By the way, I'm not the OP of the original thread but I'm really interested in keeping this project alive.
I'll repost the compiled guide that was posted by ! in the last thread, for newcomers:
COMPILED GUIDE:

Mutations: Random and NEVER beneficial.. None of them are beneficial. The DM decides what's appropriate. Look at Beksinski's figures for inspiration. Too many of them and the player is either insane, immobile, or ineffective.

Story and Setting: Be as vague as possible when describing the patterns of entities. Giving it a surreal, dream-like feeling is ESSENTIAL to a good playing experience. If you can, avoid assigning human motives or reasoning to non-humans, as it helps convey the surreal mood.

Environment: Decayed cities, organic growths, plains, plateaus, canyons, and impossible architecture are only some of the things the players will encounter.

Survival: When the characters aren't looking for pockets of normality or advancing the main plot in the surreal world they inhabit, they should be focusing on survival. Players may not to eat or drink in the realm, but they will still feel thirsty and hungry, even if going without food or water for weeks. This makes the primary concerns of the players the following things:

INSANITY: The realm is full of strange terrors and things out of a nightmare, which means exploration must be paced in order to keep one's wits.

SHELTER: Many of the beings in Czarnoc are hostile, and so is the environment. The players must eventually rest and recuperate. This means finding safe places or sites to set up temporary camps.

ESCAPE: Whether to escape from Czarnoc or escape a hungry once-human, the players must be on the move if they hope to get out of this place alive.

COMPILED LIST PT. 2

Gamemastering Entities and Entity "society": NEVER MAKE THEM TOO HUMAN. The game's aim is to simulate a nightmare realm, and as such, dealing with most entities is vague and often confusing. Keep exposition from them brief or even nonexistant, even make them actively ignore players that try to talk to them. The average entity wants little to do with the players, who are likely dangerous outsiders and will not help the players even if they try to force them (which is a terrible idea and will get the players killed faster than you can say "ROCKS FALL").

Names of recurring creatures should also be appropriately vague or bland to emphasize the fact that these creatures are simply part of the setting. The bandaged creature that appears again and again in any thread with beksinski could simply be called "Bandaged Crawler," a name which is succinct and ominous.

"Society" is more of a misonomer than anything, as the cities are either abandoned or decayed. No real order exists, and death or suicide are commonplace. Only one thing is constant: Hostile actions by the players in any city that aren't in self-defense will result in a grisly and horrific death.

In summation: Keep non "monster" entities alien in thoughts and actions, keep their motivations vague, and use them (at least) as window dressing for the players travels through a frightening and hostile world.

>Mutations: Random and NEVER beneficial

I dunno, it's a pretty nifty way of saying "don't die plox", but I figured there'd be a few useful mutations along with all the horrible ones. Every cloud has its silver lining and all.

Maybe have a table of mutations, with a (very few) beneficial ones at one end of it.

Interesting idea. There's no way in hell I'd have any motivation to play it, but it's an interesting idea.

>>15715091
I guess players could find a way to exploit their mutations to their advantage. I think the first few mutations should be relatively minor and maybe even provide some small perks in exchange for their disadvantages. However, from a certain point on, they should start becoming more and more detrimental.
The ideas for mutations were along the lines of fusing with objects you use a lot or gaining mutations related to your actions. So, a character that is very attached to his sword might eventually have his arm replaced by it, and then maybe his sword becomes made of flesh and bone.

It should be like that other series K.A Applegate wrote where they were on a spaceship that took inspiration from art in the databanks.

That was cool.

Some ideas form the other thread:

The headlands (pic related):
>Residents of The Headlands live a harsh existence, those few gifted with a means of moving themselves spend their time herding their fellows into safe havens from the elements and away from predators. There are many philosophers amongst their number, other minds have become focused on whatever stimulation they can receive from their vantage points, till they can predict the weather infallibly or give detailed accounts of the local flora and fauna. Their kind are gifted/cursed with remarkable memory. A relatively sane Cranial can find employment as a static guard, storyteller, or advisor.

The plains of Inglip
>Strange writings appear across the plains of Inglip. Seemingly random phrases or made-up words. As the plains shift, so to do the messages change. The Philosophers are a cult dedicated to recording deciphering these messages and fulfilling their deity Inglip's will.

Gods' Corpses:
Huge corpses the size of entire landscapes. There are cults of once-men that worship these as gods and perform strange rituals. Some want to awake them, some treat them as death gods that can grant them true eternal death. Are these really gods? Can they hear their followers? Nobody really knows.

bumpin

>>15715157
That's a great mechanic. Too much of a good thing leads to bad things. It would play into the sanity loss quite nicely.

Also, I assume there would be a few constants to the ever-changing environments. We have the Hooded, would there be one or two other "constants" in Czarnosc?

>>15716498
Well, aside from MISERY AND ETERNAL DYING/HOLY SHIT THE WALLS ARE MELTING, the Ruby Quest-style regeneration (injuries and death fuck you up), the constantly changing environments (maybe something like, for every action there is a 5% chance of a Sudden Change, with roll 3d6, with the 3 dice corresponding to the Character, Object or Objects involved, and the Surrounding Area, with the higher the weirder) combined with horrific surrealism in the style of Beksinski and H. R. Giger, with a little of the old horror pulps and some Weird Russian Stuff thrown in... That's pretty much it as far as limits.

This isn't an end all be all post, just trying to stir up discussion.

