by the rhythm of nature; this is pretty important, because it removes two important tools of control from the priestly arsenal- the knowledge necessary to facilitate agriculture is no longer tied to a calender and the sun, a big focal point worthy of worship, has also been removed from the equation.

Obviously, the importance and dominance of religion varies from culture to culture- and over time. Large disasters can really shake the foundations of religious (and secular) power. It's thought that this sort of power loss occurred during the Mayan "collapse"- and it certainly did occur after the black death in Europe. The Metal Earth is pretty much in perpetual state of disaster. Secular power is on the run, and religion has pretty much moved on without leaving a forwarding address.

Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, humans are nearly extinct, and are thought to be (through science, sorcery or evolution) the progenerators of all the other races. This undermines any belief in an all powerful/supernatural creator for most groups. The supernatural does exist, and is accepted as real, but it is hardly ever beneficial. Therefore, in most regions and cultures, faith has largely been replaced by a cynical sort of fatalism.

Which brings us to the topic of clerics. despite their rarity on the landscape, players should feel free to play clerics; Taarna from Heavy Metal is perhaps the archetype of a Metal Earth cleric- an ass kicking servant of a forgotten god.

Weather and related climatic hazards:

Climate varies a good across the breadth of the Metal Earth, but for millennia prior to the Wars of Unreason (The semi-mythical Age of Gold), there was a worldwide network of weather control stations. Powered by a combination of atomic and arcane energy, this station worked to homogenize climate conditions across the face of the entire world. The system was broken during the war, but normal patterns did not reassert themselves. Quite the opposite in fact- weather went wild- breaking and reshaping the world all at once. Efforts were made by sorcerers and scientists stop this from happening- but if they had any impact it was only to make things worse. Eventually, an ice age commenced- that has never really ended. It also but violent storms are common, which brought with it a modicum of climatic stability. This ice age has never really ended since that time, although there have been some slightly warmer periods. The time of the shattering is long over but extreme weather is more the norm than the exception. You are far more likely to get a blizzard than a light snowfall or a torrential downpour than a light rain, although mild weather is not completely uncommon in some microclimatic areas.

Beyond the extremity of most storms, the breaking of the weather control network and the resultant release of ungoverned arcane and atomic energies into the world’s climate system had other ongoing effects as well: Curse Squalls and Timestorms.

Timestorms:
Timestorms are not common, but they do occur with some frequency. Fortunately, most of them occur over water and are relatively if not always, harmless. Timestorms are usually preceded by the formation of dark cloud funnels, which are crisscrossed with purple cloud-to-cloud lightning, as the storm grows in intensity so to do the electrical activity. It is at the peak of the electrical activity that the storm really gets underway. Time vortex open up- sometimes one, sometimes one hundred or more, depending on the intensity of the storm. There are two kinds of Timestorms, takers and givers.
Takers: During a taker storm, things are sucked into the time vortexes and moved to a distant temporal location, past or future- it can go either way.
Givers: during a giver storm, things emerge from the time holes. What kinds of things? Just about fucking anything really, from dinosaurs to toasters to people.
Note: it is entirely possible to whisk a party of adventurers off into time during a taker storm; it is also possible to bring in a new PC (say a 20th century human into the Metal Earth with a giver storm.)


Curse Squalls:
Curse squalls (or storms), are far more common than Timestorms, and usually more dangerous. Curse storms look like normal rainstorms (albeit of an extremely violent nature, even for the Metal Earth) except the raindrops have faint green luminescence.
Anywhere curse rain falls horrible shit happens. Sometimes the dead rise from their graves (corpse burning is a near world wide custom due to this). Other times simple field crops mutate into horrible carnivorous plants. Good men caught out in the curse rain sometime turn completely evil. Other times the rain is like acid burning and destroying all it touches. Nobody can say what will happen for certain when the Curse Rain falls, but whatever it is it wont be good. Sometimes these effects last only until the rain dries, or until sunrise of the next day- other times they last forever.
The magical element Arcanum can help protect crops and many other things from the curse rain. Farmers often sprinkle small amounts onto their crops as they plant them, and it is also an integral ingredient in the brick making and construction in general. Arcanum is naturally occurring in many rock formations and can be mined. It isn’t debilitating expensive, but it isn’t cheap either, though. Because of this, despite the dangers sometimes corners are cut- with predictably disastrous results, such as buildings turning into huge carnivorous stone monsters.

Teleporation Pools

Once, long ago, the far flung regions of the Metal earth were connected by a network of teleportation pools. Traders and travelers journeyed via the pool system, utilizing submersible barges to pass through what was known then as The Between Sea. The trip was so short, though, that in most cases, teams of swimmers, usually comprised of Reptarch Longfin (now thought to be extinct), could tow all but the largest items from place to place. Able bodied humanoids of every race had no trouble making the trip. Like so much else, this golden time is all but lost to memory- today, most people don't even know the pools exist.

During the current time period The Between Sea is tainted and unsafe for travel. Huge undead angler fish, known as ghostfins prowl the waters, as well as a host of other evil and undead creatures. Distances seem longer as well. What once took but a few moments now requires hours- or longer. The pools are still usable, but the passage is very dangerous, and few who enter the water came out.


Pools range from about the size of bathtub to slightly larger than an Olympic swimming pool. Many cities have them, but few residents- even those in charge, know they exist. Evil creatures such as the Changers and the Slavers of Gear make use of them to further their vile and twisted schemes.

Aside from the large-scale pool network many large sites featured closed networks of pools. These may or not share the taint of the open Between Sea.