CATastrophe

>I made a single page system for it and just need to make a PDF with included setting information

Can we see it?

there's typos in here, and a friend made the background art. So I need to pay her for the rights to use that and pay for getting the system copyrighted so I can sell it. If those fucks at Paizo can homebrewing their table rules into a business I can make turning a quirky setting into a game with a Pick Up Game System into a bit of cashflow.

Wait, there are updates?

Yeah, basically. I missed out on this, but apparently there was massive infighting caused by d20. There's a FATE version that came out of that.
Anyway, I remember joining a playtest group back in its alpha. We were set up on Myth Weavers. Got my character set up, got everything squared away, and we were ready to set sail.
And then there were literally no posts in the forum for a straight month, so I stopped dropping in.

Oh hi CAT thread, I can repost my shitty writeup for locations/dungeons for the CAT setting.

It's always so hard to resist the urge to just add catgirls to my setting.

The special skill section is kinda confusing.
What is the difference between a failure / success and a critical one?
Do you roll against a target number or vs another roll?
Lying might be a bit too narrow; perhaps use deceive.
Black smithing should just be crafting, for stuff like rope.
Perhaps character progression could be used to advance your traits, too.

noted for future reference, I'm far from printing and this is good criticism. Thank you for taking the time to help me make my system better user.

please do so

kay walls of text incoming

Frosty Tower
(shitty artwork by yours truly)

The Frosty tower was an AI controlled automated factory that produced all manners of machines that create low temperature, engine coolants, refrigerators, freezers, fire extinguishers etc. It also produced many chemicals that were used in creating freezers and such engines. Connected to an automated underground gas extraction mine where it sucked up gases from underground for power and raw materials. The gas mine was long exhausted and powered down and abandoned by Earless.

Post the CATastrophe it lied dormant underwater for countless years, recently it reactivated itself due to an underwater quake that opened up new subterranean gas deposits fuelling the facility once again. Upon reactivation however the facility was in a bad condition and malfunctioned. The whole building began to produce intense cold and slowly began to freeze the water around it and floated to the surface but still firmly anchored to the bottom. Now it appears to be an iceberg from afar to sailors quite the rare sight at the sunny warmth of the endless blue. The Facility while broken still functions at full power sometimes causing weather anomalies around itself creating snowfalls or icy winds in the vicinity or worse.

The facility today is like as an underwater tower with the top poking out from the ice, courageous kemos that explored its insides, endured the chilling cold and dodged its automated guardians managed to plunder all manner of machines, gadgets and liquids that can be used to create cold temperatures. These are prized possessions among many kemos for these artifacts are one the few method of cooling down drinks and most importantly producing ice cream, a prized delicacy in the world of the endless blue.

forgot to post the pic

Cute.

The Slime Factory

The origin of the slime factory is a mystery to many, what is sure that it is a dirty smelly platform made of rusted metal covered with paint and slime spewing dark smoke up to the sky. The waters around it are dark and murky but the pollution does not spread far from the building. This unpleasant place somehow attracts several breeds of slimy and disgusting sea creatures slimes, slugs, aneamone and such that somehow feed on the leaking chemicals growing large in size and numbers around it. The submerged insides of the Slime factory are not flooded but still covered with dark slime sometimes filled with smelly or occasionally poisonous gases. Not to mention the disgusting creatures that taken up residence, some are vicious and do not hesitate to prey upon each other on the curious visitors.

Interestingly this factory does not have mechanical guardians like most other Earless ruins, some remnants of mechanical constructs of the past can be found if one digs deep. Kemos generally avoid the Slime factory just because of the smell alone but some brave souls explored its halls and returned. Besides needing long bath and scrubbing they brought back many advanced tools and parts of mechanical contraptions which are in surprisingly good quality after scrubbed clean from the thick and hardened slime coating. Somehow the thick slime was able to preserve the contents in covered during the ages in good condition when it was devoured by the pests and parasites.

The Bug Bubble

The "Bug Bubble" as it is called today, is a gigantic dome, formerly an automated underwater farming/agriculture facility that was producing all manner of foodstuff in the Earless age. The insides are always filled with clean and fresh air, lush greenery and the smells of spring and summer all year long. The advanced technology used fertilizing chemicals and artificial light radiation that grew plants and crops in a quickened rate.