>>15716772
I love that idea. It makes the world less dependant on pure GM fiat.
In the other thread someone suggested this for the central mechanic:

>Psyche could be a central mechanic, balancing between Depression, Obsession. Any too extreme mental state can cause mutations. Say witnessing events or failing things give you depression points, one can take solace in a personal object, memory, friends, or what have you. This alleviates depression, but gives obsession points.

I liked it but I'm not very good at game-making. What would be a way to flesh out this mechanic?

Pic seems related

NEWSFLASH:

"Czarnosc" is Polish for "Blackness"

>>15717272
It's in the OP.

Also, love this idea, we should make a table for base mutations, obviously we need some that are specific (character personalities, character quirks, character events that may have impacted the "soul" and thus effect mutations).

Let's pull out a Cthulu table and get cracking here!

>>15715179

Remnants? That shit was ballin'. The ending was a bit odd though.

>>15717335

I remember that series too, it would be perfect inspiration for this. Holy shit, it was twelve different kinds of fucked up, especially for my twelve-year-old self reading it.

I mean, Animorphs got GRIM AS FUCK in the later books. Remnants just jumps straight off the diving board right into "WHAT THE CHRIST" waters instead.

>>15717302
Ok, I'm just brainstorming a little here.
I guess we could make mutations like this:
1) first roll determines the "severity level" of the mutation. That is, how big or small the change will be.
2) second roll determines the "kind" of mutation. here we could get some broad categories like "loss", "addition", "tranformation" and "migration" (of the body part affected). Transformation means the body part changes in some way and Migration means that it shifts its place.
3) Third (and final) roll determines the body part affected.
For example, a low-level loss mutation of your hand would mean that it shrinks, or maybe you just lose one finger, or you lose the skin. The chart, I think, should be a vague guideline, with the GM deciding the exact details of the mutation.

I'm proposing three rolls to add a little tension. Your PC just died and now you roll the first dice
>Oh shit! a severe mutation, I hope it's not a loss
Throw the second dice.
>FUCK! a loss, this will not end well.
Throw the third dice
>Goddamnit, I just lost my head. Now, I'm just a headless freak.
Doing separate rolls allows for a little more anxiety when assigning mutations.

I'm not completely convinced myself of this system but it may be a start.

>>15717161
This is awesome.
Plus, it's both funny and creepy.
>>The last panel
>Wait what the fuck just happened?

>>15716498
I think there would be. I've got no clue as to watch that would be, but maybe something involving the Gods' Corpses?

Inglip has offered his wisdom to assist with this project.
>oregull Exploring

>The Ore-Gulls.
Years ago, a miner found himself in Czarnosc. He tried to survive for as long as he could, but mutations and the shifting environment destroyed his mind. When he came upon the Gods' Corpses, however, an old part of the man once there awakened. Taking a bent pipe, he began to dig through the flesh of the bloated corpse. Any questions as to his excavation were answered with the miner saying that he searched for "the perfect ore". Eventually, the miner developed a following, and others joined his project. Taking the avian shape of the God Corpse as their marking, the Ore-Gulls swelled into a sizable cult. They abhor leaving their excavation untended (citing "claim-jumpers" as the reason for this), but they aren't above hiring those with more sanity than they to explore the surrounding lands, and recover a better digging tool.

bump!

Seriously, /tg/. Why isn't this on the front page?

>>15718011
>Some of the oldest Ore-Gulls say that you can still find The First Miner at the heart of the titanic corpse, still digging away with his bent pipe.

just thought I would add to this

>>15718011
Wouldn't the cults that surround the corpses try and stop them? I'd be pretty pissed if someone dug up my God's corpse and started digging around in his chest cavity.

Come on, /tg/. Don't you let this thread die!
Also, has anyone made a wiki about this?

>>15718048
Maybe they do. You could have a pretty good conflict going there.

There was also this "city" we thought about, inspired by Giger, Nihei and other biomech artists, where the PCs would be able to get high-tech devices, potentially weaponry and informations at a very high cost.

>>15718059
You're obviously a newfag, but anyway. It takes several hours for a thread to die on /tg/, and we don't need a whole wiki for this, maybe we will make a 1d4chan article once we have enough ideas.

>>15718080
You're right on both counts. I meant the 1d4chan page.

>>15718066
Yeah, I remember that. Right around the time the Giger mini-dump started. Was a "cost" ever decided? I know it's supposed to be GMs discretion, but was it anything other than "insanity/mutation"?

>>15718108
Yes, it was; The same kind of stuff a Haemonculus would ask, only even weirder: the ability to feel certain emotions, your future self, the heart of all humans you will encounter from now on, a grain of salt from the deepest pits of an ocean, your own skeleton...
A sample of the perfect ore?

Fuck polish names. Most people here will have to one day work in the same office as polish janitors who can't understand english.

>>15718143
If you're the GM, whatever.

>>15718129
What I'm wondering is what kind of tech is involved here.
And what the whole "perfect ore" is. Maybe Inglip is involved with that on?

I think this setting could also create some rather interesting situation for your players to end up in and interact with eachother. Also here's a little Diary extract i wrote up to help capture the feeling of this setting.

Day: 257
It’s been nine months since we awoke in this…place. Nine long months we have searched for some trace of who we were, and how to escape. Nine long months we have tried to survive in this hell hole. Nine months…it’s felt like an eternity. The denizens of this world have all proven to be strange and numerous, all things that look familiar, yet twisted, warped, and mutated at the same time. I can feel their corruption around us, as if their mere presence has been clawing at my very soul.

