We haven't had one of those in some time.
General Night Land setting discussion.
But specific question for you guys: if we say that Dark Sun is Medieval Dune, what could a Medieval Night Land setting look like ? A megacity/castle with arcane defences ? How could they survive in terms of food and water ? Maybe a citadel within enclosed wall with the empty space being used for water and food ?
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Night Land doesn't really "work" in a medieval setting really. It's far too hopelessly bleak for that, and unless unless those medieval folks advance very, very, VERY quickly, or one of the Powers Of Good is particularly kind to them, they're all gonna die.
A medieval night land, a 'knight land' if you will, (thank you, thank you), is unsurvivable without being very, VERY high magic.
Here's something of interest, I made this a looooong time ago, but it works well enough for what it is.
set to expire in 1 week
I like your shit user I will read it.
Well maybe not in a "traditional" Night Land, but I meant "something akin to". Of course a normal castle =/= a Redoubt. But "what if" the same kind of Night Force attack and corrupt the land, making it inhabitable except for a small citadel (or something like that) that is protected by some kind of Current/Lifestream/High Magic ?
>But "what if" the same kind of Night Force attack and corrupt the land, making it inhabitable except for a small citadel (or something like that) that is protected by some kind of Current/Lifestream/High Magic ?
Unless some shit happens that enables them to build, develop and act EXTREMELY quickly in response to the threat posed by the Forces Of Night, then they'll all just likely end up getting Destroyed in a couple thousand years. Especially if some ticklish noble folk decide to fuck everything up for their own personal gain.
I've played it enough times to know for sure that it's workable, but it was a work in progress that I never really finished, I would like to hear your ideas about how to improve it, if you have any.
Reminder that if you read any modern "translation" of this book then you are not allowed to post in this thread.
I just realized something very important that the pastebin left out (on accident); this is the same world as the world the book takes place in, but this takes place in another geographical area. So while it is theoretically possible to go to the book's area, that area is not on 'the map' as it were.
...
One thing people forget about the night land sometimes is the change to total darkness is not a recent thing, that's been 'just how it is' for millions of years already, it's very likely that no-light plants and no-light animals exist by now.
>tfw you will never slay falmer with a diskos
Heres a question to answer; if its medieval era, have the great watchers arrived yet? if they have, how are they currently paralyzed?
It's not total darkness. The whole landscape is dimly lit by volcanism.
I assume that the Powers Of Good are still working to keep the Watchers in check even now, because otherwise, there wouldnt be any hope at all.
Do the powers of good or the specific watchers have names?
They didn't in the book as I remember, at least, not specific names like 'Hillary clinton' or 'joe biden' or 'George soros'.
The Watchers are only referred to by names like "The Southwest Watcher" and shit like that. I don't think any *real* names are given to the Watchers or the Powers of Good.
The thought came to me that you could use the powers of good as a means to give the characters cleric-like or mage-like abilities, and give them semi-specific names or domains.
It doesn't help that the first time I read The Night Land was when I was running a really bad fever and I ended up having bizarre fevered nightmares that I was Destroyed by the powers of night. This fucking book still scares me to this day.
You were destroyed by the powers of night, user. You were seeing a life you were living in an extremely distant future. By the time they destroyed you the living envied the dead, and oblivion was better off.
It really is utterly baffling that people can't read the original. Depressing, really.
Oh hi Veeky Forums
I think it's baffling people want to read nightlands and think it's actually well written.
It has a nice setting, that's about as far as it's qualities go.
>your imaginary thing doesn't work because of my imaginary problem
Get a life anons, use your imaginations eh?
It is basically medieval already. The MC uses plate armor and a polearm, but if you really want medieval
>Earth-Current = magic
>aircrafts = airships
>diskos = magic weapon
Don't know about the Last Redoubt as pyramid with millions of people inside, maybe some kind of walls like Attack on Titan made more sense. Also I would kept the telepathy aspect.
