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So how cool is Asamando?

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firebug

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« on: <02-13-18/2331:45> »
I have been reading through Dark Terrors lately, and lemme say, the section "The Ghoul Queen and Her People" is awesome.  I wanted to start a thread talking about the current state of Asamando, and if anybody's GM'd or played a run there yet, I'd love to hear the details.

Personally, the chapter made me want to play an Infected in Asamando, because of all the potential storylines there.  The very shaky political climate as the world basically decided if this is a new country for a new people, a colony of the terminally ill, or an island of monsters to be eliminated...  The tension within the city as people adjust to new leadership, new technology is made, but the whole place suffers from food crisis, resorting to flat-out atrocity to keep the "citizens" fed.  If you were a ghoul who moved to Asamando, if you found out the twisted things they did to humans in the name of providing meat for the populace, could you handle it?  Would you do yoru best not to think about where the food came from?  Would it be a necessary evil for the major good that is a city for people like you?

A city made with new technology with an unreasonable percentage of Awakened citizens due to how HMHVV works means a city with conveniences impossible anywhere else, while also being one of the most dangerous groups of people in the world, as almost everyone there has been magically mutated towards one goal: hunting metahumans.  Would you try to remember what it was like to be human?  Or would you just devote yourself wholly to this new way of life?  If you do shadow-work in the city to get more food for the people, would you feel like a monster?  Or would you look at everyone around you and tell yourself that it's for the greater good?  If one human's death means you've got enough food to feed a few dozen ghouls for a couple days longer, is that justification enough?

So many new roleplaying opportunities with where the metaplot is taking this place.  I love it.  Whomever wrote that section did just a phenomenal job.
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PiXeL01

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« Reply #1 on: <02-14-18/0020:04> »
That section of the book is written so well it made me nauseous, but as for playing there, no thank you. It might work for a horror run, but not a continuous campaign imho
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« Reply #2 on: <02-14-18/0026:03> »
That section of the book is written so well it made me nauseous, but as for playing there, no thank you. It might work for a horror run, but not a continuous campaign imho

I know what you mean.  I legitimately expressed out-loud how horrific I felt some of the stuff described was, and had to share it with someone so they knew what I'd just read and could relate.
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« Reply #3 on: <02-14-18/0352:04> »
From the perspective of: "I want to describe the war against Asamando", yeah it's a really cool part of the Dark Terrors book. As a non-infected PC taking a run there sounds like a pretty nightmarish scenario. Combined with the section about the experiment where ghouls were fed to ghouls... Yeah there is definitely a Cthulhu crossover potential.
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« Reply #4 on: <02-14-18/0509:37> »
Don’t get me wrong, i truly love that book (Dark Terrors) along with the other two Threat books even if I find some sections unsettling, Project Garden for one and the vineyards of Asamando were another.

I would recommend it to anyone.
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« Reply #5 on: <02-14-18/1846:06> »
Doing a run in Asamando would be a great way to make all of the players hyper-paranoid and terrified the whole time, which is great.  Beyond the terrible stuff happening around them, the constant fear of becoming infected will keep them on their toes.
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« Reply #6 on: <02-15-18/1301:59> »
I think the writing is great, I fail utterly to grasp why someone hasn't nuked that place into a lovely parking lot. Even in the more humanistic view of ghouls, they are still deadly disease vector, and literal threat to all metahuman kind. It might not be popular view but everything i read in that section just heightened that point to me. I could absolutely see even honor coded folks getting behind blowing it up. I don't mean to be jerk about it, but really that's all I could think about after reading it.

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« Reply #7 on: <02-15-18/1900:35> »
I think the writing is great, I fail utterly to grasp why someone hasn't nuked that place into a lovely parking lot. Even in the more humanistic view of ghouls, they are still deadly disease vector, and literal threat to all metahuman kind. It might not be popular view but everything i read in that section just heightened that point to me. I could absolutely see even honor coded folks getting behind blowing it up. I don't mean to be jerk about it, but really that's all I could think about after reading it.
1. Nukes are not very reliable in the 6th World.
2. Nuking places tends to make them very unusable, and gives rise to new problems, like toxic shamans.
3. Anyone you miss is going to be PISSED and likely going to try and cause as much damage as possible. Tell me, what happens when the tribes and spirits fighting the mass driver suddenly have hordes of angry ghouls fighting with them?
4. It makes a wonderful bogeyman to keep other areas in line. Yes, you NEED Saeder-Krupp to come in and help with your country, because if you get too weak, the ghouls will eat you!
5. It makes a wonderful place to send people you need to disappear, but can't just kill for political or PR reasons.
6. It makes a wonderful dumping ground for failed medical experiments.
7. It makes a wonderful place to send 'undesirables'.
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firebug

