So I want to make a setting that meshes Cyberpunk ideas into Ancient Egypt. No Computers, nothing above bronze age technology.
Instead we have magic. Magic allows to transfer minds (this is how we get sentient mummies) and to slightly modify minds allowing for specialized undead labor.
Currently thinking about what to do with Sphynxes. Origianly I thought them as dragons equivalent but I dislike that Idea now. Any suggestion?
"We Wuz" the setting?
Check out Cryptomancer.
It's got the "internet" equivalent of fantasy cyberpunk with some pretty decent ideas based around it.
>Cyberpunk
Sphinxes are databanks. They know a lot, they don't really care about human shenanigans, and there are not many of them. People in power tend to build fortresses around Sphinx habitats, so no unauthorized foreigners could access them. Since Sphinxes don't care about this shit, they would answer to whoever can solve their riddles.
Ah yes,
I love /pol/ as much as the next user but I guess we all agree it makes threads shitty.
So in this setting we have a whole race of snake people. WHo live undergound and interbread with humans.
They are ugly, small, lazy and semll bad.
dear pollacks I need ideas for their society. How it is organized? How integrated they are?
I want a lot of focus on transhumanism. Immortality, mind trasnfer, all magic being information based (you can appear invisible, incredibly sexy, cast illusions, destroy enemy minds but you can't cas a fireball). With a very powerful church that is very stirct on surface rules and hate not proest magic users. Thus many pharaohs are willing to employ services of specialized workers.
Giant hyper computers able to perform calculztions required to build new pyramids and temples combined with data storage and the personality of a cat.
I'm liking it. Like a lot! What could be stored on them? Thousands of undead minds? Long mantras to contact an Old One? What else?
WHat are the wants and needs of such a big cat? I guess some are content on sleeping all day at the bottom of the pyramid, but other might ask something of their humans. What?
Instead of replying to /pol/tards, just ignore them.
Eventually they realize everyone is ignoring them and they stop posting.
This is a great conceptualization.
OP, what are the "hackers" (underclass, outsiders, protagonists, etc.) in this setting beyond tomb robbers?
So, you want to play in Egypt with a "high magic, low life" kind of feel ?
Check out Cryptomancer, as mentioned it's hacking applied to fantasy.
>I think the surface trappings of a genre are the genre
But seriously, that sounds cool. Just don't call it *punk unless it has central themes of counterculture and rebellion
I'm not a /pol/ack, but since you specifically asked for /pol/'s expert opinion, and based on your description of the degenerate lizardmen, I'm assuming that they're supposed to be a Jewish steryotype. I happen to be an expert on that topic, seeing as how I'm Jewish.
Basically, if you want to make them the token evil race, you're gonna want to combine Drow, Dwarves, and Jawas.
The society is run by the priestly class, and is a meritocracy, but since the top priest's son is almost always gonna get the best education, he's the one who get's his dad or mom's job. This is where the Drow aspect comes in
The whole society would look a bit like this. It would be caste-based, but determined by education rather than birth, but because your family is the group that educates you 9 times out of 10, it ends up looking like it all matters on birth. This is where the Dwarf aspect comes in. Also, this is also why they're so open about interbreeding: birth doesn't matter, only education.
Being of different castes doesn't give you more rights inside the society, with one exception: trade. The higher in the totem-pole you are, the more you're allowed to trade with the outside world, because you are less susceptible to being tempted by the outside world. This is how the higher castes become more wealthy than the lower castes. This is where the Jawa aspect comes in.
If you've notices a theme of "there's a difference between how the system is organized and how thing really are," that's intentional.
I reccommend that you make all magic be artifice, where mages/scribes make magic objects that perform the magic, instead of mages/scribes just performing the magic. Then you can just base the artifice on technology, both modern and sci-fi.
Reminds me I should play that game again.
Or "cyber" if it doesn't actually have computers or high tech advancements.
If OP sells this setting as "cyberpunk" to his players they'll just be really confused.
You can't go around a Cyberpunk setting without AIs.
YOu have some sort of AI. Minds of long ago killed gods? Old priests? What would be an AI origin nd goal in that setting?
No idea but you should include them.
>hackers
I'm thinking PCs.
Break into a tomb, steal the master key for control of the 10% of all undead slaves working in the field.
yep like this idea.
