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Voting closed: November 17, 2014, 05:49:42 pm

[Mesa]

So, Gun Francisco is still a thing I'm working on.
However it has changed pretty drastically and the old thread is, well, old at tihs point, and has a lot of really outdated stuff, so I thought I'd just abandon that one and make a new one.

What has changed, you might ask?
Well, everything, basically.

Previously the world was kind of cliche and the parallels between my races and your stock fantasy stuff (humans, dwarves, elves, goblins) were pretty clear and I didn't quite like that.
So how do things stand now? I'll quote myself from my /r/worldbuilding thread:

The year is 2123AD, or 101PA (Post Apocalypse). One century ago, in 2022AD, a global war has erupted and brought the humanity to its brink. In the unravelling chaos, ancient forces of magic have awoken from their thousand-year slumber. The post-war radiation combined with the mana once again flowing through the winds of the now-flooded world has made it a truly different place.

A world of guns, magic and mutants, roaming the harsh wastelands. The humanity has split itself into two - the magic-using Northmen and technology-wielding Southees.

But even though they are mortal enemies, they both hate one thing above all, even each other - the Hybridae - all the bizzare mutants that steal their food, kill their men and ruin their forts.
But who truly is the monster in this post-apocalyptic Earth? The Southees? The Northmen? The Hybridae?

Basically, you have two large groups of humans who use magic and technology fighting each other while both sides are fending off hordes of hybrids (or hybridae, if you will), which is what the beasts/mutants used to be in the old version of the setting. But maybe they are not the monsters after all...

So yes, I want your feedback on whether you like the 1st Edition (with humans, birds and frogs split into the factions of gunners, mutants and mages) or the 2nd Edition (with humans split into gunners/Southees and mages/Northmen against the Hybridae/mutants) and the feedback on the oh-so terribly-written story. It's more like a summary than anything...

Stay tuned for more!
(I'll make a more detailed write-up later this week if I'm not feeling lazy.)

[flame99]

PtW

[Mesa]

Spoiler: Explanation of magic. Still WIP, need more feedback. (click to show/hide)

Gun Francisco's magic revolves around mana (as well as runes and crystals, but more on that later), which to the Southees is nothing more than an ordinary, water-like liquid compound that can evaporate but doesn't seem to freeze, and has two different states - passive mana which has a dark green shade, and active mana, bright blue and fluorescent.

Passive mana, while it has its uses in other fields such as alchemy, has no magical properties and has been very commonplace even when magic was believed to be but a myth - it could be found in the ground and.
Only the Northmen know how to activate mana and turn it into a usable magic component. ^(I have yet to figure out why exactly they were unable to do that for the ages before the apocalypse though.)

Active mana is very volatile if used without runes or crystals and if used that way (say thrown in a bottle) it will not only likely cause a bright blue fiery explosion but also bring in a plethora of random effects, which can vary from drastically reducing the temperature to creating a twenty-meter-deep hole in the ground.

In order to use mana in a less chaotic manners, gemstones (usually attached to staffs of varying length, though short staffs (or wands) are more common) are used, as mana transferred through such gems will yield more predictable and therefore controllable results. Depending on the clarity and seemingly also cut of the gem, the magic shot will become more or less dangerous - poor quality gems result in spells that aren't very different from using pure mana, while clear and decently-cut gems will virtually make the spells very controllable and will only fail if the caster happens to not be experienced.

The arguably and relatively least-powerful but also the most versatile and controllable form of magic are runes - symbols made with gem dust (of a specific type) onto any surface (including stones, book pages and even human skin) that can affect the immediate area around the rune in a way that's specific to that particular rune shape and the gem it's made out of. (this means thata 0-shaped ruby rune provides a different effect from a sapphire dust rune of the same shape).

Once used in a magic spell, mana will "deactivate" and evaporate into passive mana and create light-green clouds that eventually fall down as a rain of passive mana. Those are known as green rains and generally only happen in colder regions (though it's not unheard of to see them happen in dry and hot areas, they're far more uncommon).

Magic interacts in odd ways with most technology (particularly electronics), which can range from minor malfunctions to outright chaotic and spontaneous behavior. Because of that, few northmen use any technology at all (it isn't unheard of though, particularly in certain "magitech" splinters of the northmen, to use it it very extensive).