>>15718172
Continuing on

For nine months we have searched fruitlessly for a way to escape this nightmare, and we have found that even our own deaths will not release us. Every time one of us dies, they come back changed…It starts small, an extra figure, skin starting to change hue, but it gets worse every time, and it’s not even our deaths, our own personalities, the way we view things, have been affecting us. Every time one of us changed, I can see the disgust in their eyes, the disgust of what they are becoming, which feeds the desperation that gets them killed in the first place.

>>15718157
The technology is the usual kind of fucked up, half-organic stuff that you can find anywhere else, except that here, it is created and not just randomly generated, and it can be fucking huge, and extremely complex and intricate. And it's also very difficult to figure out how to use it or what it does.

If you have questions, ask Inglip, or talk to his prophetess, Captcha. Funnily enough, "captcha" sounds Polish.

>>15718176
And the last bit

Currently I’m the only one left unchanged, but that’s only for a matter of time. I can see the way the rest are looking at me, Jealous that I am still untouched, envious of my retaining normality. I don’t sleep well any more, it’s not just this place, but the very people around me are filling me with paranoia and fear, I’m worried that one of my friends are going to use some part of me to replace their own corrupted features. Perhaps this nightmare will never end for us. Perhaps this is a prison for the most horrible of people, I don’t know, I don’t even know myself. But I do know, if I want to retain my sanity, then we need to escape this place…soon.

>facemen 132

ah, Inglip is suggesting us a new faction.

The 132 Facemen.

What are they?

>>15718251
>The 132 Facemen
There are whispers made by the maddest once-humans, those who have been here the longest. The whispers tell of an ancient band of men and women, 132 of them. These people were the first to come to Czarnosc. They came together, and through sheer luck and martial prowess (acquired through years of fighting monsters and the landscape), have survived to this day untainted. The whispers tell of their stronghold to the east, where high walls protect their people from Czarnosc and where those unlucky enough to find themselves may rest, and live in a sense of normalcy. Many have gone towards this city... but none have returned. All that is known is that the whispers themselves grow louder the closer one gets to the fabled location...

>>15718340
Not my best, but whatever

>>15718340
So, the whispers are actually the Facemen, and they lure people to their city to...
steal their faces?

>>15718355
Sounds like a mutant to me.
Anyway, I was hoping to get more crunch b4 I snooze, but so far it's just been fluff. Then again, it's 2 CMT, so not exactly the best and the brightest. Oh well. Keep things classy.

>>15718485
Try again tomorrow morning. Sorry I can't be of assistance. I'm a fluff guy.
>INGLIP: Pimpernel inetto
I...
What?

BUMP

>>15718177
For the city, I really liked an idea form the other thread that suggested something like Metropolis. The city/cities are entirely devoted to these huge machines in an almost religious manner. The machines are extremely complicated and elaborate but there's no clear indication as to what (if anything) they are supposed to actually DO.

can somebody put this on 1d4chan or somewhere? I didn't finish reading and have to go to fucking work

yeah, well, we can at least archive this.

has anyone played painkiller? seen the final level? it's hell itself which is basically a history of war frozen in time, weapons lying everywhere, when you approach them, you can hear sounds of battle and screaming, you can even see an atomic explosion in frozen in the distance. what do you think about this as one of the realms in this world?

>>15720897
with stuff inspired by Ian Miller's sci-fi artworks, or Michel Angevin (Away from Voivod) too.

kinda post-apocalyptic, see? I'd really like a guy like Korgull the Exterminator to be in there, prowling the battlefields in his spiky tank or on some sort of bike, looking for adversaries, clad in leather and rust, the warlord without an army, the fuel-injected suicide machine....

also the hooded: why do they do this? do they have an ideology? just insane? maybe it's just a hobby, like for dark eldar? are they organised?

Arvo Part did some nice music, too.

>>15721011
aren't they supposed to be mutant christians who try to pass as humans because they believe God won't save mutants?

>>15721021

I'm still reading the previous thread, sorry if I derped here

>>15720981
While I like the idea of an area where there is an eternal "war" with once-humans fighting forever, I think the post-apocalyptic themes shouls be toned down. They just don't fit the setting. The point of Czarnosc is that it is completely alien, the only remnants of your world are with you and the few once-humans you can find. The world itself shoudn't seem as if it was once Earth.

>>15721011
The ide for the Hooded, as far as I understood it, was that they are once-humans that now hunt down people less mutated than them. I guess they shouldn't be too organized, since "society" should be kept to a minimum. This would also allow for a variety in their ideology: some hate their mutations and try to bring down as many as they can with them as revenge, some love them and try to "spread the love", some just do it because it's the only justification for their existence they could think of, etc.

Did anyone read God's Demon by Wayne Barlowe?
Similar style to this setting, mabye use it for inspiration.

>>15721057
It was mentioned in the previous thread, we took the idea of flesh-crafting from here.

polish theme, beksinski and surrealism? I think this might be of some use
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWJAof-O5Pc
you guys probably heard about it, it was nominated to oscar some time ago

>>15721113
Yeah, saw it a while ago. We could integrate it in the setting, of course.

>>15721126

maybe we could make a legend that the cathedral holds the secret to purify the realm of it's madness or how it happened in the first place, but no one knows if it is true nor where even start to search for the cathedral. some adventurers do find it though, as the cathedral is actually living entity that wants to be found (but not everyone can do it, the cathedral chooses it's candidates using it's own twisted logic). when the adventurers enter it, film related happens

>>15721113
the "fallen art" short done by these guys could be the kind of thing the "wizartists" mentioned earlier would fancy doing.