Now, about the book (original version), it's just me or the MC halucinates Nani ressurrection, dies from his injuries and then reunites with her in the afterlife?
There were huge areas of the redoubt that were entirely underground, and -each floor- contained whole cities, I thought. I don't see how you could do that with a traditional walled-city type build.
One thing that always puzzled me is except for the occasional exile or traveler, why on earth anyone would ever leave the redoubt for any reason.
>There were huge areas of the redoubt that were entirely underground
Yes, that's why I suggested a vast walled city. Basically take the vertial pyramid and spred horizontally. And make some kind of tower at the middle to be the "Palace of Monstruwacans".
Also, is anyone here readind the last Berserk's chapters? The landscape really resembles the NIght Land.
At time of the book they don't have aircrafts anymore do they ? I don't remember.
They have an ancient one in a museum or something. Perfectly intact, but it won’t fly anymore because the air’s become too thin for it to lift off.
If it hadn't been for that war he would have been Lovecraft.
attack on titan with the lights turned out.
I wonder if some form of magnetic lift-off system or some sort of anti-gravity machinery might still work. Hodgeson didn't think of this probably because the science of it didn't really exist yet, but I can't think of any specific reason it wouldn't work.
But this again raises the central question; why on earth would anyone ever leave the redoubt?
That's fair, but is there enough artificial light to grow food? Or enough biomass to support full time hunting?
The writing in the original Night Land is god awful. The best thing about it are the ideas. Modern "tanslations" are the only reason anyone still talks about it.
It was boring sometimes but the style add something to the story, I don't know how to put, personality maybe? It felt pretty unique even if was hard sometimes. I gonna read the retold version soon, but I don't think will have the same atmosphere.
Well, it's said that the Earth-Current is obligatory to grow life. People in the Lesser Redoubt, where the current is weaker, are depressive and physically ill. So as long as they have a good Earth-Current, they can have crops and maybe somekind of small game, altough in the books I don't remember if they have meat or even animals in the Great Redoubt.
Also the Earth-Current technology is something ancient they can't comprehend or fix in large scale, it was something build millions of years before the story take place, so in the medieval setting I imagine something like Stonehenge old, but intact. Maybe some latter civilization like the Romans made some kind of adjust but at the time of story, there is no one around anymore who knows how everything was put together.
Now I'm wondering how much of the earth's resources have been spent already, and whether or not there is even the metal etc to even be able to do much of any repair on anything, at all.
Minerals in the ground do renew to some extent (meteors, volcanos, etc), but once a certain critical threshold is reached, theres no way back except wait billions of years.
If the earth is by that time a spent world (80 or more % of every resource spent) there wouldn't be the minerals etc available to do any fixing of the systems.
We also know now that having your every need provided for you stultifies imagination creativity and desire to work, so I would imagine that the reason they don't know how to repair anything or very few things is because they feel no desire and their imagination/creativity has been significantly depleted.
I won't really change anything. Most of the tech is fantastical and poorly defined enough to essentially be magic. The main conflict is the forces of God against a bunch of demons. You have an armoured dude with a magic weapon walking across the wastes of the world.
Maybe if you are specifying medieval europe you could change the pyramid to a tower. But a lot of the stuff that makes the night land cool are things that are horribly improbable at a straight, natural medieval level. Once you add the elements that allow it to exist it already looks almost exact to the setting as is but with a thin film of generic fantasy terminology over top.
But if you are focusing most on the medieval element the result might be close to Beserk. You might also look at Kingdom Death considering less lewdness and some miraculous development on the part of the survivors.
Daily reminder that humanity loses the war against the Forces Of Night and the universe and all of its timelines are collapsed by Evil in the end.
If in fantasy it could still be fairly high fantasy and still have the air of desperation and despair about it.
The Night Everlasting encroaches and the last bastion is lit by a magically created artificial sun. The problem is that the ambient magic of the world is depleted, it has to be constantly maintained by it's casters. If they fail it goes out. If it stays out for too long it's game over for everyone.