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« Reply #8 on: <02-15-18/1954:44> »
I think the writing is great, I fail utterly to grasp why someone hasn't nuked that place into a lovely parking lot. Even in the more humanistic view of ghouls, they are still deadly disease vector, and literal threat to all metahuman kind. It might not be popular view but everything i read in that section just heightened that point to me. I could absolutely see even honor coded folks getting behind blowing it up. I don't mean to be jerk about it, but really that's all I could think about after reading it.

Quote
> I hate that it is coming to this. For many infected, Asamando represents a dream. Seeing it driven to the brink … it robs many of us of what little hope we have left.
> Hannibelle

> Works fine for me. Put them all in one place and watch them eat each other. Sounds like an elegant solution. Of course, we could just save time with a few Thor shots.
> Clockwork

> That’s the right attitude, Clock. Piss them off so they all go FtD. That’ll go swimmingly.
> Red

> Now I’m picturing the 162s on a recruitment drive. Only with a lot of money and nothing to lose.
> Lyran

That is legitimately a point of tension in the setting.  It works for and against Asamando in that everyone being grouped together means if they go too far, they will get hit.  It's a cold war vibe in some ways.  You could nuke Asamando, or use some other weapon of mass destruction, but that may not do what you hope.  For one, the majority of Asamando is built underground.  But more than just whether or not you'd do enough damage to the city itself, it would incite riots across the world.  People try not to think about it, but a huge part of the reason ghouls aren't causing the apocalypse is because most of them do not want to destroy all humans, and many go out of their way to stop other infected from doing the same.  Nuking Asamando would disintegrate the few groups who believe the Infected can find a way to live peacefully with metahumans, and an all-out shadow war would start.  That's without even considering the PR nightmare that it would be for whatever corp went for it.  Keep in mind Horizon backs Asamando in some fashion, and is using their PR machine to influence the masses and say that Asamando is a good place--  Not just for the infected, but for the rest of us too who don't want them around.
« Last Edit: <02-15-18/2002:51> by firebug »
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« Reply #9 on: <02-15-18/2114:50> »
I'm going to preface this with the caveat that I have not read the section on Asamando in Dark Terrors yet. This puts me at risk of stating well-known points, or veering offtrack entirely, but I'll blunder forward. What I have read is the relevant section of 4E's Running Wild, which might help in this discussion:

Quote
Asamando is rich in natural resources, and it has lucrative contracts with the likes of Horizon, Saeder-Krupp, and DeBeers-Omnitech. Each of these corps has agreed to recognize Asamando as a legitimate nation, as has the Corporate Court; this is not lost on the UN, which is still shuffling its feet before offering them its recognition.

Most megacorps officially ignore the Infected, but some allow them full corporate citizenship. Others, such as Aztechnology, allegedly use them as covert operatives. With the Corporate Court recognizing Asamando, though, it’s thought that the attitudes of several of the corps will change in due course.

In this case I believe that the Corporate Court allows Asamando to exist because a sufficient delegation of the Court's members have decided that it is economically beneficial to do so. Ghouls, with their enhanced Body and Strength, are the perfect labor force to capitalize on Asamando's natural resources, which the megacorps - especially the industrial ones like Saeder-Krupp and Universal Omnitech - require as raw materials. The members of the Corporate Court, which are constant as the northern star in their pursuit of growth and profits, are content to allow Asamando to exist so long as they benefit from its existence.

Now that I've hazarded a semi-educated guess, I'll put The Complete Trog on the backburner in favor of Dark Terrors and see if any of what I said still makes sense.

