I was here for the original one. this is frigging awesome. I like the concept of insane and very old divers being like Old-God entities.

Godammit Dagda, it figures you'd be back in the summer

>>5545726
Congratulations, OP, you've created Psychometry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token-object_reading
Go masturbate over how creative you are.

HOLY DIVER
ALL ALONE IN THE MIDNIGHT SEA

Tripcode blocked.

Tripfaggot.

>>5545798
DIO, FUCK YEAHR!

Uh, wait, what's this about?

The influence goes both ways. Much of what we attribute to social psychology or describe as someplace having a good/bad mood about it is actually the Depths subtly influencing us. Visit a devout church and there might be a sense of peace and community, go into a bad neighborhood and you'll feel more inclined to hold a grudge. The result is a feedback loop that slowly builds up over time, one that's can be vaguely sensed by many Feng Shui experts and psychic mediums.

Divers, on the other hand, can be the abrupt wrench in the works- like how you can swim down and alter or chop off a section of coral reef that's been growing for years now. Because when they dive it's not just the world around them that transforms to reveal its inner nature-divers change as well, developing supernatural abilities in the process. A man whom a cartoonist might illustrate with predatory facial features could well transform into a monstrous creature when he dives, while another might summon "echoes" of the equipment (or even the allies) of someone who was their spiritual predecessor. These powers and more can be used to take a hands-on approach, directly altering the character of a location for better or worse. Many altruistic Divers act similar to exorcists, helping clear away the taints of bad blood and rotten history so that things have a chance to begin anew.

>>5545798
STINKY DIVER
YOU'VE BEEN GONE TOO LONG IN THE MIDNIGHT LOU
OH WHAT'S BECOMING OF YOU

>>5545863

>>5545863

KA-BLAM!

>>5545869
What?

Dagda, I'm disappointed that you didn't respond or mention the email I sent you about JAGS Wonderland.

It's pretty much exactly what you've been describing.

>>5545888

God damn it, I was working on something similar called The Folly but your explanation/idea of diving in to deeper levels of reality makes more sense then the slow taint of it making it harder and harder for you to stick around.

>>5545888
>>5545939
I can't find the proper image, but I like were this is going.

>>5545939
RIDE THE TIGER
YOU CAN SEE HIS STRIPES AND SMELL HIS POO
DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT I'VE BEEN THROUGH

>>5545969

>>5545983
Yeah the meter's a bit off, work with me here...

>>5545997

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj7UBgVVew8

Holy Diver
You've been down too long in the midnight sea
Oh what's becoming of me

Ride the tiger
You can see his stripes but you know he's clean
Oh don't you see what I mean

Gotta get away
Holy Diver

Shiny diamonds
Like the eyes of a cat in the black and blue
Something is coming for you

Race for the morning
You can hide in the sun 'till you see the light
Oh we will pray it's all right

Gotta get away-get away

Between the velvet lies
There's a truth that's hard as steel
The vision never dies
Life's a never ending wheel

Holy Diver
You're the star of the masquerade
No need to look so afraid

Jump on the tiger
You can feel his heart but you know he's mean
Some light can never be seen
You know, the song actually fits the theme really well.

>>5545916
Exactly what I was thinking.

Connections are going to shit again, so I'm gonna abandon the redone summary and just field questions/critiques/suggestions. One new bit of info: You can't normally die while not at depth 0, but if you get taken out you might become stuck on that depth level. If you're stuck on depth 1, your surface self becomes distant and mostly goes through the motions. At depth 2 your surface self becomes severely autistic and at depth 3 or further you slip into a coma. If your surface body dies, most people stuck on another level fade away; however, many hold on for a time before doing so and a number refuse to let go. Over time, these people transform more and more, in a manner heavily influenced by their current location; this results in all manner of spirits, some of whom retain diver abilities which are now used solely to push others (either down towards them or back away).