Also, concerning the amnesia of the PCs: o spice it up, I suggest giving each player a few backstory elements or details, that may or may not be relevant in the context of the story that they may choose not to reveal to the other players, so as to add a new layer of roleplaying and interactions. It can be things like "you don't know why, but you don't like Andy's character" or things like "you killed your children three years ago" or even " you have had three wives in your lifetime" or "you know that your age is 43 years, five months and three days"

et's ask some questions of ourselves /tg/.
How are we going to handle base stats and skills if we have them? My vote would be for characters to have base stats that they buy with either a point buy or (preferably) a random generation system, and then each time they try something that falls under a new skill they roll to see how skilled they are, with a moderate positive or negative modifier depending on the base stat or stats governing that skill. For example, the big buff guy would be more likely to know how to fight with his fists or lift a big rock, while the shy small woman is more likely to know how to avoid being seen or cook a meal. However, it's all up to chance. What dice system (if at all) do we use? I vote for d6 roll and keep. More people have d6s lying around.
Do people all come from the same country, era, or even the same world? What is it like to surround yourself with people who have totally different values and beliefs from your own for reasons neither you nor they can explain?
Are there only humans, or are there other sapient species? Are there only humans who are (In order of mutation severity) The Pure, The Changed, The Imminent, and The Spent? I vote for only humans and the sliding scale of mutation.
What do people bring with them and what weapons exist in Czarnosc? What happens when a nuclear weapon or ray gun is found or comes with someone who has no knowledge of its workings or power?
cont.

>>15721354
I'm thinking that instead of players writing a full backstory for their character or the GM just assigning them their memories, we could have something like this: you can select up to three things you remember about your past life. One will be a major memory like what you worked in or wether or not you were married and the other two will be minor and very specific, like your favorite food or a particular event in your childhood.

how about the portal thingie that was in planescape: torment? you never know if an orifice you cross right now is a portal and what is it's trigger. something like this would ensue some serious derp in the PC's and might even get them potentially killed

>>15721413
Interesting, that could be an good way to start things if the GM hasn't planned a backstory for them already.

An idea about mutations: making one or two characters freaks; Not necessarily actual mutants, but something like a dwarf, or an amputee, or siamese twins: it would bring suspicions. Or informing one of the characters that he is an actual mutant, with a minor mutation that he can hide.

>>15721404
Are there practitioners of arcane magic, psychic powers, time bending, or foul witchcraft that is anathema to those with fewer and less severe mutations?
Do the people of Czernosc all speak the same language? Is this one of the ways that people align themselves with each other? Is this why the PCs have banded together, simply because they are the first people they have met who speak their language?
Do people ever remember bits of their former life? If not, then is all knowledge intuitive, and someone who is very skilled in medicine can have surgical tools put in their hands and simply KNOW how to operate? Is discovering their previous lives one of the possible goals of the PCs?
Are there any creatures beyond The Spent that threaten the PCs? Is there any microfauna native to Czarnosc? Do some people spawn small creatures when they die or mutate?
What currency, if any, is there in Czarnosc? Is it purely a barter system? If so, then PCs would need to come across trinkets (that may not seem valuable to them) for trade. Is there slavery? Are there buildings, perhaps ones that don't look quite right or not possibly made by human hands that have existed for longer than anyone can remember?

Finally, while this seems an odd thing to say... would anyone be interested in hearing from someone who has hallucinations and dreams/nightmares similar to these artworks?

>>15721450
Most of these questions can either be answered if you read the two threads, or simply GM-discretion.

as for hallucinations, go on.

also, do characters remember their true names from their previous lives? I'm asking about this because it would be interesting if the names would have some kind of power and you would have to guard your true name from others. if you would somehow loose your name, something bad would happen

>>15721488
that's an interesting idea; but really, handling the characters' backstories only depends on the scenario planned by the GM.

>>15721503

I was thinking more of game mechanic, not backstories

>>15721510
I guess it has more to do with the loss of your identity and the mutations, like, at one point, when you don't remember your name, you fall under another category of mutants.

Or, again, if you meet a specific kind of wizards that can hold a power over you if they know details about your identity. I'd say it's really situational, and we don't have a reason to include this in the basic mechanics of the game. But it has some potential. if one of the characters is some kind of alchemist or egyptian/mesopotamian wizard, then it would be extremely important to him, because True Names are very important in his culture, which can give him special abilities in this universe, but otherwise, it's mostly irrelevant.

That remembers me about the end of Druillet's Nosferatu.

It's in a post-apocalyptic, surreal wasteland, covered in metal scraps and toxic ooze, where only mutants remain, and the last vampire. near the end, he tries to scratch-build a spaceship, while his degenerated, wolf-like cousins watch him. Doing so, he absorbs metal through his skin, and becomes a biomechanical creature. When he tries to activate his spaceship by powering it with a lightning, all it does is poop. Literally, the spaceship takes a shit. But on the other hand, he has acquired new abilities, shoots lasers from his eyes, and is now able to fly past the black clouds, into the radioactive sun.

>>15721607
oh, also, to get food from his fellow mutated vampires, he has to do some classical dance for them, to sing poetry, and to show them his ass.

at one point, he meets an inanimate, broken gynoid and wants "her" to be his wife.

at another, he gets a blowjob from a mouse-sized mutant, and then eats it.