The walls are protected by wards and runes of protection. But they are constantly assaulted and so have to be recast at regularly. If they are not forces of Night will get in and it's going to be a bad time for all concerned.
More mundane or resistant things try to scurry up the walls and make it past the patrols. You can blast them with lightning and fire but there are always more eventually.
The siege has been going now for so fucking long even the lich-kings in the Hall of Monstruwacans struggle to remember a time before. And they know they can't win. Oh they will last a long time, potentially an insanely long time, but eventually they will loose. They have to be lucky for the rest of eternity, the forces of Night Eternal have to be lucky just once.
This seems like a good way of viewing it and making things decently high fantasy. Though if other fantasy races were to be included, some distinction would have to be made between the 'normal' fantasy races, and the entities in service to the Dark Powers.
For instance, the regular dragons as firebreathing reptile beasts, and the "Dragons", the star-devouring cosmic horrors that birthed the pneumavores.
Did you miss his fucking foot fetish?
Do the more normal fantasy beings oppose the powers of night? I'd imagine they don't exactly want the world to die, you know, since it would mean their death.
You could go dragonriders of pern / krynn with it here and say that dragons are actually allies in the struggle against the powers of night.
Whichever side of the genreshit war you're on, you're a tasteless retard.
The humans and humanish races are all hiding in the fortified bastion propping up the walls and trying not to die.
The things that are outside the walls are either abominations or a few lost and presumably hard as nails hermits.
In the story there was only the two redoubts mentioned as I remember, but I also seem to remember that the story didn't cover the whole surface of the world, I think it's likely that there are a few (a very few) other redoubts that have population.
Reading the original is well wort the effort so the translation doesn’t really serve a purpose, IMO. But sure, if you can’t be arsed it isn’t horrible and you’re not a subhuman.
Why don't you make this into a real thing? The Night Land is public domain, right?
>what could a Medieval Night Land setting look like ?
Dark Souls
>why on earth would anyone ever leave the redoubt?
Most don't
>We also know now that having your every need provided for you stultifies imagination creativity and desire to work
We don't know that at all
Well firstly because I've now fucked up and posted it on the internet. If I was going to make it into an actual thing, you would never see it (any of it) until it came out as a rulebook and etc.
Also because it isn't finished.
>foot fetish
It is a delicate issue
The book talked about how the Great Redoubt was effectively in a former ocean trench, and that the atmosphere and everything on the "surface" had been bled off so long ago that only by being in the deepest point had they retained any atmosphere.
Tell me more about the Translations. I wouldn't mind a version that wasn't painfully focused on sexism and foot fetishes.
I remember that now that you mention it. The ocean trench etc, not the sexy feet. I do think its hypothetically possible that there may be other trenches with redoubts in them, or even fully underground settlement at some location somewhere outside the map of the book.
Remember it is only given to the dark ones to rule over creation until the end, when Christ will return with a sword. When the last human draws breath, the time of rebirth shall be nigh
I had a brainwave, the darkness is not the sun going out but a shroud covering the planet brought about by the monsters.
Naturally extending their own dimensions ecosystem to Night-form the planet.
From space it just looks like the planet is made of a black substance.
When they finish devouring the world all that will be left is a black hole
Every black hole was once an inhabited world that was consumed by the night creatures
Is any part of them made of conventional matter? If I shot them with a laser gun or an earth current gun or something along those lines, would it do any damage to their HP or otherwise named health-stat?
I'm speaking in the wider agenda of all night creatures that ever were are or ever shall be, not only the ones who are seen in the book.
I know the lesser creatures can be harmed, protag goes apeshit with a pizza cutter at one point. I don't think you can harm shit like the watchers though
THE DISKOS FLOWERS WITH THE EARTH CURRENT. NONE CAN HARM THE DARK ONES WITHOUT THE EARTH CURRENT. I MUST SAVE MY BELOVED AND ANOINT HER FEET
Right, what he said. Earth current being basically a mix of geothermal and Mako. So it's the essence of pure life and shit.