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« Reply #10 on: <02-15-18/2138:36> »
They do mention several times that the diamond mines around Asamando are a huge deal.  Especially because having a a huge number of Awakened workers and a large number of workers resistant or immune to any toxins, who can see better than most humans in the dark, makes a lot of efficient workers.  It's the same kind of stuff that allows them to build their housing deep underground.  Lots of spirits moving earth and the best technology that isn't weighed down by any obsolete industry (Asamando is basically brand new as far as cities go).
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« Reply #11 on: <02-15-18/2359:10> »
1. Nukes are not very reliable in the 6th World.
2. Nuking places tends to make them very unusable, and gives rise to new problems, like toxic shamans.
3. Anyone you miss is going to be PISSED and likely going to try and cause as much damage as possible. Tell me, what happens when the tribes and spirits fighting the mass driver suddenly have hordes of angry ghouls fighting with them?
4. It makes a wonderful bogeyman to keep other areas in line. Yes, you NEED Saeder-Krupp to come in and help with your country, because if you get too weak, the ghouls will eat you!
5. It makes a wonderful place to send people you need to disappear, but can't just kill for political or PR reasons.
6. It makes a wonderful dumping ground for failed medical experiments.
7. It makes a wonderful place to send 'undesirables'.
I had a point by point reply but i lost it in a page reload, so instead I'll just sum it up.
Your examples are only predicated on the Chicago incident, and that likely to be a very flawed example. We don't know where nuclear research has gone in the Setting, maybe they worked the bugs out by now (Pun intended). Regardless we do know there is no shortage of WMDs, sure maybe nukes won't work, that's fine. Between thor shot, super lasers, whatever the future equivalent of the MOAB is I don't care how deep they dig, the Militariries and even paramilitaries of world have ability to just make the parking lot at the bottom of a nice deep crater. It's fill in to a lovely crater lake in a couple decades.

To your last couple, we haven't lost pig farms, crocodile infested swamps, and lye pits. We never lacked for anything of those things, and really if you send some unlucky shmoe to Ghoul land as an example, what kind message are you sending? Killing the guy would been kinder, and everyone knows it. The next shmoe is gonna know he's got nothing to lose and it can go south in a hurry.



That is legitimately a point of tension in the setting.  It works for and against Asamando in that everyone being grouped together means if they go too far, they will get hit.  It's a cold war vibe in some ways.  You could nuke Asamando, or use some other weapon of mass destruction, but that may not do what you hope.  For one, the majority of Asamando is built underground.  But more than just whether or not you'd do enough damage to the city itself, it would incite riots across the world.  People try not to think about it, but a huge part of the reason ghouls aren't causing the apocalypse is because most of them do not want to destroy all humans, and many go out of their way to stop other infected from doing the same.  Nuking Asamando would disintegrate the few groups who believe the Infected can find a way to live peacefully with metahumans, and an all-out shadow war would start.  That's without even considering the PR nightmare that it would be for whatever corp went for it.  Keep in mind Horizon backs Asamando in some fashion, and is using their PR machine to influence the masses and say that Asamando is a good place--  Not just for the infected, but for the rest of us too who don't want them around.

Look I get it, agreeing with Clockwork is never a good idea, but lets be clear about something, anyone who has studied infectious diseases knows, it's not a question of intention, Good will or happy thoughts. It's a question containment procedures, medical technology, hygiene controls. If it can't be checked the it's a very simple differential equation to figure out how long it takes for nodes of infection to spread out and complete the process.
 
But honestly all the is secondary Folks,  to me it comes down to one thing:
Open your dark terrors to page 147:

"I could feel the blood of a child in me, and it
tasted far too good. Hints of innocence and untapped
potential swam like afternotes, and I shuddered
at the intellectual revulsion of my reflexive
pleasure. -Snip-
My body had already absorbed the blood.
I could feel it in my arms, the base of my
spine, my temples, throbbing soothingly. It felt
hot, flushing inside me, diluting and mingling
until that boy was suffused throughout my entire
being"

I don't want to give to much away as it's really one of my favorite pieces in the book, and think ever SR fan should read it.


But to point, they drink babies. THEY DRINK BABIES!!!!
It's not a little bit ok, it's not eh whatever. It's Babies. There is one option it's called War, Shadow-war, Total war, war of the roses, whatever kind of war you feel like calling it. It's cash bounties on ghoul ears, vampire fang, windigo pelts and every other variant of that virus, until there are none are left. No buts, no maybes it's war until that threat becomes a foot note in a medical journal about some kind a old awakened disease that got wiped out by the concerted effort of meta-humanity, like smallpox. Yes it will get ugly it's be war, what do you want? I don't doubt that many ghouls were good people that sad stuff happened to, bad things happen. I wish it was otherwise. But it's Meta-humanity or the baby drinkers too me it's that simple.

