How do you include an entity like pic related in your setting without blatantly ripping off the source material?

How do you include an entity like pic related in your setting without blatantly ripping off the source material?

Explain what this outsider is.

Since he isn't original either?

Can't really do it. Gods speaking to mortals has been a thing for millenia. Giving them abilities and powers has been a thing since AT LEAST mesopotamia since they had their own version of Noah who was made immortal by their own gods because he saved his kin and he was fully aware of it.
Epic of Gilgamesh etc.

Bored god who gives you powers because lolentertaining.

The Outsider is the only godlike figure in the dishonored universe. He acts as a representative of "the void", an extradimensional space that the world emerged from and is said to eventually be consumed by. He is the only source of magic in the world, bestowing his mark to people who are at low points in their lives to see what they do with it. He very rarely directly interferes in mortal affairs as he's far more interested in seeing what they do independently.

You could literally spin this a hundred different ways regardless of source material.
>Gods have fought and killed each other. The only God that didn't fight survived and killed/absorbed the essences of all the other gods to become nearly omnipotent. Since being omnipotent gets boring after a few hundred years he decides to throw powers at fucked up people and see what happens.

It's worth mentioning that the only group that resembles an organized religion is dedicated to opposing the Outsider at every turn, since they believe that he exists only to plunge humanity into chaos. They might have some traction with this theory, as the bone charms and runes found by the player character are usually accompanied by a note indicating that whoever owned them before was driven mad by the object.

>very rarely directly interferes

Bullshit. He does it ALL the fucking time. Hell. The 2nd game is ENTIRELY around him empowering the fuck out of the Empress's unknown sister who fucking mangles the fuck out of Corvo in one move.

He might not 'directly' involve himself but he's shown to know what people will do and he simply empowers them. He directly affects EVERYTHING in Dishonored from the assassination of the Empress ( since the assassins are ALL Outsider agents) to the usurping of Emily's throne.

He just does shit to entertain himself and pretends he doesn't. He's a colossal prick and unbalances shit all the time.

I meant that he doesn't commonly directly give people orders or tell them what to do. He gives them powers to see what they do with them. The second game is an exception because his position is threatened by Delilah. He didn't tell Daud to kill the empress and even seemed a little disappointed that he did.

>whimsical godlike NPC
>shows up and says useless cryptic shit to PC
>none of it ever matters in the game

Top tier GMing.

>shows up and says useless cryptic shit to PC
Does he though?
As far as I remember he only ever commented on the players actions and gave his own opinions sometimes, never something cryptic that only made sense in retrospect.

Also if handled right it could definitely be fun, being taunted and pushed to act by a bored deity that just follows watches the PCs do stuff because it could turn out interesting/fun to watch.

On a somewhat related note, is Blades in the Dark any good? Does it capture the feeling of Dishonored well?

To be fair to the Outsider, if you tag the right shrine in Dishonored 2 and get a particular conversation with him, you can find out that there are some more interesting elements to him, and that he's not necessarily as all-powerful trickster-god-esque as he's depicted.

Among other things, he's a manufactured god - he was purposefully *made* by a human cult.

By making it different????

What kind of dumb ass question is this.

Are you serious my nigga? It's obvious he was asking what people would do to make it different.

Fuck you.

Oh I see.

>Also if handled right it could definitely be fun, being taunted and pushed to act by a bored deity that just follows watches the PCs do stuff because it could turn out interesting/fun to watch.

I've seen it before, and it didn't play out like that. It just felt like the GM was acting like a pretentious ass.

>an analogy to the cult of Kek, you say?

Did you play the game? Regarding Delilah's return, the Outsider specifically says the seance performed by her conspiracy not only revived her, but made her part of the Void - she is basically worming her way into the Outsider's mind and stealing Void power. She is like a mini-Outsider due to the ritual.

Also I would argue he isn't responsible for Jessamine's assassination, even if Daud used Void powers to do it - we don't hold gun manufacturers responsible for people misusing their products. It's also worth noting that of the assassins, only Daud actually had powers - one of his abilities is sharing his other powers with his followers, an ability shared by Delilah. This is really driven home just before the final mission in Dishonored 2. In fact, only eight people in the entire world bear his mark.