[Cthulhu]

Does the combat system take into account that no one has arms or legs?

[Mesa]

Does the combat system take into account that no one has arms or legs?

Depends. Naturally the head and body will be far higher priority than the relatively small feet and hands which don't cripple the target nearly as much as a clear shot to the head or heart. Doesn't mean that a target that can't move or attack is an easy target, but a dead one is the best one.

Basically getting hit here is way bigger of a deal since all your bodyparts are quite vital and losing one of them is obviously going to be fatal in the long term.

...Not that it wouldn't if people had proper limbs.


I'm writing from school, I'll scribble up something about the races and southees' weapons over the weekend, and post another image batch. See you!

[Mesa]

Right, here come some more reposts from /r/worldbuilding and a few images of vastly varying quality. Enjoy!
Note: Southees are now officially called Southfolk, though the term Southee is still used, particularly by themselves.

Spoiler: Proverbs and sayings (click to show/hide)

To wield magic is to believe in a god. To be a gunman is to believe in another god. To use both is to be an enemy to all gods.

This is primarily used by the Northmen mages who look down on their Southee-allying brethren, who use both technology and magic in and out of combat. Although the amount of technology that is not screwed over by magic interference is pretty limited.

Friend or foe, hybrids will always be your worst nightmare.

This one described the disgust most people feel towards the Hybridae (high-functioning mutated humans and animals), which is stronger than the hate of the two factions of Southees and Northmen towards each other, to the point of rejecting their own best friends that were unfortunate enough to cross a hybrid and become one of them.

A bullet in the head is worth twenty in the feet.

Ammunition is generally a rarity among the Southees, to the point of being used as a currency, and so wasting it is considered a big no-no.

Spoiler: Southfolk weapons (click to show/hide)

"Jupiter"-style combat rifle -  this rather impromptu weapon is famous among the Southfolk for its three firing modes

* regular - fires (comparatively) ordinary 7.62 bullets in either semi-automatic, two-round burst or full-auto mode. Reaches a firerate of about 250RPM.
* discharge - unleashing high-powered blasts of energy from the attachable combat battery, this mode can decimate electronics and organics alike, and conserves the rather precious lead ammo.
* combined - what's worse than high voltage bolts or lead bullets? Electricity-charged bullets! While this mode consumes both types of ammunition, it can very easily kill almost anybody with but a single shot.

"Scrapjard"-style pistol - arguably the most widespread sidearm in the Southee territory, this small handgun fires 9mm bullets at a rate that can go up to 180RPM and is surprisingly accurate. It's also pretty sturdy and requires minimal maintenance from the user. It also comes with a two-round and semi-automatic firing modes.

The Reflector - this experimental weapon is an uncommon sight and functions vastly differently to other weapons - instead of propelling its own projectiles, The Reflector will redirect magical energy into its storage chamber from where it can be fired as a shiny globe of energy, functioning similar to a pure active mana "bomb", exploding and causing random anomalies in the area. Although situational, it can turn the tide of any Southfolk-Northmen skirmish in the Southfolk's favor.

Spoiler: Enlish language and the new world orthography (click to show/hide)

The alphabet is still based on Latin, but some things have changed slightly, the most noticeably Ff has been flipped upside down. Ⅎɟ
(so ɟeader, ɟeadir or ɟeathar is "feather")
Ortography has changed a bit more significantly, so:
"c" is replaced with either "k" or "s" in writing, depending on how it's pronounced. ("city" -> sity, "car" -> kar)
As an extention of the above, "ck" is replaced with "kk". ("wreck" -> wrekk)
"y" is sometimes replaced with "j". ("yes" -> jes, however "pity" remains as "pity" and not "pitj")
"ee" (and in some cases "e") is replaced with "i" ("speed" -> spid)
"ch" is replaced by "tsh". ("cheap" -> tsheap)
"the" is replaced by de, di or tha.
"g" at the end of verbs is removed (sometimes from the middle of other words, too) ("working" -> workin)
"h" is replaced by "kh" ("hello" -> khello)

So an example conversation between two Enlish speakers would look close to this:
"Khello thare, how are jou todaj?
"Aje, fine. Bin workin on someone's kar lately. It's goin alrigd. I need more metal thaugh, any ideas where I could get some?"

This concept is pretty sketchy and I might just stick to regular modern English, but time will tell.