What if the sphinxs are the settings's AI, and their confinement by the humans is an undesired state for them to be in? I imagine sphinxs would be quite dangerous if they were allowed to conspire with each other, so maybe one threat could be that the party's johnson (ferryman?) is ultimately employed by a rogue sphinx.
Immortality is nice but people will want to preserve beauty.
Imagine a gorgeous queen, proud of her body, ending up as a mummy. She will want to have her beauty back.
She will have to do it with glamour spells or with ceramics masks or by stealing bodies of young girls... She will find a way.
How does it feel not knowing the gae of the thing you are having sex with?
>How does it feel not knowing the gae of the thing you are having sex with?
As every pedophile who firmly believes that plausible deniablity can protect them would attest - it feels amazing.
On of the possible magics is creating a virus and letting it life in your own mind.
Then when you have to cast it you free it and it goes devouring/doing other bad things to enemy brain.
(COUGH)
I don't watch anime garbage, care to explain further?
It's Prospero. You know, from 40K.
Not that guy (but my reaction before image searh was >anime?) what are cool elements you would advise ripping out of prospero?
Rolemaster has Mythic Egypt, it would help a lot.
It also has really cool sphinxes as pcs.
PS. Egyptians had the most complicated afterlife I have seen.
Inter-cult politics was a big deal on Prospero. You could really take a lot from that, and apply it to the various factions of scribes.
>You have some sort of AI. Minds of long ago killed gods?
Use the discworld/classic D&D model where gods feed upon and are created by prayers. The difference here is, people figured it out and have turned it into the basis of an industrial revolution based around custom-designed artificially created gods.
>(COUGH)
Oh, that's it, the gloves are coming off!
Looking for a rematch, you little bitch?
C R Y P T O M A N C E R
Have just two more question.
Why pyramids are being build. The initial idea is that they are constantly projecting a nation wide illusion to hide something. A cyberpunk setting needs a big conspiracy. But I'm at a loss what could they be hiding.
How does the church (equivalent of a military state) keeps undead in check. The initial idea was them to have a monopoly of undead regeneration potions. Your undead body wears down with time and with no natural regeneration you come to beg the church. Any better ideas?
If no How does the regeneration potion is produced? It has to be pretty immoral process.
Do undead need sustenance to keep going? Would you make them feed on life energy or not?
>A cyberpunk setting needs a big conspiracy
Since when?
Keep in mind the core essence of most cyberpunk settings is the conflict between the Powers That Be maintaining control and Rebellious Youth (ie The Punks) trying to cast off their chains, a conflict that is permitted by the rapid advancement of The New Technology (ie The Cyber) throwing civilization into a sort of controlled chaos.
Your big technology based on your posts is this new form of mental manipulation magic. Moving souls between bodies, manipulating the senses and thoughts of the living, and using corpses as cheap labor by modifying dead brains. Very Ghost In The Shell. Now, who is trying to use this tech for control? The Pharohs? The Priesthood? The Noble Houses? What ends have they put this magic too that has left society distopian in nature for the General Masses? Who are those youthful punks fighting back against this control, and why? Who are the protagonists of your story? Rebellious Youths? Something more like Deckard from Blade Runner, the libertine ubermensch who thrives in the chaos of society upheaval and follows their own morals rather than picking a side? The Tools of the Machine, those people who have found wealth or security or simple purpose in the control that the Powers That Be exert and must discover the costs that they've made themselves willfully blind to? Some combination of all three? Answer those questions and you'll have made your setting cyberpunk rather than something trying to immitate its trappings.
Jaffa, kre!
>Since when?
Pyramids=conspiracy. Probably this was my mental association. I'm curious and welcoming for other reasons for pyramids building.
HOL UP
You could look into the Goa'uld in Stargate for some ideas; ignoring, of course, the fact that their 'magic' was simply advanced technology.
Awesome post. Ty
>rapid advancement
Now it occurs to me my setting have a problem with it. As with usual medieval static fantasy I have no experience with building an advancing word. Coupled with wanting to add ancient liches that remains competitive it seems hard. To have ancient liches the immortality thing is not new discovery. What could be the new discovery that advances and upsets the power balance? Lichdom is old but moving souls to different bodies is new?
The Priesthood is in control. They act as big war deterrent so various nations have to use subtle tactics to wage wars.