So yes I think that sections is Great Writing, but from my perspective when something enjoys eating kids, and there is only one solution, and there isn't any kind of humanitarian/political/ethical argument that's gonna change my mind on that subject. It's evolution and human nature. That's my feeling on it.
« Last Edit: <02-16-18/0013:10> by Marcus »
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« Reply #12 on: <02-16-18/0031:02> »
I'm not trying to convince you not to nuke Asamando--  I'm just telling you what would happen if someone did, and the reasons why people haven't yet (since you've got a firm grasp on the reason why people would want to).  Containing HMHVV is not like containing a normal disease.  Not only is it already in pockets across the whole world, most disease patients do not gain the ability to see in the dark, use magic, or turn into mist.  If HMHVV was originating in Asamando, you could "contain" it.  If it was possible to just round up all the Infected and eliminate them, a corp would be doing it right now--  Although a good Plan 9 conspiracy would be that SK is actually backing Asamando in hopes of it being the home of 99% of all Infected some day in the future so they could then actually just be contained and eliminated.

It's less of a moral reason to not kill them all and more just trying to play it smart.  The "ugly" it would get from a shadow war would probably be less like a war; I should have described it more like a series of terrorist attacks, mass murders...  Since you implied you know about diseases, you'd understand how horrible it would be if a bunch of people who's every bodily fluid contained one of the most infectious diseases suddenly decided to start actively spreading their disease, contaminating everything, in multiple parts of the world at once, starting riots, while many of them are already hidden from the law.  Then add in the dark blood magic...  Every bad thing about Asamando, except uncontrolled, in multiple parts of the world, directly weaponized to cause as much chaos and pain as possible.

That's at least part of why Asamando is allowed to exist by the corporations; with how established it is now, it's too late to take it down without causing world-wide atrocities.  It's a truly awful, monstrous place, but it's too late to simply say "no" without making everything even worse.
« Last Edit: <02-16-18/0032:50> by firebug »
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« Reply #13 on: <02-16-18/0142:25> »
That's at least part of why Asamando is allowed to exist by the corporations; with how established it is now, it's too late to take it down without causing world-wide atrocities.  It's a truly awful, monstrous place, but it's too late to simply say "no" without making everything even worse.

On the last we will once more simply have to agree to disagree :) 

I respect your points, and I follow your logic, and as you said it would get really bad. But that's nature of Wars for survival. Compared the weight of the rest of worlds meta-humanity, Horizon, SK and even Loftwyr himself know, there are limits with which people are not willing to tolerate and drinking babies is one them. If that stuff was ever widely released or even look like it would be, it would end with everyone of them facing massive stock losses some sort scapegoat charges in corp court, and the successful total mass destruction of the ghoul kingdom in short order (most likely paid for by SK), or it would get just as bad you think it would. Ether way it opens some interesting paths, but they all end ugly. Which i guess is working as intend as far as that book goes.

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« Reply #14 on: <02-16-18/0155:05> »
I get your motivation, and of course I'm not going to insist you agree or get out or something, but I will say that I think in terms of "what's best for survival", there's still such a thing as not poking the hornet's nest.  Strictly speaking, as awful and inhumane the stuff going on in Asamando is, it's not anywhere near as much a dangerous to humanity or people in the rest of the world (anywhere but Asamando) as the "war for survival" would be.  That's the concept of a lesser of two evils at play, in this regard.  It is, in a way, its own form of containment.  The horror and inhumanity is contained on the island, but it's also concentrated. But in exchange for accepting this concentration of evil, it means less evil all over the world--  Or, that's the plan.  Whether or not it is doing enough good to justify what's going down is what you and I disagree on, I suppose.  Though for the record, I think it's not quite "Asamando is a good enough thing that the evils it commits are acceptable" and more "If removed, the good it brings goes away, and the evil it has will only intensify."

It's definitely working-as-intended in terms of "there's no way for things to end up happy".
« Last Edit: <02-16-18/0604:01> by firebug »
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