>>15721474
Well, let's just say I have problems with reality. I hallucinate and dream beautiful and terrible (cliched though it sounds) things. While (in my mind at least, this may not be what everyone wants) the reality is indeed fluid and indefinite, every once in a while, a single thing (like a hillock of fingers pierced with iron rods, or a woman whose skin is cracking porcelain but is headless and the insides of her are flesh) comes into horrific reality. It is so definite, every part real as the house you live in, perhaps more real. Of the hallucinations I have written down that fit the setting the most are; a beach made of scraps of skin inhabited by bony jackals. An eternal war-zone between a colony of giant ants and a coalition of beetles who spawn faster than they mutate, most of whom were not intelligent to begin with. Fields of ash with white bone paths that must be followed or else you sink into the ash and suffocate. And an enormous salt flat dotted with rusted iron buildings with great corroded doors.
Any questions on the mutability of reality are welcome.

>>15721741
What does "questions on the mutability of reality" mean?

Anyway, if you have other stuff like this that are relevant to this setting, go on, it's very exploitable.

>>15715013

Sounds a lot like JAGS Wonderland. Which is a good thing IMO.

http://www.jagsrpg.org/

It kind of bothers me how one of the win conditions in the setting (to truly die) has shown to be impossible so far.

>>15721760
Well, one of my delusions is that my hallucinations and dreams come from a dying universe where thermal, atomic, and photonic energy can be consumed by certain people in order to make themselves stronger, or bend the rules of reality. Those who have this ability consume stars to wage wars and for their own pleasure. There is a man there who has invested a great deal of energy into opening a small portal into this reality, and is very interested in seeing me break ties of kith and kin, and do terrible things in order to be rid of the urges to destroy and kill and rape. Frequently in that order. His presence in my mind was originally like a red stain, that has since coalesced into a ruby shard. There are times when I am convinced that the only way to be rid of my issues is to bore open my head and pull the ruby shard from my brain. When that happens, I just breathe deeply and use a mantra until that feeling goes away.
I also feel that the reason people often run into troubles is because there is not one reality that everyone inhabits, but each person has a reality in which they exist, but one that interacts with the realities inhabited by others. When two people are in agreement on an issue, they are sharing a consensual reality, where they are both right about something. When two people disagree, they each inhabit a reality in which they are right, and can only create a new reality in which they both believe the same thing by open mindedness. Psychoactive substances, even mild ones like alcohol or caffeine alter this reality. I believe I am being slowly pulled into a reality in which me doing terrible things is not only acceptable, but is the way the universe is supposed to work.
Also, I have other hallucinations and nightmares, but they are all overt and without subtlety, exactly the things this setting is not.

>>15721834

http://www.mediafire.com/?jnjytjzgydm

>>15722279
okay, this works well with the idea to use drugs to acquire powers over the environment or to mutate. We really have to implement this.

>>15722064
That's the point. Both "win" conditions are, as far as the characters know, impossible. A possible endgame suggested in the other thread was that the PCs could find out about some kind of ritual that allows them to escape and/or die and, after they finally do it, the GM will just tell them "ok, that's it, you win". They'll never know if they died or returned home or what, they just finish. Think of the ending of the movie "The Cube"

>>15721404
I like the idea of a d6 roll and keep system. We could probably make a slight adaptation of the Simple d6 system (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Simple_D6). I like the idea of the mutation scale, too.
As for the other questions. PCs in Czarnosc apparently come from earth, but the time period could be different for each. There was a diary post on the other thread about aa guy who said the year was 1826 but his language was too modern, so it was possible that he was a modern historian or an antique's enthusiast and thought that was the year he used to live in.
Almost everyone voted against including other fantasy species. Still, many of the mutants have lost their humanity so there's still place for "sentient", once-human "species".
Most weapons are improvised from the things they find or come from the mutations. Probably, the most sophisticated weapon they could build would be something along the level of a rudimentary crossbow.
As for magic, there will be no spellcasting as far as I know, but there were suggestions of some "drugs" or "potions" sold by the traveling merchants of Czarnosc. These could do things like prevent mutations but should still come with a price.

The Maestro is the Devil.

He plays a silent orchestra for the truly maddened, driving them into a frenzy of wanton violence and suicide, cursing them with a never ending false death until they are too warped to move.

How long will it be before you hear the silent song?

The blasted lands of Czarnoc have no natural resources to speak of, so a few cunning souls have captialized on the warping effect death has on the once-men.

Through careful and sublime arts of torture and murder, the Merchant Guilds shape once-men into tools, weapons, and even restorative alms and potions.

They are not picky with the source of their produce.

>>15725905
Accompanied by the Unholy One are two Lesser Daemons of the Realm, their biting tongues deconstructing the very soul of whatever may stumble into the Maestro's path. Where they tread, the bodies of men and beasts alike lay disassembled down to their core, and the air stirs with their low, chortling laughter...

>>15717161
Jesus Christ you're gonna give me nightmares for a week.

It's both cool and creepy that you used the name I suggested for this setting.

>>15727278
What name?

Giger bump
>>15727362
See thread title

I tried coming up with something based on pic related. I think i had too many ideas popping up at once, though...

Things are a very common creature in Czarnosc. They seem to appear wherever those who travel pass by, forming solely along any pathway in Czarnosc. Particularly along The Long Roads, the near infinite roads that supposedly connect the cities of Czarnosc. Creatures so twisted they are impossible to comprehend unless one is currently present. Some say they are the original denizens of Czarnosc, others that they're simply the oldest, having been subjugated to an inconceivably long life of mutations. None much interest has ever been taken to the Things, though, as Things have the uncanny ability to convince all they meet they are truly insignificant. For they speak with perfect precision. Most Things are capable of convincing travelers to hand over all their belongings for a simple trinket, even commit acts they'd never before imagine. Though some simply enjoy sharing stories or trading baubles with passersby to occupy their time.