The dome survived the CATastrophe almost intact but the insides have changed radically since the Earless days. With no harvest and weeding the vegetation started to quickly overgrow its fields creating an eerie jungle never seen before in nature. At one step one can see clean metal floors and hexagonal windows, at the other step wines and leaves cover the ground and dominating the skyline.
The produced food was no longer taken away and due to lack maintenance and slowly expiring automated staff the granaries quickly fell prey to pests that started to breed there. Eating and drinking the all fertilizing chemicals and often sleeping under the radiating growth rays the tiny pests slowly mutated into monsters.

Those that ventured through the dome tell tales of insects, bugs and worms that grow as big as a fully adult kemo and even beyond. The monsters fiercely defend their homes and hunt because of their insatiable hunger, even some plants prey upon the same pests that chew on their leaves. They have grown maw like traps with vines that grab the moving prey to drag it to the maws of the tree or strangle it then suck the fluids out.

>cont

Few managed to probe the jungle of the dome but those that survived brought back the most delicious fruit never seen before on the endless blue, chemicals that can reinvigorate dead soil, seeds of rare plants that thought that disappeared forever from the face of the planet and even machines to tend them. Some legends even say that the first mekkos were brought from the Bug Bubble by the first Kemos that explored the place.

The work on CATastrophe is done. Setting is defined, systems are playable. So, all that's left is for you to gather a group and let the magic work.

That said, i'm actually currently working on the conversion of setting to Ryuutama.

The Halls of the Living Furniture

Originally a high-tech smart-household product shopping mall, this building is still full with futuristic furniture and household appliances. Programmable smart furniture tables, chairs, beds, couches and so that can be adjusted or even transformed, available in all shapes colors and sizes. Some ready for sale so neatly packaged in containers and protective coating, designed to resist the ages so well that some might even appear brand new others expired and barely functioning. The place tended by dwindling automated cleaning and maintenance robots.

The programming of the products however was corrupted by a virus, created by some pro-environmental activist groups long ago during the end of the Earless era. This corruption has caused the smart furniture to behave all kinds of crazy manners, their basic comfort functions mixed with the behavior of animals and dinosaurs. When activated due to the presence of living humanoids they start to approach or even chase Kemos sometimes trying to have the "guest" have a sit on them and stay there until dinner time that will never come or in a more severe case they might try to tackle and trample the wandering Kemos thinking of them as prey animals or mistakenly think of them as their young. Such encounters often cause more than just a few bruises and broken bones for the unsuspecting Kemo visitors.

Successfully plundering the Halls of the Living Furniture yields (surprisingly) practical household machines that are extremely easy to use and can make living easier and more comfortable in the endless blue (if you can find a way to power them). Even if they are broken and non-functioning their well crafted parts can surely be used to build new things and will surely fetch a good price at machine dealers and junksmiths.

It was shouted down by grognards in the nazimod era, and threads died within hours because quest threads pushed them so far down that nobody saw them.

The threads were also filled with the same questions over and over and over, and some guy pushing for fat beargirls and people wanting to make it grimdark, so development just fucking gave up on making a game Veeky Forums evidently didn't fucking want.

The Slammer

"The Slammer" is a collective name for holding complexes, originally these were supposed to be a holding place for Earless animals, pets. These places house several Netter robots that somehow consider Kemos "escaped pets" and proceed to capture them on sight then take them back to the Slammer to neglected, cruel holding cells made for zoo animals or stray pets for purposes unknown. These complexes also house automated seafaring vehicles that transport Netter squads that target any small seafaring vessel that comes close. Boarding small ships, capturing the crew and towing their ship back with them.

Surprisingly some rare rooms are actually rather comfortable places to stay as these were actually hotels and lounges in Earless days for the pets owners. Some still fully functioning and are ready to conform to every whim of the captured Kemo save for being allowed to leave.

Most abductees however end up in cages and barren empty rooms, while they automatically receive some basic food and drink, being treated like a caged animals no fun in the slightest and almost every prisoner desires escape or rescue which is not a simple task. While the automatic alarm systems have long stopped working the patrolling Netters are extremely efficient at tracking down escapees if they are not careful and get far enough.

Most Kemos are quite vary of the patrolling Slammer ships and avoid them with great care. However after big abduction raids the most daring ones organize rescue teams to save their friends. Often ending either all of them being captured or being able to rescue everyone. Due to an interesting glitch in the Slammer's central governing AI system which causes all held in the complex to be automatically released once all holding rooms are filled with at least one resident.