Last but not least, a somewhat small album of sketches. The green guy is Axle King from the story summary in the first post. (his design changed slightly again since then, and I'll probably write in more detail about him soon enough)

[flame99]

All of this sounds really cool. I particularly like the changes to English, though should something come of this, I'd recommend just using modern English, or at least cutting down on the more drastic changes (Ch→Tsh and y→j in particular), to make it easier to understand for new audiences.

[coolio678]

For some reason I read the normal english conversation in Jorgen Von Strangle's voice from the Fairly Oddparents.

[Mesa]

All of this sounds really cool. I particularly like the changes to English, though should something come of this, I'd recommend just using modern English, or at least cutting down on the more drastic changes (Ch→Tsh and y→j in particular), to make it easier to understand for new audiences.

The whole Enlish system is very much an experimental thing and for the sake of simplicity (both for myself and the readers) I'll just stick to plain English when writing, except for some occasional bits here and there.

Meanwhile, more lore stuff!

Spoiler: Crystal Castle and the Magic King (click to show/hide)

The Crystal Castle is an ominous structure, one that is very famous among the Northmen and is central to their culture, and to them it's what Gun Francisco is to the Southfolk.   

As the name suggests, Crystal Castle is a castle-like building made entirely of various crystals - although primarily composed of ruby, sapphire, emerald and diamond. As such, any mage fortunate enough to find themselves within that castle can essentially channel incredible amounts of mana from any one point of the castle to another (as crystals serve as the conductors for mana and therefore magic) and cast spells of unseen power.

However, the Crystal Castle is not a static structure - it's constantly floating in the sky, always on the move, controlled by its sole inhabitant, known simply as the Magic King.   
Nobody knows the Magic King's true identity - in fact, it is told that there is no one Magic King and whoever dares to reach the castle, challenge the king and win against him becomes the new Magic King, and the old one becomes nothingness.

The power that a Magic King can wield is only limited by the amount of mana they can store within the castle's central pool, which powers all of the King's magic and allows the castle to fly high in the sky.
In fact, the Magic King is believed to not be affected by time, hunger or thirst as long as they remain within the boundaries of the Crystal Castle's power.

However, the mana is not infinite, and the King sometimes has to come down to the surface to gather mana to fuel his floating sky fortress, either by force, literally ripping mana out of the ground and flesh alike, or by scavenging it from the green rains and mana lakes.

To visit or to even see the Crystal Castle is the dream of almost every Northman mage, but few dare to actively pursue that goal...

EDIT:
I've also done a quick rework of the image in the main post with a more updated depiction of a northman (when I made that picture first I had little idea of how I want them to be, I think it's closer to the current vision now). Tell me what you think!

Here's a before-after side-by-side comparison:

[ShadowHammer]

Great to see this still alive!

[rabidgam3r]

That Enlish thing is funny/cool, reminds me of fake German.

[Mesa]

Alright, had a bit of a slow week due to The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth taking up a majority of my free time, but I still got to sneak in an extra bit on the subject of magic, in the form of potions (inb4 that's alchemy).
(For once this is a

Spoiler: Potions (click to show/hide)

Potions, while commonly thought to be a product of alchemy, are yet another powerful tool in the hand of a mage, and can turn the tides of any scenario if prepared right, combat or otherwise.

In general, potions are prepared from active mana mixed in with water in various proportions and powdered crystals to create thick, opaque liquids that provide the user with various effects when consumed, ranging from increased speed and reaction times to ability to cast spells without the need for a wand or runes. However, most potions' effects are only temporary and will wear off once the potion is completely digested, and overusing potions can easily lead to an addiction. On top of that, a badly prepared potion can harm the user as much as it can benefit them.

Recently I've been trying on fleshing out each of the side's specific factions, so I'll probably try to do something about that soon enough. Until then though, I have to play some more Rebirth. ;P

[Mesa]

Okay, so I have outlined the basic themes and names for the major factions of the world, but I can't for crap decide which one to cover in more detail, so I'll let you guys decide! I'll run a poll for a week (probably less if nothing happens for a few days) and expand on the winner(s) afterwards.

Until then I'll continue to be busy with other things. Cheers!

[My Name is Immaterial]

PTW. Didn't realize that a new thread went up.

[The Froggy Ninja]

How does liquid mana get turned into energy?