Over all the Outsider is more interested in seeing how downtrodden mortals react to his influence than he is in directly influencing mortal affairs - he doesn't assassinate Jessamine or overthrow Emily himself, nor did he tell Daud or Delilah to do these things.

He INdirectly affects everything. He's an agent of change: literally all he does is empower individuals who interest him and set them loose.

The Whalers aren't Agents of the Outsider, because the Outsider has no agenda. He gave Daud powers 'cus he thought it'd be funny, and Daud was able to transfer some of his powers to his followers.

Literally all the Outsider does is find people who are at low points (like, life ruining low points), gives them superpowers, and watches. The only exception is the second act of Dishonored 2, where he guides Emily/Corvo towards making Delilah mortal again, and then killing her. The only reason he does *that8 is because Delilah is steadily twining herself around him and the void, likely threatening to displace the Outsider as controller of the void.

To answer your question, OP, as I've been thinking of running something like this myself:

I've been considering making it more like Bloodborne, where there are a variety of unique entities in the Dream/Void/whatever, sympathetic in nature but not understanding the huge consequences their interference has.

Each one has a distinct but unknowable personality that attracted them to the players (and some NPCs), granting them a unique mark and powers informed by the host's personality (like how Corvo, the foreigner, can summon and possess rats because he already feels like the people of Dunwall consider him vermin).

Great Ones/Outsiders are more apathetic toward each other and more sympathetic toward mortals, truly wishing to help those they are interested in but unable to understand (and perhaps entertained by) the reactions of their scions.

I also really like the Battle Royale aspect of Dishonored, wherein the various marked people often come into conflict with one another and the Bloodborne concept of hunters gaining power through blood, going crazy from blood and killing each other for blood. I'll have to think of a way to play these up.

As far as getting the party together, perhaps all Marked are tied together via a shared dreamscape like the Void, and see each moving about - then real world dangers draw them together to understand their powers.

That sounds like fun. Did you have a system in mind?

Even though it's not true, I really liked the theory that he was the projection of a whale through the void.

Yeah, the world actually being ruled by pyschic deep whales would be pretty boss.

Very Ranceian.

>Ranceian
I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that word.

Probably Blades in the Dark with a few adjustments. I would work with players to create custom powers based on their characters.

I'm also working on my own homebrew system that is fairly stripped down, and while I think it would work for this kind of game it doesn't have cool subsystems like hideouts, factions, heat, etc. like Blades in the Dark does. Maybe I'll fork it in the future.

My headcanon is that the Outsider is only unique insofar as he is the only human in the Void, the whales you see swimming through it have reached a similar stage of apotheosis. Their "mark" is not visible to us, but it's what gives whalebone and oil its potency.

We also know that other Void entities can be created and can influence/overthrow the Outsider, as evidenced by Delilah's ritual in D2. Perhaps the voidwhales influence the Outsider in the same way.

If your setting isn't Victorian Steampunk then there's no reason that you couldn't just steal it wholesale. Change the appearance and think about how it would interact with your characters.

Most original things begin their lives as someone elses creation.

Of, pertaining to, or similar thereof RANCE, a hentai RPG with THE DEEPEST LORE

I have seen this done dozens of different ways.

Yeah that sounds familiar.

I hated this portrayal, always came across more like a spoiled noble that thinks he is satans son. Like his name should be "Warlock" or "Lucius".

Bump

Just blatantly rip off the source material. If you play it straight but do it well, your player's won't care. They enjoy a good story and being entertained. Smart ones see behind the curtain often anyway, but they also tend to appreciate the thought behind it. If this is a fun character to deal with and it improves the game the obvious influences behind it don't matter.

>his players enjoy a good story
I envy you. Mine always try to inject their memes into the game for lolsorandumb shit.

Bump

no game no life is surprisingly good and pokes fun at some stereotypes

roll with it to the extreme, from all their meming the god of kek spawns forth into the world, making millions into his meme slaves and creating something like the eye of terror on their world, except instead of the warp it's just Veeky Forums and shitty memes
>inb4 what's the difference