They simply don't want to give immortality freely or we will have a stagnant populations of immortal that do not change.
Why protagonist rebel. Hmm. The priesthood obviously tell a lie to placate the masses (which lie) and PCs discovered it and want to do something. Maybe they know that the "Be good and pray and give donations" is not enough to get ressurection after death. You have to be part of an elite. Otherwise they damage your brain and send you to work the field with a retarded smile on your face. And they WANT the eternal life.
A high level game can be about young nobles discovering that nations are powerless pawns in hand of the Priesthood and want to change that.
On a sidenote: WIth the possibility of grafting dead bodies with animal parts there will be a big market for body parts of rare and dangerous animals. Ideas for an adventure. Also good human bodies would be in demand. That could lead to distopian slave pits where humans are breed in captivity.
P.S. I need to go watch Ghost in the Shell
Sounds really fucking cool dude. I'd jump at the chance to play a game set there.
To test this setting with my group I need to run a one shot.
Anyone who played shadworun (or anyone else) can give ideas?
What is the best suited system to reskin?
what game/s does your group play?
> Cyberpunk
> No computers
So, pyramidpunk?
3.5 minmaxing.
Last time we fought 3 gods fused in one (he acted 3 times in a turn) with a sword able to do 100d6 damage, took us 4-5 turns to bring him down.
In all that time he wasn't able to land a single attack. We were level 18 with a druid that knew how to make a build.
There is a chance the playetest group would be mixed.
So what one shot would YOU like to play in this setting?
it has ties to the grafting&augmentations as well as mind upload, then to the genral underclass fighting against oppressive corporations (it is present but it is minor).
So it more cyberpunk then a generic *punk.
all of these posts originate from the same IP, it seems. At least, Veeky Forums X hides all of them when it hides one.
fucking hell, I knew it.
whoever you are, you're gonna get us both banned.
>Man's being is made up of his Google search profile, his Facebook page, his mind, his spirit and his body.
There you go. Cyberpunk Egypt.
Not that picrelated count for lot and could be PS but anyway.
I'm posting from Italy. And how the hell do you look at IPs of other users?
4chanX hid everything because by default it hides the entire comment chain, you idiot.
Sweet! I don't have a weird doppelganger, I'm just retarded! Awesome.
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They ask riddles either as a form of data security or as a primitive form of Captcha
I'd recommend Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer. It's the perfect mixture of historical accuracy and crazy magic.
Lions are the dragons of the setting. Never mess with a lion.
Even a peasant can transfer their consciousness to a new body by having sex before they die. Lots of sex magic in general, but you don't have to show that in player's faces if you don't want to.
Don't forget the enemies outside of Egypt have gods of their own. Cyberpunk Egypt vs Biopunk Hittites at Kadesh would be awesome.
Undead (aka scripts, bots) can't solve the riddle because they're not so advanced/have no lateral thinking. It's a pretty clever idea.
OP i'll let you know that i'll steal anything from this set
If your technology is magic, where does it come from and who wields it? Is it something anyone can use with the right knowledge? That would make it very easy to trickle into the educated servant classes. If it's an inborn, bloodline ability, then you'd tend to have an aristocratic mageocracy, like something out of White Wolf. Those with magic will end up on top, setting themselves above the commoners.
Another thought is that maybe magic is just plain expensive--it requires special artifacts, consumes rare components like spices or gemstones. Then it's literally about who can afford it. Maybe only the Pharaohs get immortality because that spell requires literally the wealth of an entire kingdom.
On a different note:
Pyramids and other constructions are the "grounding rod" for the most powerful magic. If you want to make yourself young again, you need a pyramid just to focus and channel the huge amount of hookum spookum you'll be using. Bigger pyramids mean a better chance of success, but after only a few uses the structure is tainted and you need to build a new one.
A pyramid scheme. Obviously.
Only the 4th and 5th posts are mine
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Why cats are sacred? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
"Look what I got."
Cryptomancer.
Just give it a read.
Share thread has it
On send space
/file/1eejaj
It's misnamed, says it's paranoia but it's cryptomancer.
They kill off plague carrying rats and at least scare off venomous snakes.
In real life. In Dystopian immortal egypt? They are natural antiviruses that feed on malaware?
Sounds good to me.