>cont.

Recounting this has made me sad, so I will post the art that inspired the game to be made after it was in a 'catboy wat do' thread.

>cont.

The glitch opens all cells and shuts down all Netters for a time from a few minutes to several hours and to a whole day, allowing plenty of time for all prisoners to leave, only to start hunting them again after rebooting and reactivation. While the prisoners are unaware of this bug they immediately take the chance to leave, some mistakenly thinking that they are being rescued by others they meet. Except those few that end up in a life of luxury might choose to "stay a little longer" instead.

Those that safely return from the Slammer often pick up items and shiny loot that was left on the ships of captured victims or even valuable shinies and parts that they picked up from the luxurious rooms and storage rooms where the "luggage" of the "visitors" were hoarded by their robotic abductors.

>valuable shinies
This is making me even more sad that CATastrophe died and that Veeky Forums wouldn't accept it.

Oh hey, look what I remembered I had laying around.

> Shinies!
> Vitamins!
> Swimwear!
> Food!
> Low prices!

>BUYING shinies
wew.

WEW.

Well, what else do you do with shinies you don't have a use for or have gotten tired of instead of selling them?
And adventurers need to trade shinies for food and vitamins and replacement swimwear.
And you need a FEW useful shinies to help you acquire more, don't you?
Unfrizz your tail; capitalism has it's place.

...

>Well, what else do you do with shinies you don't have a use for or have gotten tired of instead of selling them?
EASY! You throw them on the pile of your hoard, because you are a greedy little asshole.

What are you, a kleptomander?
What use are shinies if you're going hungry and losing your fur because of vitamin deficiencies?

I actually am thinking on antagonist like this in my game, a pirate with red dragon theme travelling the seas in a luxury cruise ship with hundreds of servants, stealing and hoarding valuables.

Players would need to either sneak on her ship to steal back a valuable treasure or to rescue a kidnapped prince.

Umm.. umm... I'll hack that vending machine at the back of uncle Palto's shop for more canned Gymonade... y-y-eah... you'll see!

If her hoard is big enough, she becomes an adventure destination in and of herself.

...

>sample

Worse than Hitler.

...

...

...

There's not much to expand anymore. Setting's done, systems are there, all that's left is complaining how it's not grimdark enough and how men don't exist in the setting for some inane reason other than complete lack of character portraits for them.

you'd be surprised.

...

moar?

>FInal Fantasy character.jpg

I'll just dump a few environments here.

>A city built so high that it avoided flooding. Previously a valuable source of almost-undamaged earless tech, many delvers decided to settle in recently-emptied buildings. Now the city lives yet again, although many of its secrets are yet to be uncovered, especially the center of the town and mysterious overgrown tower, guarded vigilantly by machines.

>An underwater vault, found sealed, abandoned, but intact, now a home for Akadmee researchers.

I'd rather have a setting about humans reclaiming what is rightfully theirs.

>Embedded into the cliff face there are hundreds of cables and gears, parts of evidently still working centuries-old machine. Aside from ports sometimes releasing oldguards, the only way in is from within the mechanism - a dangeous path only the best of the best would brave.

Don't have anything for this one, too pristine and futuristic-looking. For my version of the setting i chose more "small town in 1920s" aesthetic, but this could be a self-building high-tech settlement like Akadmee.

I liked the soundtrack for this.
I still listen to it fairly often.

soundcloud.com/arizona-music/sets/catastrophe-soundtrack

>These towers once stood at the top of large mountain, descending into massive underground complex. Ruined and half-flooded, the complex still holds, its many hallways blocked by debris and boulders awaiting those who would clear the path and reap the bounty.

MY FRIEND!
THANK YOU!

Oh god I've been looking for this for ages.
Everybody's swimmin'~ swimmin!
In the water!

Haha, no problem!
The chiptune style of it is what drew my attention. It's really calming to listen to while working on homework or some monotonous task.

Something more gritty/down to earth.

Actually, a question: how would be firearms regarded in the setting? I assume firearms would be too loud for more acute senses of kemi, so they won't be very widespread.