In exchange, however, some would be inclined to assist you in whatever the reason for your journey may be. Things have an otherworldly knowledge of Czarnosc. So answering any question with exact truth, or leading you in the correct direction is always a possibility, though it's not uncommon for a Thing to lie for its own amusement. In fact, rumors say that Things can control where the path they lay on may lead, and are capable of even sending travelers away from Czarnosc. Whether these rumors are true or not has yet to be determined, however, for very few who encounter Things ever see the significance of it.

I really feel like prophecies of some kind should factor into the setting. Madmen or seers interpreting events/creatures/things as being related to various, oddly named prophecies (ie. Prophecy of the Lakefront or The Winj-Gow). When nothing else around themselves makes sense, then the mind goes crazy trying to make sense of anything.

>>15720981
Recycling this idea.

The Warmongers are a strange bunch. They constantly wage war in their blasted hellscape of a battlefield, not caring about enemies or allies. They are a combination of many eras, some being knight-like creatures, others being fused to crude WWI era tanks, and some flying advanced fighter bombers. It is said when a man desires only to kill, he may buy some weapons and armor from the more advanced cities, maybe a vehicle, and join the Warmongers in eternal strife.

The Bone Towers are massive structures, jutting out from the fleshy earth and leaving bloody wounds in the ground. Over time, these wounds have turned necrotic, and, with the ground slowly rotting beneath them, more and more of these towers are consumed by the bloody earth. Perhaps for this reason, huge

amount of once-men and other strange and terrible things crawl from the tower's base. Yet, as they are one of the few constants in the land of Czarnosc, they are invaluable to those wishing to travel around without getting lost, despite the dangers of even getting within miles of these skyscrapers of bone and ivory. However, soon, there will be a time when the towers will vanish entirely into the earth, leaving behind only mystery... and whatever twisted things that will replace them.
(/holy shit, huge writefagging spree coming up)

I was bristling with anticipation, my dungs undulating, my mouth-hole clenched in anticipation. If I still had knees, no doubt they would be shaking from anticipation. I calmed myself; this was only a preliminary reading, serving only to check my progress, not to grade my level of success. Still, just a chance to meet with the Praatesel was honor enough. I was escorted by members of the Phalanx to the Judging room, a massive cylinder of precious stone and wood, ornate iron chairs where the Praatesel, in all of the Praatesel's glory, lay. I desperately faked a calm demeanor and willed myself to calm hand the parchment to the Praatesel, who then began to read.
>pic actually unrelated

"The realm which some call Czarnosc is many things to many people. It, to newer inhabitants, is a confusing, bizarre, horrific place where merely the sheer futility of remaining safe and free of mutation are cause to delve into suicidal depression, a fact ironic to anyone with even the vaugest notion of the mechanics of our lands.
Some of these mundane individuals, raised on the prayers of gods, see this place as a hell, and either attempt to drown themselves in their sorrows and become fetal lumps from which older inhabitants learn to farm for moisture from (manipulating newly arrived humans into these sorts of mutations is common among the ambulatory dwellers of the Headlands and the Peaks of Despair*1), or embrace their seeming abandonment by their gods and devote themselves to new masters, flesh-things and once-men posing as gods and saviors."


"*1 This is the first of many rather dull names to be used for places in Czarnosc, a trend which as of this cycle sees no sign of breaking. It can be argued that the first human inhabitants of this realm, being mostly concerned about their continued survival, did not have the time to come up with more interesting names."
>pic even more unrelated.

Some, more practical and scientific in their nature, observe and study the lands of Czarnosc, viewing this "planet" as merely another yet-to-be-explained oddity. Many of these disappear to the metal lands, massive sealed cities of platinum and iron, where biomechanical lords rule over empty palaces and silent factories filled with soul-powered machinery working toward yet-unknown purposes.
>Pic actually related

"And yet others view the place as a prison, from which escape must be found at any cost; whether through eons-old rituals or the powers of the "gods", their only desire is to return home, or to truly, finally perish, and escape the what-they-call madness of this Realm. As far as the inhabitants of this Tower know, no one has yet succeeded."
>???

So this is the Nameless one as a setting. Mite be cool. Already love some of the ideas.

"As for myself, I look out the holes in the bony structure, through the ivory walls of this tower and see a landscape, not of grotesqueness and horror, but of beauty and grace. The constant shifting of the terrain, the mutations that are both derided and coveted by the the men who lie far below our feet a perfect example of the beauty of life and its miraculous ability to adapt to any circumstance. I see the never-dying eternal cycle of death and rebirth, not as a curse to be broken, but as a gift, to, hopefully, one day be shared with our Realms of origin. If I were to be religious, I would undoubtedly see Czarnosc as a heaven, to be enjoyed, and enriched by all."

Inf

written by Zekehhm
for conf v
77th level, 8a8293, eater
8998

>Pic not related again

As the Praatesel handed the scroll of parchment back to me, the Praatesel questioned me if that was all there was, a faint hint of anger in the Praatesel's voice hands extending back onto massive, tooth-rimmed ears, he began to write out a response to my work. Using primarily his- I mean, the Praatesel's proboscis-shaped mouth, the Praatesel wrote out a thorough critique, critiquing my work and exposing holes and flaws in my logic and planning, accusing me of blatant hypocrisy, exposing numerous inaccuracies in my text.