>>5545916
Saw the email and checked it out, hadn't had the time to respond quite yet. Basic premise has some similarities, but they're similarities that are shared with plenty of other works of fiction involving parallel worlds. The key bit of original fluff for Divers is that you're not going from world A to world B; you're in the same location, just seeing more and more of a side that usually remains "under the hood".

That being said, the mechanics for entering and leaving wonderland definitely seem relevant, so I'm hunting down more info on that. And either way, thanks for pointing it out.

You may want to read Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, as it has a similar sort of thing going on, but in the other direction. Our universe and all other universes(in the sense of "parallel universe", not galaxies and shit. Dimensions, kind of.) are merely reflections of the one true universe, Amber. The main characters are all princes and princesses struggling for control of Amber, and they can walk(or ride, or drive, or fly) from one universe to the next by imagining differences between the universe/dimension they're in and Amber, and slowly change the universe they perceive into Amber. The royal family can all lead 'normal' people from one to the next, which leads to cool scenarios where a character shifts until he is in a dimension where the locals view him as a legend or hero, then said character recruits all of the locals into an army and leads them into Amber, shifting planes all the way. Well written, and there's like ten books or some shit.

How this premise can include Silent Hill:
Silent Hill's basically your worst-case scenario, a region with an extremely ugly history and numerous spirits who have been twisted by the nightmarish depths such a series of experiences creates. Multiple spirits apparently have diver capabilities, letting the lesser ones pull hapless victims down to the foggy version of the town found on the first several levels and thus bring them withing the reach of more powerful entities which can drag them down further into the world of rust. The spirits are very sensitive to any mortal presence, causing their forms to be influenced by their own victim's history. Divers of all skill levels should be focused on survival; while a coordinated team of masters should theoretically be able to effect some sort of meaningful change on the roots of this problem, reconnaissance efforts into the town's deeper depths to verify this has proven to be a suicide mission. Strong divers will likely serve only to provide the town with new strong spirits.

How this premise can include Batman:
By steadily unlocking their inner potential on deeper and deeper levels divers strengthen their surface selves as well- operating close peak mental and physical condition. Imagine a comic that clearly depicts batman as a man a suit while talking to civilians, but the then starts drawing him as this predatory thing of shadow whenever he's taking on criminals and kicks it up several more notches when he's facing a member of his rogues gallery (who gets rendered in a similar fashion). At this point, their battles demolish entire buildings and the combatants almost look like artistic depictions of clashing humanoid symbols.

>>5546256
5 books of Corwin, and 5 books of Merlin his son.

This is how true fae gentry see themselves.

Write a fucking book and publish it, Dagda. This is a better premise than most new RPGs have.

>>5546256

I can't believe I forgot about Amber, yeesh.

>>5546148

I was under the impression you wanted to avoid Astral Projection, due to ease of murder.

Though I suppose there's easily room for variant Divers or different methods (you can choose each time you dive, the more dangerous the more powerful):

Astral Projection: Like in that new WoD game - Wraith: The Something. Leaves the body behind. You have much better long term defense and an anchor to reality (which is a weak spot as well) but any damage you take is to your Ego (and you might have the Id and Superego on your heels)

Peregrine/Transient/Sink: Your body goes with you - stronger all round ability, but the consequences of going too deep or sustaining damage are worse. Permanent transformation is possible (with overt changes, such as wings or fractal teeth forcing you to dive permanently - reality can't sustain your altered existence/paradigm/avatar/animus/suit)

...I would do more, but I've been reading for 12 hours and need a nap.

>>5546148

Wonderland definitely is an "under the hood" setting, rather than one with separate worlds. One part I like is that if you go deep enough, there's an entire permutation of the world where all the "machines" that make the world work are in motion.

I had an idea for the game the other day: Human sacrifice. Willingly or unwillingly, humans life essence can be used to temporarily depress the dive level of the immediate area. If a willing sacrifice, a diver gives up a portion of his or her power for a period of time and will require serious recuperation after the fact. If unwilling, the poor sod will wind up a corpse and their life energies will be used to depress the level. Either way, this should be a complicated process involving significant time and preparation on the part of the person performing the sacrifice, as well as the sacrifice (if willing). The more the sacrifice, the greater the depth that can be temporarily warped. For instance, a diver giving up a single power level temporarily could only normalize reality to 1 level down, but an active Aztec pyramid in full swing could drive the local depth level clear down into ancient horror territory.