I understand his giant pizza cutter of doom is able to whack the shit out of them, I meant more along the lines of; if I pulled out a magnum and shot one in the head, would it blow a hole in it and do damage?
Or are they beings one must have a 'magic' or very far future sci-fi weapon to harm?
You need earth current, so the latter. Remember these things tore apart what was essentially a DAOT empire of man
>The Night Lands was apparently lowkey magical realm
Can someone explain this to me pls I'm not sure I want to walk down this road.
the author really like feet or something, Nani had well described feet
Interesting, what I'm wondering at this point is; can earth current respond to a user's mental commands? I could see some sort of phantasy star style 'techniques' being possible to use with earth current within this setting, and it being thematic.
>and you’re not a subhuman.
You're right, you're an abhuman.
I always pictured the abhumans as being hills have eyes style severely deformed freakish primitives of extreme and brutal temperament.
I did as well
Aimlessly wandering degenerate nomads who are very seldom friendly in the slightest is how my mind describes them. Little more advanced than Australian natives, though they use metal weapons and tools and do make fire.
I wouldn't go so far as saying that but diskos gain an "affinity" for their users during training and from then on shouldn't be used by others due to the earth current used to run it.
They're a little more than that. They're differing "intelligent" species that cropped up when humans and either alien or evil stock started to interbreed.
They tend to be at least a little monstrous because of that but better suited to survive in the nightlands.
>this is what Destiny could have been if Bungie wasn't fucking shit
Destiny could have been a lot of things considering they threw out about 7 fully formed and completed stories and a few more unknown semi complete stories before they settled on basic concepts and said they'd just flesh it out as they went.
Still mad
You should get in touch with me, I think we could make this happen. As long as you can prove you made the stuff in that pastebin then its yours from a copyright standpoint. At least according to UK law, I dunno how it is wherever you're from.
>And like a fucking idiot I responded to my own damn post.
You should get in touch with me, I think we could make this happen. As long as you can prove you made the stuff in that pastebin then its yours from a copyright standpoint. At least according to UK law, I dunno how it is wherever you're from. But even then, not like it matters too much!
Saved. Hopefully it will get used sometime.
This is making me mad now. Very mad.
See the problem here is if I somehow got tricked and then did all the work and didn't get anything out of it, I would most likely go psycho james bond villain and throttle someone. to death. Especially if it was a shameless trick and they laughed in my face after stealing my everything mark zuckerbastard style.
So essentially what I'm trying to tell you is I'm more anal psycho asshole bastard about copyright than walt Disney is, you wouldn't be doing anything with what I made or even seeing it without signing hard copy contract that enumerates in laborious detail what you can and cannot do with it, and if I found that I was tricked, I wouldn't waste time with your 18th century justice system re-enactors, I'd just find you and cut your arms and legs off with a fire-axe.
cringe
Just read the book a few weeks ago. I loved the Lovecraft with hope vibe going on but holy fuck there are some bad things.
>10k soldiers
>fighting 100 dogs
>lose 1700 men to them
>man character runs for like 3 days straight
>kills dozens of monsters without any issue
How the fuck did they lose so many men when he could do it on his own?
>Lesser redoubt had no weapons capable of harming the night monsters
>Some how built the damn thing
>No radios though House of Silence would have fucked them up
I get the book is old, but the telegram was a thing, as was the telephone.
Also why did everyone hide inside? Why didn't the monsters dig into the fucking huge caves under the Redoubt, the shield wasn't that big?
There's actually a great paper about the topic of how scientific the setting is. Goes in detail about how the setting is written in a way to make you believe it's occultic but it's actually grounded in science, just filled with 40k styled lost knowledge and technology.
This is especially true when they talk about the human soul in it. The way it's described is very much ground in logic, being that it's just part of the human body and leaves to find another when you die but there are creatures that can feed on it while you're alive.