I admit I was dumbfounded by the reponse; perhaps I was too attached to the work to accept even the idea of criticism. What happened next was beyond my control; I can only explain as if my mind left my body. When I awoke from my stupor, I was standing over the pus-filled corpse of the Praatesel. My limbs, lovingly mutated into tools for the services of arts, were now covered in sickening lumps of pus and oil, their existance rendered pointless in the face of the violence I caused. My body failed me, and I passed out.
>pic kinda sorta related

I know that what I did was worthy of incineration; murder alone incites this punishment. I, at the very least, forced the great Praatesel to undergo mutations against the Praatesel's will, and if the Praatesel does not regenerate and instead respawns, then the Praatesel may be lost forever.


"On the contrary. What you did what a great service to us. So great, that you have descended further than any of your kind before you."

Wh, what...

"This, is the bottom floor, little thing."

...There is no bottom floor. The Towers are endless, you're lying to me, this is part of my punishment, isn't it...

"Don't worry. Where we're going you won't even be able to understand anything. But if it makes you feel better, you can pretend you do."

Fin
>Pic related

>>15730213
oh wow. So the praatesel are the wizard-artists mentioned earlier, right?

Thanks for the glorious writefaggotry.

>>15730480
Eh, I kinda want to keep it open to interpretation.

I don't have anything particularly new to ad but I feel I should mention another source of potential inspiration.

There is the Russian video The Void (can get it on Steam) that I think visually and thematically could fit well into the game.

blump

bump

would there be children in this setting too?
a particularly chilling thought

>>15733001
>in hoc signo vinces
In this sign you will conquer.

>>15733001
yes, and they'd probably look worse than the Eraserhead baby. or be growing out of people like Quato, or be part of the terrain, or grow from trees, or be manufactured by some horrible machine, i can go on

>>15733139

Yes, that's what it means. Very old saying. Originally a greek one.

>>15733817
This gives me a great idea for a character: The Great Mother. The only thing she can remember of her prior life is that she was a mother. Her primary obsession is finding her children again. Eventually, as madness takes hold and the mutations start piling up she becomes this horrible, bloated parody of a fertility goddess. Little baby-esque things spawning from her and feeding on her flesh. The "babies" grow bigger and bigger as they feed on her and she becomes even more monstrous as she regenerates. She's now huge as a hill and her children are powerful and gigantic yet disturbingly childish behemots.

So why is this not using the Don't Rest Your Head ruleset again?

the idea is awesome, why make a system?

>>15734668
Could you post a brief summary of the system, please? I'm not very familiar with it.

>>15734703>>15734703

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Don%27t_Rest_Your_Head

It's basically MADE for story-driven insanity-worlds.

I never thought a stupid idea of mine would catch on so much. I'm surprised and thrilled by the support shown for this idea, and I will try to keep track of current developments.

IMPORTANT LINKS AND THINGS I HAVE SHAMELESSLY RIPPED OFF/USED AS INSPIRATION BEFORE MAKING THE THREAD:

GAMES:
NEC's Linda3 for PSX and PC-Engine CD

Sting's Baroque for PSX, Saturn, and Playstation 2 (VERY MUCH THIS)

Ice Pick Lodge's The Void for PC

Ice Pick Lodge's Pathologic for PC

Action Forms's Cyrostasis for PC

LITERATURE:
Franz Kafka
Haruki Murakami
HP Lovecraft

WEBSITES:
http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/
http://zdzislawbeksinski.blogspot.com/
http://www.beksinski.pl/

SPECIAL THANKS TO:
/tg/
/x/
/v/

http://www.beksinski.pl/

Click on the dots here for more music and MORE ANIMATED BEKSINSKI PICTURES

>>15734878

You forgot American McGee's Alice in the games, I guess.

I love mindfucks like these.

And I guess Dont Rest Your Head will work marvelously, with minor tweaks like custom madness talents etc

>>15735033
I never played Alice, believe it or not.

>>15735080

I also. Well, started the first level. But from what I know and saw, it fits right in. Except it's not one person's private hell, but a lot of stylistics match.

>>15734878

CONTINUE:
>Yes

LOADING NEXT STAGE...

Thanks for postin OP.

>>15734668
Yeah, this could be easily modified to handle mutations. >>15717442 came up with some cool ideas, maybe expand on that and start making a table, for example purposes at least

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream

>>15735315
Here's a preliminary version of the mutation charts. I'm not very experienced in gamemaking so I'm not sure if the dice I chose are the best options in terms of probability and stuff, fell free to modify the dice and roll ranges.

As for DRYH, I think it may be a good system for this since it doesn't seem too rules-heavy but still has some good mechanics.

The Walkers never stop moving, ever driven on in their terrible caravans across the realm of Czarosc. They speak words which are incomprehensible and to listen one would assume it indeed was simple gibberish and madness.
Yet the more one listens, the more they realise that there is indeed a pattern to their speech.
They listen more and soon they begin to follow, trying desperately to decipher and make sense of the ever changing, mysterious words from the beast's mouths.
They never stop following.
Be warned, for if you ever see the terrible line of nightmare beasts guarded by their strange cloaked masters, close your ears, save you become another gibbering follower of the Walkers.

Beware the deepest caverns and valleys of this Realm; as one goes deeper, the shifting of the land around you will take on a whole new intensity. At a certain point, even the mutations ones body will undergo are forfeit of logic. The very fabric of reality will shift; time will slow to a crawl, the surroundings changing rapidly from forgotten structures of other worlds to vast empty nothingness. Many people claim that it is only here, in the deepest recesses of Cazrnosc, that one can escape. Perhaps it is true.
But likely not.