OP, YOU ARE A FAGGOT AND YOUR IDEA'S ARE BAD
BUT BECAUSE I AM FUCKING AMAZING, I'M GOING TO TELL YOU HOW TO MAKE THIS WORK.
FIRST OF ALL YOU'RE APPROACHING THIS THE WRONG WAY BY TRYING TO HAVE CYBERPUNK WITH NO COMPUTERS AND BRONZE AGE TECHNOLOGY. WHAT YOU NEED IS A POST APOCOLYPTIC CYBERPUNK SOCIETY, WHERE TECHNOLOGY HAS BECOME SO ADVANCED BUT SOCIETY SO DEGENERATED IT'S IDENTICAL TO MAGIC.
IT IS A SETTING GOVERNED BY GOD AI'S AND RULED BY ELITE CHOSEN IMMORTALS UPLOADED TO THE MATRIX WHO WHO DOWNLOAD THEMSELVES INTO CUSTOM GROWN BODIES EVERY FEW DECADES TO REMAIN ETERNALLY YOUNG AND TO GOVERN THE UNTERMENSCHEN
IT IS A SETTING THAT SKIRTS CLOSE TO UTOPIA, YET HAS A DARK AND DYSOTOPIC UNDERSIDE.
I SHALL ELABORATE
WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING
This game did something similar with not!Romans, read a bit of the lore since it may help you for your setting.
SO YOU CAN FUCKING HEAR ME
The setting itself is in fact, an enclosed system. The world is the interior of a Dyson Sphere-like megastructure. It is entirely artificial, but carefully mimics natural life.
The God AI's govern the lives of the humans 'benevolently' according to the principles of Ma'at. Ma'at means many things, but it is essentially the equation for human happiness, insofar as it is seen by the AI. Maintaining Ma'at, this status quo, is their #1 priority. CHANGE. IS. BAD.
Ra? Is literally the fucking sun. The sun is a plasma construct that runs on a track across the ceiling. Among other things he calculates how much energy to put out to the world and where to maximize growth. He governs everything
Isis is in charge of fertility, SHE decides when humans can have children, SHE decides how many crops grow, SHE decides the dispensation of resources. Everything is governed, calculated, controlled for maximum efficiency and maximum ma'at.
Horus is the police, security. Always watching. ALWAYS. Everywhere. youtube.com
The Pharoahs, their households, the high priesthood - these are all ancient minds, possibly the creators of the sphere. They uploaded their consciousnesses long ago. They take bodies as it pleases them, and rule as they see fit. Both mouthpeices of the gods and yet also, possibly, their creators. Their lives are impossible luxury. Their word is law. Their every desire met.
Mortals live comfortable, governed lives. Their needs are provided for, scarcity is a thing of a past. Work is on an as need basis, people volunteer for projects and earn extra resources for their families, whether building vanity edifices for the pharaohs or farming crops or maintaining infrastructure, but living resources are otherwise assured. The perfect life. Except you are told where to live, how much you can earn is controlled, the system decides if you can have children and how many.
for a moment I thought the minos in the pic were cyberdemons with plasma cannon in place of their hands.
There's an underbelly. Of course there is. People don't like to be constrained, even when it's 'in their best interests'. ESPECIALLY if it's 'in their best interest'. Dissidence is crushed mercilessly. Nothing can threaten Ma'at, which really amounts to the whims of the immortal pharoahnic class. In contrast to the immortal god-people of the pharoahnic and priesthood classes, the common man is mortal. Often times the date of their death is even decided for them, so as to maximize resources. Few live past 60 despite universal medicine that it advanced enough to cure everything.
There is RESISTANCE. Rebellious AI the gods of chaos, their followers, and simple common folk who want to live freely. Interestingly enough there is evidence to suggest the gods of chaos, such as Set and Apep, were created BY the system in order to OPPOSE the system, as it was calculated an element of chaos was necessary to ensure human comfort.
All 'animals' are actually self propagating constructs made to mimic animals. Cats are sacred because they're actually roving machines in service to Isis. They hunt virus constructs of Apep, which of course take the form of snakes and rats. These are not just superstitions, they are actual minions of the 'gods'.
There. you got your cyber, you got your punk, you got your 'magic' in the form of horrifically advanced technology nobody but a small upperclass using the people as their playthings understand.