What i got now is energy weapons mostly used in "stun" setting - it's non-lethal for living targets, but fucks oldguards' circuits up. Serious weaponry is mostly concentrated among Dojo ships and Navy and used against Giant Enemy Crabs and ancient automated ships Plus the ship of setting's BBEG-ish guy has a railgun installed.

The campaign I played in had extensive use of air-powered projectiles. It wasn't because gunpowder was too loud, but just that the necessary components for gunpowder were rare amongst archipelago city-states compared to the relative ease of salvaging pressure containers and rigging up a compressor and some valves.

Most commonly they were ship defense tools, hooked into a shipboard power plant allowing for cannons to defend against monsters or pirates but the well-equipped adventurers had air rifles with backup compressed air tanks as reloads.

>can work underwater
>can be refilled using a piece of basic equipment

i can see that.

>ship defense tools
There should be harpoon cannon somewhere, if only for Skies of Arcadia reference.

Those were mostly in the Crabbiean, where hunting giant monsters was the name of the game. You don't want to lose the giant monster you just killed to the sea after all, you gotta tow it back to sell!

Sometimes it just acted as a super fishing hook though, where when dragging it home it drew the attention of an even BIGGER monster after our bait.

We had to take a serious reconsideration of our lives after desperately outrunning a leviathan from the depths that ate our giant crab.

>Crabbiean
Arrest this man.

>We had to take a serious reconsideration of our lives after desperately outrunning a leviathan from the depths that ate our giant crab.
Nice. I actually was thinking of adding a giant ancient sea monster - but more like a plot hook/journey destination. A creature so massive it doesn't even register divers, an entire underwater ecosystem on his back.

Ohey I helped make this version.

CATastrophe is kind of like this little homebrew project Veeky Forums keeps bringing up and then bringing down every time someone takes responsibility for it and turns it into more than a far-off idea. But working on this version with those guys was pretty fun. The art in this one was fun

>Arrest this man
Don't blame me! Blame the GM! The setting was like, 40% puns, minimum.

>an entire underwater ecosystem on his back
Ah, so you mean the venerable Spacious Whale. It sometimes rises from the depths for days at a time to refill its air bladders, only to submerge for up to a year. We once ventured out to trade for a map leading us to our next point in the plot. The catographer lived amongst the city of hollowed out barnacle shells and coral reefs refitted with that had grown on the spacious whale and was the premier expert of the deep sea terrain.

We had to part with our beloved sticki notes (a pad of quick-setting putty you could impress onto things and pull off) and got into a shellfish cooking contest (vent shrimp vs Missie Sippi's crawdads) before getting the map.

sleepy bump.

Well if anyone's interested or has the books of the version in OP's image, here's the character sheet that came with it.

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1at2iu0yg-jwrGxbpBrsX40tlWNRSzjsdgTbVFgnxOcA/edit?usp=sharing

How much for a tin of shortbread cookies, a thermos, and the anteater clock?

What kind of pets do Kemos keep?

Raydudes, big ass tropical penguins, birds, lizards, robots, etc.

>chiptune
Fucking dropped, then.

Have you even listened to it?

Anything that moves and isn't food.
Some of them have pet rocks, though. They're commonly used as a plumb line with string attached, or as bait for particularly stupid fishies.

A minor problem with keeping pets is that someone else might consider it food.
It is thus common to tell guests what is and isn't food. For example, the big white box in the kitchen? Not food. That's where the mini-penguins live. The big bowl on the balcony full of fishies? Snacks, help yourself.

No, because chiptune is objectively shit.

Please learn how to draw first.

"Chiptune" wasn't a great way to describe it, but I'm not really sure how to express it otherwise. Either way, being close minded to things is a great way to miss things you might like.
Try "Setting Off" or "Stream Running Over". I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

It isn't really chiptune. The composer just didn't use actual instruments to pay the music

>Implying he ain't just shitposting to set people off

Could be a cool "end times" arch if your group gets tired of the comphy pace of the usual game.

The earless return after centuries in crio, revitalizing old warships and going all brotherhood of steel for their tech.

At first you hear tail tails about "smoker" ships that board and steal tech, hurting/killing/abducting any who resist.

Then a ship belching smoke appears on the horizon and the rains fire on a nearby village. Survivors warn you in time to prepare. After years of fun in the sun you must fight to keep your place in this world of endless blue.

I hope he isn't.
It's very tiring to have every other post be vitriolic and senseless.
Yeah, yeah, Veeky Forums, but holy fuck.