>You need earth current
You don't actually need earth current to harm them. They just don't know how their tech works anymore.
Naani hurts one with a knife. Fucking gunpowder weapons would probably hurt them
>Why didn't the monsters dig into the fucking huge caves under the Redoubt, the shield wasn't that big?
The Earth Current and the Air Clog both flow above and under the ground. Any monster, be they material or Pneumavore, would end up getting fried if they tried to do. At least, not without infesting an exposed human soul first that is.
Are you sure about the air clog going into the ground? I thought it was a giant dome forcefield that ended at ground floor. You're right about the earth current though, the force field created by it went into the ground and beyond.
but would GRORIOUS NIPPON STEER hurt them?
It was written by a sexually repressed virgin as a way to redirect his sexual urges. Flowery language, indirect sexual imageries, female characters described in fetishistic ways, etc. Textbook sublimation.
The engorged Tower proudly standing in the center of an abyss, under siege by the force of the unknown, is the recurring element of almost all works of sublimation. The loss of control, the apocalyptic vibes, even the words and vocabulary used to describe the scenes are all sexually repressed.
That's part of the appeal of The Night Land and why the work resonates so much with people. Nothing wrong with it. Dante's Divine Comedy is pretty much the same thing.
user please sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
I agree with you as a rule, but not on the Night Land. Everything about this work scream sublimation. It checks every signs. Any trained psychologist who reads it will immediately understand where this had come from.
In fact, I am in the opinion that it should be studied in psychology class. The Night Land is possibly the purest form of sublimating written work ever made. It's almost a masterpiece. No other novels can even begin to compare.
Again, there is nothing wrong with that. If nothing else, it makes it resonate more with the universals behind the human psyche.
A cringy response, but I have a tabletop game design business, you should be nicer when people are offering you things.
I don't care if it makes you cringe. I'm tired of getting RELENTLESSLY FUCKED OVER, by EVERYONE.
So you'll excuse me if my trust in you is nonexistent.
user, the shield powered by the earth current IS the air clog. It surrounds the entire redoubt and the book explains the only way in for the monsters at that point is the insanely hidden pipes the redoubt uses to draw water from wherever sea still exists.
Humans in setting have been keeping themselves "human"(barring shit like telepathy) through unknown means for ??? Years now though it's hinted to be genetic engineering otherwise we'd have degenerated in a similar fashion to the abhumans by now. It's feasibly they're either top possible condition or superhuman so him running for days on end in thin atmosphere is possible or The Power of Love is a thing in setting or The Power of Good was at his shoulder. He might be an outlier as well after all he was labeled their greatest hero afterwards.
As for the lesser redoubt they might have had the same kind of energy weapons the greater redoubt had which are now defunct for some reason (earth current ran low or physics is a bit different or something it wasn't really fleshed out.). So they might have held the line until it was done, made the air clog first, or built it before the monsters got there. Telegrams also require an existing network from A to B which would be impossible to maintain in setting which is why humanity has telepathy and the masterword.
>Telegrams also require an existing network from A to B which would be impossible to maintain in setting which is why humanity has telepathy and the masterword
The road from the road builders still exists. You could just run the wires in the road.
The various forces and powers have no reason to destroy the road it's just a thing with no purpose other than maybe guiding some of the few bits of prey out in the open following a predictable path. If you laid wire for a telegraph network the more subversive forces, powers, and entities might just cut it to keep the disparate parts of humanity separate or use it to whisper evils to them or something and plenty of those types exist hence the reason for the masterword. Anything extending past the redoubt is a weakness and any weakness can be exploited and given the setting any weakness that could be exploited could be insanely fatal to a degree higher than the usual use of that word. It's best to just avoid all of that entirely.
Pretty much this. Humanity REALLY cannot afford to take any chances whatsoever when it com's to the Outer Powers and their like. Even so much as one fucking slip-up that would be considered 'minor' in any other setting, could spell the end.