>>15734647

Quack

>>15739009
That's just fucked up, man. I can't believe you would even suggest that shit.

Wat

A summary of a bit of this
>>15715157
Weapons or other objects held, would, over time as mutations accumulated, merge with the basic physiology of the character. In addition, mutations change according to a character's actions; if a guy plays an assassin character, perhaps he would become a freakish looking skeleton with knives for hands. Or a blob-shaped thing which constantly spews poisonous gases. Or something else that would reflect his/her personality. The point is players can never choose their mutations directly, and no matter what, there will come a point when your mutations make you nothing more then a melted splotch of flesh on the ground somewhere, screaming silent pleas for the final death for eons upon eons, merging with massive flesh pockets deep in the earth. In other words. Some Mutating Good, Most Bad, You're Fucked Either Way.
>>15716932
In addition to death, player actions, and injury, SAN loss could result in mutations as well. Focusing on other things would redirect the points toward the idea or object focused on, but it would increase a player character's obsession with it, which could have negative consequences.
>>15721354
(this is more of an RPing suggestion)
Players could write down a backstory, but only use random pieces of it.
>>15718066
The metal cities scattered across the land would be the main places known to have powerful weaponry and equipment. The price for this equipment, however, would be extremely high and not subject to negotiation.


>>CAPTCHA: Calcite nsfw
>wat

>>15721053
Czarnosc is not a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It is intended to be a completely alien world where the humans "living" there being only able to grasp the general edges of the strange world around them. It's about being isolated in a world that refuses to be understood. Likewise "society as we know it exists only at the very edges of the realm, and in small villages. This allows for there to be more interaction with NPCs if you wish, and explore different explanations and ideologies of the various people in the lands (some may hate mutations, others may regard them as a necessary evil, still others want to find a cure, yet still others embrace their mutations even if it's turning them into nonsentient beasts or quivering blobs of slowly rotting flesh) or to ignore them completely and focus on fecal matter blessed by the gods and the currently melting walls in the area where you and your party are currently at.
>>15734744
I think Don't Rest Your Head would be a good idea for a system too, either that or Noumenon.

>>15739719
How does the noumenon system work? I read the review at rpgnet but he skips the explanation of the main mechanics.

>>15739837
All I can find is this; it has a preview and a character sheet.
http://www.abstractnova.com/noumenon.php

Final bump before the end.

>>15741907

oh, damn it. I was just going to paint that. HE STOLE MY IDEA.

>>15742043
take it back, then.

You stole my idea , Op! =/

>>15743707
TAKE IT BACK

Current proposals:

-Use Don't Rest Your Head system with custom mutation system for this
-Use Unknown Armies system for this
-Make a system from ground up

Discuss

>>15744149
lol, dunno.

let's say don't rest your head, if you say it can handle survival, fights, weird shit happening and pretty much any ressource.

>>15744165

Well, it's done with a Slightly less insane world in mind, but it can be easily modified.

Like madness overtaking discipline = mutation, permanent madness = mutation, etc.

Fabulous stuff. It does raise the question why PCs haven't lost it. What makes them special? What drives them? I think they need missions.

Are they questing to bring something back?

>>15744331
they can be.

But they don't tart with a quest. At first, it's only survival, but at one point, powerful entities may spice it up by asking them to fulfill quests or to bring them *things* that require some effort. Or they can just get trapped or threatened.

An idea suggested earlier was to have "angels" give them pointless quests to accomplish, so that the "angels" may bleed for them a liquid light that grants them a new spare life free of mutations.

Been looking through this, and it sounds awesome. Right now the only thing I think I can contribute though is some of the artwork Barlowe has done, there was a large dump of it on /hr/ awhile back. As I post this stuff I'll make an imgur album of all I have

Here's a thought for mutations after looking at this image. In addition to making them related to what objects a person used, possibly relate them to their personality? For instance someone who lets people walk all over them could literally begin turning into forms that other would use as mounts.

Inglip has just spoken to me, hinting that if there is a name for related mutations of this type, they could be called Yournmen. Don't know how specific of a naming system we want though.

A lot of Barlowe's other work involves either humans that are more simply deformed than the alterations in Beksinski's stuff, or things that seem more animal in nature. I think at this point I'll just post more of the architecture stuff.

What is the source of energy for this realm? All life on earth survives on the sun, apart from colonies deep beneath the sea that feed off of gasses from below the earth. "The sun isn't needed" isn't an appropriate answer, as even more energy would be needed to keep things alive forever.

And here's the album on imgur: http://johndemons.imgur.com/barlowe#zxXZd

>>15745354
Possibly some kind of radiation. That's all I can think of. It would be nice if it were something that could just be turned off, as that would be a way to achieve death.

>>15745354
Czarnosc is a realm of madness and nightmare. None know why it exists or how it came to be.
For simplicity's sake you'd be better off assuming that Czarnosc is a very, very old Daemon World lost in the Warp somewhere, the oldest psychic manifestation of inhumanity and unlife. It doesn't need a source of energy to live, it just does.

It does not take place in the 40K universe though. OP and others were adamant about that,

>>15745787
Alright, I can live with that answer. If it's a surreal world there must, by definition, be many mad ways out that would explain how the realm came to be differently or how things work inside. Some might even just make you perceive that you've escaped.
I'm beginning to see this as a great setting for a story that explores the inner psyche, although it's hard getting into the non-physical mindset and outside of a world of rules.