I never understood what would the "reclaiming" be about? Like I would imagine if the humans come back the kemos would be totally happy about it they would be literally celebrated as the saviors. Humans could take kemos as pets/friends or just build them a place where they could hang out. It's not like the kemos have forcefully taken anything that belonged to humans they just moved into places in ruins where there was nobody around. Humans doesn't need to use force to get the kemos to work with them just give them some shiny toys or delicious foods and things are fine. If the humans want to rebuild the civilization the kemos would probably be eager to help them out, if that is even needed at all since humans have robots do all the work. Besides if the humans want to destroy the Kemos they could just destroy them all at the press of a button considering their technology is almost godlike.

>m-muh manifest destiny
>m-muh deus vult

I agree, the whole "reclaiming" thing is illogical and weird in setting's context. The way it could happen is if extremely xenophobic country like Best Korea gets its own human popsicle program (which, let's be honest, they ain't getting).

What if most of the humans who revived were mostly cool with the kemod, but there was like a small group of extremists who want e anything back?

Sounds dumb, better to just assume that all humans are dead/been away so long that they no longer feel the need to return.

To not devolve this thread into people bitching about people bitching about stuff:

>The Towers

>These enigmatic constructions encircle the planet, each stretching far into the sky, above the clouds. Made of extremely hard, self-repairing material, they have resisted all attempts to breach their shell and get inside. Many climbers have given up on trying to climb to the top, and many have forever stayed up there, still clinging to the towers' side even as souls left their bodies. Yet many more try and try again, to see what lies on top of these gargantuan pillars.

This. 'BUT HUMANS' is the issue that killed the concept. Shut. Up.

Fair enough.

Also, a bit of explanation/donutsteel setting info. Since i'm doing stuff for Ryuutama, i needed to change seasonal dragons into... something.

So, i created a faith most travellers share, different from legends about the Earless - a faith in four guardians - of the Land, of the Sea, of the Depth and of the Sky.

The guardian of the Land watches over common people and novice adventurers (Green Ryuujin)
The guardian of the Sea blesses travels and establishes relationship between people and towns (Blue Ryuujin)
The guardian of the Depth challenges and tests the bravery and mettle of adventurers (Red Ryuujin)
The guardian of the Sky is the hand of fate, dispensing blessing and curses, fortune and misfortune (Black Ryuujin)

The exact nature of these guardians i intentionalliy leave ambigious (they can be anything from just superstitions to advanced AIs watching over the experiment), but the benefits (basically Ryuujin blessings/reveils) are definitely real (although some can say everything that happens happens only because of some coincidence - in Ryuutama-Catastrophe these blessings should be a LOT less flashy.) This still keeps GM's involvement/ability to help the players (albeit without Ryuujin character, sadly) and fits into more sci-fi setting almost perfectly.

So yes, Luck is actual, tangible force, but it won't help those who won't help themselves.

Now I kinda want to play a kemo who was taken into one of the luxury rooms when she was a kid, and years later was rescued, spoiled and having to relearn how to survive in the Endless Blue.

So, it's believed that the towers lead into Heavenly Palace of the Guardian of the Sky, filled with unimaginable wonders.

And people who think that are Absolutely correct.

See, humans didn't die out - they left. On top of the ring of space elevators that brought people and resources into orbit is a giant factory encircling the earth. In this factory nine Arks were created, spaceships large enough to carry most of the humanity. Humans left the planet and wandered into space towards the other potentially inhabitable planets.

However, only eight Arks were completed in time. Something has cut off the power supply to the factory and it switched to energy conservation mode, last Ark still in the hangar, half-completed. From here on there are many opportunities for plot to go into vastly different directions, so i'll leave it at that.

I always loved the comfy feel of the setting, and the idea of future descendents knowing so little about the past, but I never understood the fixation on animal people for it.

>cakehoarder

Find better artists sempai.

Bump

Cause catgirls

Wasn't that how the Ruins of Babilon work? With the Academee being one of the towers that still functions?

Why don't you put these on 1d4chan? These are golden.

But why catgirls? What about them works in place of human tribals?

I'm just trying to figure out a way to run this, my group has an aversion to overly animu ideas.

It's catgirls because it's a very Veeky Forums and or Veeky Forums setting, after all we're just different flavors of the same weeaboo trash here.