>Dyson Sphere-like megastructure
we are really trying to keep it to a small scale. Seriously it is a great concept. But I need to finish reading BLAME! before seriously attempting it.
AGAB.
All Gods Are Bastards
The only way to hide form the gaze of Horus is to go underground to where Apep lives. Apep is synonymous to the cosmos outside the DYson Sphere.
They are sun-powered ressurection machines.
The Sun is divine power, source of magic.
Transhumanism is mutating yourself into a hybrid of human and sacred animal, and so becoming a member of the Great Houses, each both aristocracy and clergy, as well as performing administrative work. They are equivalent to Megacorporations.
Biomods that make you look like the gods, like the furry mods in shadowrun
It's been so long since AOL grandparents and their ALL CAPS EMAILS that it's kind of charming. Plus, the loud little fuck has a damn good point.
A good setting needs a monster manual.
What good is it if the selection of enemies is always the same?
I dunno, human's main enemy is other humans.
Got a link to a mega with Cryptomancer?
ARE YOU SHOUTING MATSU?
God the things nonsummerjack does to me are fucking terrifying.
High magic, low life my dude
>Ancient Egypt Cyberpunk
It's called Stargate. It kinda sucks.
>Stargate. It kinda sucks.
>facts that hurt my feelings make threads shitty
Time for you to grow up, then. All genetic markers we've discovered put caucasians as the pharaoh race, even all the way up to in "ancient" Egypt.
Not him, but it does start to suck after few seasons, while the series itself is a far cry of the movie, which itself was so-so action flick
Lord of Light except with Egypt instead of India?
>dear pollacks I need ideas for their society. How it is organized? How integrated they are?
The tallest and least-smelly snake people are killed and eaten by the rest to prevent them from exploiting their privileged status. Snakepeople society is a matriarchy, and obesity is seen as highly desirable. The females frequently consume the males after mating, and also consume unwanted offspring.
However, any pureblooded human willing to slum in the snakepits can have his pick of the litter, and the snakeoid women dearly love forcing their weak snakemates to watch while they are taken by the tall, strong, surface-dwellers.
Because of this, the Matriarchy grants an extremely generous and costly state-funded stipend to any surface dweller who permanently migrates into the snake-realm.
Amongst the ranks of the snakemen are some who are unhappy with their overweight women being so loudly ravaged by surface-dwelling migrants who live on the taxes paid by hardworking snakes like them, and have begun to whisper that there is a conspiracy on the part of their mole-men allies to breed the snakeman race out of existence, but any who utter this theory too publicly are swiftly killed and eaten by corpulent female enforcers.
You best be talking about the movie son.
>guys, guys, what if we had cyberpunk, only instead of technology it was magic!
Techno-sorcery is not cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk is hightech lowlife. Mix gritty detective novel with cybernetic dystopia.
Techno-sorcery is basically magic but used to fulfill modern roles. Cyberpunk does not lend itself to an ancient egyptian motif very well, technosorcery does, but its over-done.
When wrtiting dont just toss a bunch of good ideas into a genre-mashup and expect it to be good. If you throw, a glass of whisky, a cigar, and a hustler magazine in a smoothie-blender you do not expect something awesome to result. Likewise genre-mashups. You gotta work really hard to make them work right.
there will be 7 priest-gods in the setting.
One with Cat head
One with Hawk head
One with Jackal head
One with Snake head
One with Perfect sphere head
Picrelated
and I need the last one.
a god with its face blank
a discarded god
I was actually kind of thinking about a game in goa'uld-infested ancient egypt, but I was afraid of getting called an autist if I posted that.
A crocodile?
>guy makes a /pol/ joke at the beginning of the thread for fun
>OY VEY /POL/ IS HERE AGAIN!!
>THE THREAD IS SHITTY NOW EVERYONE LOOKS LIKE /POL/ IS HERE!!
>STUPID /POL/TARDS WHY DO YOU HAVE TO SHIT UP MY TEEGEE WE ARE ALL ANNOYING LEFTIES HERE!!
Come on man, calm it down.
That sounds hella cool.
So you have transferal of sentience, maybe Sphynxes are experimentation into a collective consciousness? One large body for many minds... Perhaps the fat body even holding the unconscious/passed on people.
>replies to a post 16 hours later to tell it to calm down
whoa bro, you so on top of shit, you gotta calm down bro
HOL UP