>>5548436
That's a terribly evil sort of thing.....psychopaths and sociopaths are divers who are trying to reach a place where their world makes sense, and they're using living people's deaths to do it.....

>>5548472

You know, that's a great motive for a serial killer BBEG.

>>5548482
Holy shit, you just tied together an adventure for me. Fuck, this will be awesome.

It's probably mean mentioned but JAGs Wonderland, I'm fairly certain, is the exact same premise. Better aesthetic going on too.

Cummon Dagda, you're going into decline!

I must have missed the first setting thread. This sounds AMAZING.

I know Dagda gave up but Divers is among the better settings /tg/ has come up with collaboratively. On par with the world machine and lovecraftian antarctica, as examples. This thread deserves more discourse than this.

How does everyone think bringing tools and the like on a dive would work? I'm thinking divers would all end up trying to hoard antiques and the like, because whilst massproduced, mundane items would warp unpredictably as you descend, whereas one of a kind pieces with a more singular identity in the human subconscious would hold onto their form further into the dives.

For instance, a diver brings along the gun that John Wilks Booth killed Abraham Lincoln with. It remains more or less the same gun up to level 4, perhaps increasing in strength a bit on a similar scale to how divers do.

However, say a diver brings an iPod along because they want some music. At level 1 it remains largely the same, although becomes a bit temperamental as it picks up the subconscious belief that iPods "have minds of their own" and that they are brainwashing youth, etc.
At level 2 it becomes a bit larger, and includes the entire iTunes catalogue for some reason. This makes it rather hard to navigate to do what you want. It is no longer an iPod, it is THE iPod.
At level 3 it is now "That apple thing", is shaped like the apple logo, and is slightly difficult to comprehend, let alone operate, as it incorporates everything associated with the monolithic corporation, from the appreciation of a commuter who writes over his dull life with a energetic soundtrack, to the unease felt by anti-consumerists over something that they were into "back before it was popular".

I bookmarked the thread last night, and am amused to see that yet again, and far more blatantly than usual, Dagda has stolen someone else's idea and claimed it was his own, only for people to praise him for it

>>5550070
We were all wondering when you'd follow him here.

>>5550070
Proof please.

I like this idea, and would like to contribute, but have no time right this moment, so I'll be thinking it over.

It's always nice to see some supernatural stuff with a structure that makes sense instead of just ALWAYS getting "lolmagic" handwavey about it. I mean, preserving mystery is one thing, but when it's something some or all characters are going to utilize/rely on regularly... There's little room for mystery there, really.

This is a problem I always run into with magic-y PCs in my games, though I think I have a solution... but that's another idea for another thread.

All right, I'll try to take a closer look at JAGS Wonderland sometime soon.

>>5547755
Diving isn't astral projection until you "die" and get nailed to your current dive level as a spirit. Before then, the whole area is getting pushed down, so someone who tries to walk in from outside just gets caught up in the effect.

>>5550647
Interesting. I think if you were going to do it, you'd have to wait until the subject started dreaming- that's the point where your minds are processing their experiences and influencing the shape of the Depths. The increased number of people dreaming is what makes diving work a little better during the night, after all.

>>5548436
>I know Dagda gave up
Man, you really jump to conclusions easily.

As for tools, my thought is that they'd quickly lose any and all effectiveness, but that the power to summon "echoes" is often used to acquire similar objects as necessary while diving. It's easier to summon an echo of an object you're familiar with IRL, so the bit on acquiring antiques would still apply.

>>5550647
In this case I think the mystery is more to do with what's going on down further into the depth- both discovering the nature of things on a grander scale and trying to see just what the world is turning into. The risk is that there are some ancient and powerful entities as you go down further, ones that you might not have time to flee from.